Trial By Error: Did the Dog Eat Professor Crawley’s Seven Missing Corrections?

By David Tuller, DrPH

*October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528

UPDATE on October 25th: To ensure a more complete record of my correspondence with the HRA, I have added to the end of this post a subsequent letter from the agency indicating that they had received a response from Bristol and were considering what to do, and my letter in response to that news–an exchange that occurred on October 18th and 19th.

On October 5th, I got an e-mail from the Health Research Authority in relation to the concerns I had raised with the agency, which is part of the National Health Service involved with research ethics. The concerns involved the problematic practices of Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol’s ethically and methodologically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. Three years ago, a joint investigation from Bristol and the HRA requested that she correct the ethics statements in eleven papers. So far, only four of them have been corrected.

The rest remain uncorrected–for as-yet-unexplained reasons. I contacted both the HRA and Bristol about this matter. The HRA promised to look into it. Bristol’s legal department declined to respond to my questions. That’s not surprising. A few years ago, the legal department engaged in thuggish behavior by complaining to Berkeley’s chancellor because of my (wholly accurate) criticisms of Professor Crawley’s egregious flawed work–some of which, in my professional public health opinion, easily qualifies as serious research misconduct.

So where do things stand now? Below is the October 5th message from the HRA, followed by my two responses. After having a month to respond, Bristol apparently needed an extra week to concoct an explanation for Professor Crawley’s behavior. Did the dog eat the corrections?

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Dear David,

In our letter dated 7 September 2022, we advised you that we would provide you with an update by 4 October 2022. Unfortunately, our timeline has been slightly delayed as the university has requested an extension until the end of this week to give us a response. We have agreed to the extension in line with our usual practice.

We will be in touch with you again once we receive their response.

Kind regards,

XXXXX (I don’t like to name assistants just doing their jobs)
Information Governance Support Assistant
Health Research Authority

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Below are my two responses–the first on October 7th, the second on October 15th.

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Thanks, I appreciate the update!–

I’m not surprised Bristol asked for an extension, but they’ve had a month to get their story straight. I’m not clear how an extra week will make it easier for them to explain why seven of the 11 studies do not show evidence of having been corrected. What could the reason be? “The dog ate the corrections”? I mean, really.

Best–David
David Tuller, DrPH
Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism
Center for Global Public Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley

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Hi, XXXXX–

Can you provide me with an update into this matter? Bristol’s deadline extension for responding to these concerns has come and gone. Have they provided any explanation for why no one has corrected seven of these 11 papers and why readers are still being misinformed and misled about the ethical grounds on which they were conducted?

I remain mystified that Bristol, which had a month to reply, required an extension in the first place to answer what should be a fairly straightforward question. How many possible reasons could there be? Presumably either Professor Crawley forgot to make the corrections, or she decided for whatever reason that it was not necessary to do; perhaps she believed the joint Bristol-HRA report mandating the corrections was only advisory.

In any event, I am eager to hear Bristol’s explanation for this latest problematic situation involving Professor Crawley’s research. (I have cc’d Bristol’s legal department.)

Best–David

David Tuller, DrPH
Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism
Center for Global Public Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley

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Dear David,

Thank you for your email.

We can confirm that we have now received a response from the University which we are currently considering. We will contact you to provide you with a more detailed update within the next week.

Kind regards,

XXXX
Information Governance Support Assistant
Health Research Authority

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Dear Emma–

It is excellent that Bristol has finally delivered some sort of explanation for why Professor Crawley did not correct seven of her papers, as was requested by the authoritative joint Bristol-HRA report. I am certainly curious to learn what there could possibly be in the university’s response to warrant more than a second’s consideration.  

Let’s be clear: The only appropriate response from Bristol in this case is to apologize profusely for this serious lapse and to ensure that the requested corrections are made as soon as possible. I would also advise the university as well as the HRA to track Professor Crawley’s work far more closely, since it is so clearly fraught with a range of methodological and ethical issues. (Given her untrue statement to me–in front of a roomful of people, no less–that Bristol had sent me a “cease-and-desist” letter, it appears that Professor Crawley is at times factually challenged as well. In support of that claim, I also note the 3,000-word correction to her Lightning Process paper, which made it clear the description of the methodology of the purportedly prospective study was rife with falsehoods.)

It has been four years since I brought these matters to the HRA. It should not take this sort of effort and persistence and obnoxious letter-writing on my part to get Professor Crawley to do what she was asked to do–and to ensure that Bristol behaves like a Russell Group university and not like a protection racket for its faculty. 

But as I’ve noted before, Bristol’s behavior is not surprising, given the university’s disturbing efforts to have my own institution silence me. The office of Berkeley’s chancellor was rather mystified by the Bristol vice chancellor’s repeated complaints about my “behaviour.” As I informed Bristol at the time, we were in an academic dispute, not an episode of The Sopranos, and there was no justification for the university’s thuggish efforts to impact my employment. 

Bristol’s shenanigans in this matter have certainly harmed its reputation among my academic colleagues at Berkeley and elsewhere. Further delays in making these corrections and any efforts to justify rather than apologize for Professor Crawley’s actions–or, in this case, non-actions–will certainly compound this reputational damage.

In any event, I look forward to a speedy resolution of this matter so I can focus on other issues besides Professor Crawley’s violations of research practices.

Best–DavidDavid Tuller, DrPH
Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism
Center for Global Public Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley