Biometrics - Manuscript ID BIOM2020591D [email ref: SE-5-a]
Biometrics Office
Fri 2020-11-27 10:38
27-Nov-2020

Dear Prof. Harrell:

Thank you for submitting your invited manuscript entitled "Discussion on "Improving precision and power in randomized trials for COVID-19 treatments using covariate adjustment, for binary, ordinal, and time-to-event outcomes" by David Benkeser, Ivan Diaz, Alex Luedtke, Jodi Segal, Daniel Scharfstein, and Michael Rosenblum" by Harrell, Frank. The manuscript is presently being given full consideration for publication in Biometrics.

Co-authors: Please contact the Editorial Office as soon as possible if you disagree with being listed as a co-author for this manuscript.

Your manuscript ID is BIOM2020591D.

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Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Biometrics.

Sincerely,
Biometrics Editorial Office
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------------- 2020-11-30
Biometrics - Manuscript ID BIOM2020591D Successfully Submitted for Review
Biometrics Office
Mon 2020-11-30 14:48
30-Nov-2020

Dear Prof. Harrell,

Your manuscript entitled "Discussion on "Improving precision and power in randomized trials for COVID-19 treatments using covariate adjustment, for binary, ordinal, and time-to-event outcomes" by David Benkeser, Ivan Diaz, Alex Luedtke, Jodi Segal, Daniel Scharfstein, and Michael Rosenblum" by Harrell, Frank,  has been successfully submitted for review.  Your manuscript ID is BIOM2020591D.

Co-authors: Please contact the Editorial Office as soon as possible if you disagree with being listed as a co-author for this manuscript.

Please mention the above manuscript ID in all future correspondence with the editorial office. If there are any changes in your street address or e-mail address, please log in to ScholarOne Manuscripts at https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmc.manuscriptcentral.com%2Fbiom&data=04%7C01%7Cf.harrell%40vumc.org%7Cc13b7ac46b834b43f53d08d89571411b%7Cef57503014244ed8b83c12c533d879ab%7C0%7C0%7C637423660950576290%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=0Jm5IRvhckw5BrNk7pm%2BJFaqV0Pa8yFDSIjuzADT65k%3D&reserved=0 and edit your user information as appropriate.

Details about preferred manuscript length and format are given on the Journal's web site https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbiometrics.biometricsociety.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cf.harrell%40vumc.org%7Cc13b7ac46b834b43f53d08d89571411b%7Cef57503014244ed8b83c12c533d879ab%7C0%7C0%7C637423660950576290%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=QtKKkmGaQxAXxVftRVD%2FrBf848OoLM0KQdhM%2F5sB%2FAE%3D&reserved=0.  Additional information about the review process and how Biometrics achieves an excellent performance for review times is also given.

You can also view the status of your manuscript at any time by checking your Author Center after logging in to https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmc.manuscriptcentral.com%2Fbiom&data=04%7C01%7Cf.harrell%40vumc.org%7Cc13b7ac46b834b43f53d08d89571411b%7Cef57503014244ed8b83c12c533d879ab%7C0%7C0%7C637423660950576290%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=0Jm5IRvhckw5BrNk7pm%2BJFaqV0Pa8yFDSIjuzADT65k%3D&reserved=0.

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Biometrics.  We hope to be able to send a report to you within four months.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Alan Welsh
Co-Editor, Biometrics

-------------------------------------------------  2021-01-08
Dear Alan,

You have made this clear: Authors of the original paper can say anything they want, and the original peer review can be incomplete (the reviewers should never have allowed the paper to be published without comparative efficiencies shown) but discussants are censored.  This flies in the face of legitimate discussion and I want no part of it.

I find it quite astonishing that a list of more important problems that the talented authors should have spent their time addressing is not relevant in the current urgency of COVID-19 research.  Quite simply, the authors have solved problems in no need of a solution, and there are problems such as increasing efficiency of experimental designs that are desperate for research.   I was very much trying to say this more tactfully in my discussion, but apparently that didn't work for you.   And I could not more strongly disagree with referee 2 in their belief that marginal estimates, ones that apply to no patient in either the clinical trial or in the population, are relevant to clinical trials.  I appreciate the thoughtful comments of referee 1.

Your decision cements my opinion that journals are going to eventually disappear.   To go to the amount of trouble that you requested while removing valuable content from my discussion is a time-consuming lose-lose proposition.  I had hoped that your readers could have decided these issues on their own.  Your decision would be consistent with a setting in which the authors had no chance to offer a rejoinder, but that is clearly not the case.  I will self-publish my critique and reach 10x as many readers as Biometrics with my open access article.  I will also widely share my opinion about the inadequacy of the peer-review process of Biometrics that was used for Benkeser et al.

Frank
-------------------------------- 2021-01-12
Dear Frank,

Thank you for responding to my decision letter.  I interpret your saying that you want no part of it as meaning that you are withdrawing your contribution to the discussion of Benkeser et al.  I am sorry you have made this decision because I know you put considerable time and effort into preparing the discussion and because I feel you made some valuable points in the discussion.  

I recognise that you felt offended by being asked to reconsider and revise your contribution.  I think a request of this nature is an opportunity to reconsider whether you had really said what you wanted to say in the best possible way.  In any case, it is part of the usual process of publication in a refereed journal.  It is not censorship unless every submission that is rejected is described as censored. I think we will have to differ on this point.

I have and will continue to respect and admire your work, especially your strong advocacy of principled statistical analysis.  Thank you again for the work you put into the discussion, even though it has come to nothing at this time.

All the best
Alan
-------------------------------- 2021-01-12
Dear Alan,

I appreciate your note.  You would be surprised at how much time and energy I put into writing the commentary.  What I am most offended by is the idea that commentaries are not allowed to question whether the authors spent their time wisely.  I had spent a lot of effort cataloging all the serious unsolved problems we have in COVID-19 therapeutics research to put this in proper context.  After all, the paper was aimed at COVID-19 treatment comparisons.  What I most fear is that sometimes topics are sought solely because of novelty and getting a paper or dissertation accepted and not because they address real problems.  This should have been addressed at the review stage, but since it wasn't, I was hoping that it could have been addressed in the commentary.  So much for that.

Frank