Further insights into war against data sharing: Science Media Centre’s letter writing campaign to UK Parliament | Quick Thoughts

"My requesting the PACE trial data is much simpler than it is being portrayed. The PACE investigators promised the data would be available upon request as a condition for publishing in PLOS One. No one forced Peter White and colleagues to publish in an open access journal committed to data sharing, but by doing so they incurred an obligation. So, they should simply turn over the data. Of course, providing me with the data would involve the risk of my analyses exposing what they have been hiding or falsely claiming. The PACE investigators have thus far refused to turn over the data. They have treated my request as falling under a Freedom of Information request, which it does not. But with my request conceptualized in this way, they denied it because they deemed my motives in seeking the data 'vexatious,' a strategy that they have used with other requests. The PACE investigators are playing hardball ..."