Thread by @goddeketal

1/ I am UNDER FIRE since I have written a post on the flawed peer-review process of @c_drosten's PCR paper. I will discuss some accusations in this thread and explain why the pure peer-review process window was even shorter than 2 days.

Yesterday's tweet:

https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1346110742924308482

2/ First of all, I want to state that it was not my intention to set off an avalanche. I simply could not believe my eyes when I saw how quickly @c_drosten's publication got peer-reviewed and published. As a scientist, it is my right and duty to address this and raise questions.

3/ Right after the thread went viral, I was warned by several people that I needed to be prepared for "Drosten's army" to attack me. Something I could not have imagined, as I have never received any shitstorm on the internet before.

4/ I am aware that it is quite hard to describe complex issues with only 280 characters, making misunderstandings and conflicts virtually inevitable. Over time, the perceived personal view or conviction might also change due to the latest state of knowledge or varying contexts.

5/ The sad fact is that none of these attackers is actually dealing with what I have written. The lawyer and former judge @drpeternagel, for instance, is already trying to discredit me since last night, reading back my tweets from several months ago.

https://twitter.com/drpeternagel/status/1346238895697100800

6/ Yes, Peter. I am a supporter of vitamin D. I even publish about it. The paper might contain mistakes, but I have written it to the best of my knowledge AND it actually got peer-reviewed, which required contentual corrections. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

7/ Even if you do not agree with my view on vitamin D, @drpeternagel, I am open for fruitful discussions and exchange of knowledge. Starting a "public message" with ad hominem attacks ("self-exposer", etc.) is counterproductive and reflects low-tier communication standards.

8/ I do not even consider my view on vitamin D being biased as I helped to debunk a big scientific fraud in this field (and in favour of D3), which even involved collaborations with governmental authorities in South-East Asia. researchveracity.info/alra/

9/ Other attackers such as @MackayIM (who is linked to @c_drosten btw.) address @SpringerNature directly and demand my withdrawal as an editor in the field of aquaponics, as I am "hardly a specialist in virology".

https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1346288188902391810

10/ However, I did not address the topic of virology in my thread but gave insights in the peer-review process. And here, I have to admit that my statement was not very accurate. The actual window for the peer-review process was 3.5-27.5 hours, which I will elaborate below.

11/ Everything goes back to a document of the WHO, which was created (!!!) the day the Corman-Drosten paper was submitted to @Eurosurveillanc. The meta-data shows that it was created on the 21st of January 2020 at 8:30pm CET (Central European Time).

12/ Via the @waybackmachine everybody can download the first version of the paper that got published on the @Eurosurveillanc server. This paper cites the WHO document above (marked in green)

13/ The Drosten paper was officially submitted on 21/01/2020, accepted on 22/01/2020, and published on 23/01/2020. This means that, given the timestamp of the WHO paper, there is only a 3.5h theoretical time-window that the paper could have been submitted on 21/01/2020.

14/ As stated in my yesterday's thread, the peer-review process requires quite some time (due to iterations etc.). Given the official data we got, we can retrace how much.

https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1346110814206488577

15/ So the earliest moment, the paper could have been peer-reviewed and accepted is on 22/01/20 at midnight and the latest at 22/01/20 at 11:59pm (CET). The whole peer-review process thus had a time window of 3:30h-27:30h.

16/ The paper then got published on 23/01/20 at 4:45pm (CET), so the typesetter did an amazing job.

17/ Again, this is just my humble analysis of this process that I am willing to share, and I am also willing to discuss my findings critically.

18/ Theoretically speaking, the reference to the WHO document could have been modified during the typesetter's "query process", expanding the time-window by some hours.

https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1346110825317212160

19/ Nonetheless, the observed and reconstructed peer-review process shows - to put it mildly - considerable irregularities. Every peer-review process leads to anonymous review reports. I would be very interested to see what they state @Eurosurveillanc.

20/ And even a possible "extraordinary importance" (which was not a factor back in January 2020) is no reason to rush through the process that quickly. The publication could also have been made available as a pre-print document while undergoing a thorough peer-review process.

21/ All things considered, transparency is required in this critical case. And again: it is discourteous to shoot the messenger when criticism would be better addressed to the parties involved in these obvious irregularities.

This gentleman, for instance, provides excellent examples for destructive criticism (i.e. ad hominem only!).

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1346476490666377221

Hallo @deVSNU - ik hoor graag wat jullie van deze thread vinden (vooral ivm Mevr. Koopmans). Alle 5 principes (Eerlijkheid, Zorgvuldigheid, Transparantie, Onafhankelijkheid en Verantwoordelijkheid) werden geschonden. Graag DM naar mij.

@pjvanerp @deVSNU En 2 keer “accept” is best zeldzaam. Nog nooit (!!!) meegemaakt. Het argument dat de paper “perfect” is geldt ook niet. Drosten heeft later toegegeven dat zijn eigen paper gebrekkig is en "replaced" moet worden.

eurosurveillance.org/content/10.280…