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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.91 [SLACK_000305] · slack_pm:msg:00930

Date: 2020-07-01 14:17
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Edward C. Holmes

Recipients on this medium are inferred from channel membership, not per-message addressing.

I submitted my review on June 12th (I only reviewed the revision). Given the speed of all this - and they wanted totake a look in 48 hours - it was clear that Cell were going to take it whatever I said. I've not looked at the paper - Ican't stand to - but I assume they've not made any of the revisions I suggested.

In context

A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.

2020-07-01 13:57 Kristian G. Andersen open

From Bette's paper "A two-sided Fisher's exact test compares the counts in the pre-onset period to the counts after the two-week delay period and provides a p- value against the null hypothesis that the fraction of D614 vs G614sequences did not change". Really? This got through peer review? @Eddie Holmes, I'm pretty darn sure you must have flagged this - that's not how that test works. Or is she just using this as an inclusion criteria?
2020-07-01 14:01 Andrew Rambaut open

And counts are just numbers of sequences in gisaid?
2020-07-01 14:01 Kristian G. Andersen open

Yes. Solid stuff.
2020-07-01 14:12 Edward C. Holmes open

I said the whole analysis was crap and needed to be redone. I never saw any response to this.
2020-07-01 14:17 Edward C. Holmes

I submitted my review on June 12th (I only reviewed the revision). Given the speed of all this - and they wanted totake a look in 48 hours - it was clear that Cell were going to take it whatever I said. I've not looked at the paper - Ican't stand to - but I assume they've not made any of the revisions I suggested.
2020-07-01 14:17 Kristian G. Andersen open

Okay, finally managed to read the full (updated) paper. The analyses are fucking crap and the statistics a completejoke. I'm really surprised this is going through - no way it passed the Eddie smell test
2020-07-01 14:18 Kristian G. Andersen open

The only good thing is that they're not pushing the "it's transmitting better" narrative. I'm not saying that couldn't betrue, all I'm saying is that the data and analyses do not allow for that conclusion. I think Marc might be commentingon the paper for NYT... That could be fun.. :wink:
2020-07-01 14:24 Edward C. Holmes open

If the Editor is completely on the side of the authors what can you do? Their's peer reviewer and then ignoring peer review. Clearly Cell wanted it accepted ASAP because they were worried about being scooped and wanted thecitations. Here's the 1st major comment from my review "The statistical analysis of the D614G variant is flawed. I'm not saying that the conclusion is wrong, but the analysis is."
2020-07-01 14:30 Edward C. Holmes open

I'll use those grader quotes in my next review.

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