Regarding the 69 authors willing to associate their name to the trial by publication:
Many of them are probably associated with universities, like Liau and Prins. One of the key metrics academics are measured on is the number of publications they have their name on (the “Publish or Perish” phenomenon). No under the table option grants required!
This doesn’t mean they know the trial is successful — how can anyone know that (not opine but know) since the trial is still blinded, regardless of what the tea-leaves may say? Their personal experience may lead them to a strong personal belief that DCVax-L is effective (like the British PI does), but that doesn’t mean the trial will be successful. If they “know” that, then they are overlooking the issue of crossover confounding (damn, it’s too effective!) or the dark forces of Sauron (however you want to define them in this particular case), to name a couple of possibilities.
It also suggests that they do not believe NWBO is being operated as a scam, because I believe if they thought that, they would disassociate themselves from the trial.
However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t all a big scam, it just means that doctors and academic types aren’t familiar with the workings of small cap scams and can’t detect the signs. That wouldn’t be surprising—why would they have that particular expertise?
The above paragraph does NOT mean that I believe NWBO is a scam. It is a possibility, however, no matter what I happen to believe. If one hasn’t learned that 100% certainty is an illusion, I have a great list of noir films to recommend that will help you see the light, or the dark, as the case may be. There are many other ways to come to that conclusion (philosophy, study of history, media analysis, cognitive science, hanging around divorce court, etc) but film is the most entertaining and takes less effort.
