Great to see that some still believe in discussion rather than elimination.  That portion of the letter is what I like the most.  Even if he disagrees with Peter Gotzsche on some points, he wants his input.  More should think that way. 

It is hard to believe that the organisations that claim to be safeguarding our health are the one that fall for the easy profit and $ trap.  
Thanks CrossFit for making sure that we know!  I wasn't aware of the problem of ghostwritten studies and inaccessible data. 

The governing board suspends him because they no longer have confidence in his leadership, yet 4 board members resign in protest and are able to garner 3,500 signatures from busy medical professionals in a mere 3 days that express disapproval of the suspension. Sounds like Peter Gí¸tzsche is a fine leader, indeed.

F/49/183 lbs/5'10"
I did banded pullups and knee push ups

30:20
2000 m @ 8:02
1000m @ 4:04
500 m @ 1:59

I hope to one day get ba k to unaided pullups and strict pushups... but for now the dicey shoulders need the help.

Largo was fantastic, thanks!

Row intervals 
6x :20/2:00
2490m

Tabata from 3 weeks ago rx’d but gamed it to try to stick with recommended numbers. Went out a little too easy on pistols and jumping lunges but the lunges got so hard I actually collapsed on the final round but picked myself up for one more rep. Good pump. 

Hspu: 5-4-4-4-4-3-2-2=28
Pistols: 6-6-6-6-6-6-6-8=50
Pushups:10-8-8-8-8-8-10-8=68
Jumping lunge: 10-16-12-12-12-12-13-15=102
248 reps total

10 min. 50rpm pace Assault Bike
10 min. 2:00 pace C2 rower
20 min. Sauna session

The crisis in Cochrane is the falling of another pillar in medicine. For those of you not familiar with Cochrane, it has been the trusted, gold standard reference for us physicians seeking a review on a medical topic. Cochrane conducts THE systematic reviews of medical interventions. We expect that Cochrane has reviewed the studies in detail, scrutinizing and bringing forth a thorough and unbiased conclusion.

I have read Gotzsche’s criticism of the Cochrane HPV review. I am a Pediatrician and I think it’s exactly the questions we should be asking. He addresses important points that are lacking in the review (proper control arm, inclusion of side effects, and bias). Physicians have been cautious and slow at jumping on this vaccine. HPV administration rates are 49%. By comparison, the Tdap is almost 90%. A thorough, transparent review would be of great value. 

One of the biggest concerns for the HPV vaccine has been safety. The Cochrane Review concluded “we did not find an increase risk of serious adverse effects”. Great! Oh wait, except as Gotzsche points out, it’s because no one looked. When searching the database, the search criteria were limited. This is critical when doing a review. 

There has been ongoing concern about the risks for POTS and CFS. This is something I counsel patients on. In fact there have multiple studies and reports about the possibility of increased incidences related to the HPV vaccine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5209415/

So Gotzsche’s criticism is spot on. 

When the Cochrane Review was released, it gave a false sense of security. As if all the side effects we were hearing about were just rumors....because Cochrane reviewed it, and if they said it’s not increased....

I’m not opposed to the HPV vaccine. I don’t find Gotzsche’s criticism antivax.  I find his criticism is against false reviews.  There needs to be checks and balances to ensure the highest quality care.  Not just a poorly done review to tell us what we want to hear. 

Ghostwritten studies, inaccessible data, cherry-picked results–just a few of the flaws of the research system. 

This reminds me of former BMJ editor Richard Smith's writing on peer review, another flaw in the process: "In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/

Smith–who at least at one point was the chair of the Cochrane Library's oversight committee–once compared Gí¸tzsche to the "boy who sees the emperor has no clothes" (https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/is-peter-gotzsche-the-boy-who-sees-that-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-and-says-so/) and seems to be on Gí¸tzsche's side (https://twitter.com/Richard56/status/1061349355561594880). 

Play golf on rest days active recovery? Yes that’s why I follow one week behind like to hit CrossFit at 5am then do some compound lifting to compliment CrossFit apart from that I’m retired so resting and eating lol

Bit of a newbie been going about 6 months 48 yo tracking wods by a week so can put in some extra strength work is this ok? Think I’ve found what I’ve been looking for amazing sport amazing people . Took a while to pluck up courage to comment as there seems some awsome athletes on here! Last wod was Db clean and jerks strict pull ups and ghd sit ups 22:15:9 rx in 18:46 tough wod but loved it!

5 rounds of:

20 Bike Erg Calories
50 Single Unders
-- then --
5 rounds of:
20 Row Calories
30 AbMat Sit-ups
-- then --
5 rounds of:
10 Deadlifts, 135 lbs
10 Box Jumps, 20 in

Total Time : 27:50 | Rx'd

10K Row C2

"Largo" is sooooo relaxing.  Mental workout today--lots of info to take in.

"ghost-writing has become commonplace because it provides substantial benefits to three parties: drug companies, researchers and medical journals. By managing the publication of articles about their products, it is easier for drug companies to spread positive results and bury negative results. This often provides a big boost to drug sales."

The lack of transparency in such trials is dumbfounding. How it has become possible to release a study but not the data upon which the articles is based is more than frightening.   

Check out @dotcomscaled on Instagram for scaling options

Half marathon rowing 1:24

WORKOUT 16.5

It's fantastic to see Crossfit diving into this stuff around medical research, and hopefully working its magic of bringing it to public consciousness. The complexity and fragility of the evidence on which many of our health decisions are based is huge and rarely acknowledged.

Some related pieces that interested readers might enjoy include Ionnadis's classic "Why most published research is false" and John Worrall's paper "What Evidence in Evidence Based Medicine?".

There's a big debate among physicians and philosophers about evidence-based medicine. On the one hand its goals seem laudable. On the other, it invokes ideas that are just way too simple, e.g. "evidence hiearchy" where some kinds of studies trump others. The problem with this hierarchy is that it always favours pharmaceutical interventions over lifestyle ones such as diet and exercise. So - don't believe all the rhetoric - but it's a fascinating movement in recent medical thinking, and the general area of how we decide what to believe about these things is fascinating. (I did write a book about it but hesitate to link it in case I'm perceived as pushing for personal profit... which, by the way, is miniscule from an academic book!).

Great stuff and I'm interested to see how Crossfit's move into health develops.