Blog
Analysis, findings, and commentary from the NCRI Health research group.
Our writing addresses the science of contested illness, the methodological apparatus we bring to its study, and the institutional dynamics that determine which patient populations are accorded clinical credibility.
The PACE Trial and the Politics of ME/CFS Research
May 14, 2026 · Long Covid
A methodologically compromised clinical trial nonetheless reshaped treatment guidelines for several million patients. Fifteen years on, it remains unretracted. We consider the institutional reasons why.
How Social Media Shapes Medical Consensus
April 28, 2026 · Methods
An application of NCRI’s influence-operation detection methods to the online debate surrounding contested diagnoses. The network structure proves informative concerning the locus of narrative control.
Long Covid: What the Data Actually Shows
April 9, 2026 · Long Covid
A non-technical review of the strongest available evidence on prevalence and mechanism, with attention to the systematic downward revision of official prevalence estimates and the extent to which the underlying data supports such revision.
Retraction Networks and the Sociology of Scientific Fraud
March 22, 2026 · Scientific Integrity
A mapping of the citation and co-authorship networks surrounding several high-profile retractions in the medical literature. Fraudulent work is rarely isolated; the graph indicates where further scrutiny is warranted.
Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Guideline Development
March 5, 2026 · Institutions
An examination of the financial and institutional relationships linking industry, academic medicine, and the bodies responsible for the production of treatment guidelines — with a methodological note on how such documents may be read in light of those relationships.
Citation Networks as a Tool for Detecting Institutional Bias
February 18, 2026 · Methods
An introduction to citation graph analysis as a method for identifying which findings receive disciplinary uptake, which are systematically uncited, and what such asymmetries indicate about a field’s areas of unexamined consensus.