Editors Call on Mark Zuckerberg to Correct Errors in BMJ’s Pfizer Vaccine Trial Investigation

BMJ editors urge Facebook to correct a “fact check” of a recent investigation that they say is “inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.”

In an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, outgoing editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee and incoming editor-in-chief Kamran Abbasi say that this issue “should be of concern to anyone who appreciates and relies on sources such as the BMJ for medical information. reliable. “

They also urge parent company Meta to reconsider its investment and holistic approach to fact-checking following further instances of incompetence.

On November 2, the BMJ published an investigation into poor clinical trial research practices at Ventavia, a contract research company helping to conduct Pfizer’s main covid-19 vaccine trial.

It was based on dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings and emails provided to BMJ by a former Ventavia employee, and it raised serious concerns about data integrity. and patient safety.

The article has undergone the usual high-level BMJ legal and editorial monitoring and peer review.

But as of November 10, readers began reporting a variety of issues when trying to share the article and were directed to a “fact check” performed by a Facebook entrepreneur named Lead Stories.

Godlee and Abbasi say they find Lead Stories’ “fact-checking” to be “inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.”

For example, it does not provide any assertion of fact that the BMJ article was wrong, it does contain a screenshot of the article with a stamp on it saying “Defects Reviewed”, despite the fact that the article from Lead Stories did not identify anything wrong or wrong in the BMJ article, and it posted the story on its website under a URL that contained the phrase “hoax alert”.

Cochrane, the international provider of high-quality systematic reviews of medical evidence, has undergone similar treatment by Instagram (also owned by Meta).

The BMJ complained to Lead Stories, “but they refused to change anything about their article or the actions that led Facebook to report our article.”

The BMJ also complained to Facebook, asking it to immediately remove the ‘fact-checking’ tag and any link to the Lead Stories article, “thus allowing our readers to freely share the article on your platform. “.

The editors say they hope Facebook “will act quickly” to correct the error relating to the BMJ article and to review the processes that led to the error. They added a general call for parent company Meta to reconsider its investment and overall approach to fact-checking.

“Rather than investing a portion of Meta’s substantial profits in ensuring the accuracy of medical information shared through social media, you have apparently delegated responsibility to incompetent people to accomplish this crucial task.”