Is Professor Crawley Retired from Bristol, or Isn’t She?

By David Tuller, DrPH Professor Esther Crawley, the methodically and ethically challenged pediatrician and former grant queen at the University of Bristol, retired from medical practice and, apparently, from academia at some point in the recent past. So why does her name still appear on websites as if she were an active participant in research and clinical care? I noted in a blog post earlier this month that Professor Crawley remains on the list of steering committee members of the Collaborative On Fatigue and related symptoms Following Infection, more commonly known as COFFI. (Is that acronym supposed to be a winking reference to “coffee,” which obviously is known to perk people up? If it is a pun, it’s a rather stupid one, but stupidity is not unknown among this crew.)  To try to find out why Professor Crawley’s name is still included, I sent a letter to COFFI and to the chair of its steering committee, Professor Vegard Wyller of Norway. I have not received a response. (I didn’t expect one.) Needless to say, an organization that fails in such basic functions as ensuring that its website accurately describes its current leadership, it is fair to question whether anything they proclaim can be taken seriously.  Furthermore, the other day a keen observer referred me to the website of a project called Severn Postgraduate Medical Education (SPME), which is the southwest England arm of a larger National Health Service training initiative. Under the SPME, the University of Bristol is offering two-year postgraduate posts in a range of specialties. On the project website, Professor Crawley is listed as one of the two leads for the pediatrics track, along with Professor Richard Coward, who is a Bristol faculty member.  The pediatrics department is offering three of these two-year training positions. Here’s the description: …

https://trialbyerror.org/2026/03/21/is-professor-crawley-retired-from-bristol-or-isnt-she/

Why is Professor Crawley Still on the COFFI Steering Committee?

By David Tuller, DrPH Several years ago, the leaders of the biopsychosocial ideological brigades decided to create the Collaborative On Fatigue and related symptoms Following Infection, or COFFI. According to its website, COFFI’s “overarching aim” is “to investigate factors influencing the development of long-term symptoms (in particular fatigue) following certain infectious diseases.” Akershus University Hospital (AHUS) in Norway is COFFI’s host institution. The seeds for the organization were first sewn in 2015, and the formal structure was established in 2020. That is, of course, the year the coronavirus pandemic triggered widespread reports of prolonged illness that became known as Long COVID. A central concern about COFFI is its core focus on “fatigue”–as if all fatigue were exactly the same. While the organization’s website makes references to other major post-infectious symptoms, they are clearly relegated to secondary status. COFFI is an international who’s who of prominent investigators, some or many of whom have engaged in exceedingly questionable research strategies. The steering committee includes the principal investigators whose cohorts are considered to be COFFI-affiliated. The chair of the steering committee is Professor Vegard Wyller, who holds a position at AHUS. The steering committee also includes, among others, Professor Andrew Lloyd at the University of New South Wales in Australia, Professor Hans Knoop of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Professor Rona Moss-Morris of King’s College London in the U.K. I have criticized all three of these investigators for serious methodological and ethical lapses in their research or, in some cases, in their public statements.  In reviewing the COFFI website recently, I noticed something odd. Professor Esther Crawley, the former pediatrician and grant magnet at the University of Bristol, is listed as a current member of the steering committee. However, Professor Crawley is no longer at the university or practicing medicine—for reasons …

https://trialbyerror.org/2026/03/12/why-is-professor-crawley-still-on-the-coffi-steering-committee/