The Story of the PACE trial”. Rehmeyer explained to the 200-strong audience some of the problems with the trial, including the changes to the originally planned analyses of recovery rates. She showed how, with the new analyses, patients’ physical function could worsen and fall below the level required to enter the trial, and yet they would be considered to be recovered.
Rehmeyer said, “When I went through the slides showing the changes to the physical function criterion for recovery, I saw jaws drop.”
PACE was, she told the audience, “one of the most damaging cases of bad statistical practice that I have personally encountered in my years as a journalist.” It was, she said, an “object lesson in how our systems can break down. In this case there were serious breakdowns statistically, scientifically, journalistically, and in public health.” She added that patients were “being hurt by it to this day”.
