Caving to media pressure on the mask data

A public-private campaign to discredit a mask meta-study by one of the world’s most respected research collaboratives has prompted that organization to mischaracterize the study’s findings, according to doctors, scientists and journalists supporting the lead researcher.

Cochrane may have violated Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE) protocol by preempting the post-publication debate process with Editor-in-Chief Karla Soares-Weiser’s March 10 statement deeming the study’s results “inconclusive,” overriding the authors’ interpretation and framing.

“Cochrane has thrown its own researchers under the bus again” by giving “little workable notice” before purporting to speak in their name, University of Oxford epidemiologist Tom Jefferson, who has led the oft-updated mask meta-study since 2006, told medical scientist-turned-journalist Maryanne Demasi in a lengthy interview.