If you can view the full body of evidence and believe that there are "data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial" or support more specific accusations such as "the company... unblinded patients", then that's totally fair. I cannot find those conclusions in what's been released, and based on what's been released I think classifying such a headline as "missing context" is accurate.
If the headline was "Questions about data integrity in Ventavia-run vaccine trials" or "Allegations of misconduct at three vaccine trial sites" I might be more sympathetic; but as it stands I think classifying this as agenda-based spin is a fair assessment, as on the whole there are no concerns about about the Pfizer vaccine trial, only the three sites administered by Ventavia. The distinction being that the integrity of the Pfizer trial stands on solid ground even without the Ventavia data, which is a small fraction of the total data set.
That the agenda the BMJ is spinning for is anti-vax is deeply disturbing to me, but that's a separate discussion. I hope you can at least see the concern about such a headline, how it might be perceived as spin, even if you personally don't view it as such.
> on the whole there are no concerns about about the Pfizer vaccine trial, only the three sites administered by Ventavia
Like, the numbers for hospitalisation were very very small indeed, and while I (personally) don't believe that the entire trial was flawed (the extensive real world evidence would suggest otherwise), clinical trials are super important, and fixing flaws in them and reporting on them is exactly what I want the BMJ to do.
Additionally, the Lead Stories people are engaging in politics over this report, which kinda sickens me, to be honest. Both them and SBM are using ad-hominems to avoid engaging with the detail of this report, and that's concerning (particularly the fact checkers).
More generally, fact checking being done like this is very worrying (like the Cochrane collaboration got banned from IG for a while, which is nuts).
I guess my meta-point here is that standards of discourse are dropping everywhere, it's all explosions of rage in defence of a pre-determined outcome (which I mostly agree with, tbh) and this is very, very sad and bodes badly for humanity's ability to solve the problems in front of us over the next few decades.
If the headline was "Questions about data integrity in Ventavia-run vaccine trials" or "Allegations of misconduct at three vaccine trial sites" I might be more sympathetic; but as it stands I think classifying this as agenda-based spin is a fair assessment, as on the whole there are no concerns about about the Pfizer vaccine trial, only the three sites administered by Ventavia. The distinction being that the integrity of the Pfizer trial stands on solid ground even without the Ventavia data, which is a small fraction of the total data set.
That the agenda the BMJ is spinning for is anti-vax is deeply disturbing to me, but that's a separate discussion. I hope you can at least see the concern about such a headline, how it might be perceived as spin, even if you personally don't view it as such.