correspondence with Eurosurveillance - a Freedom of Information request to European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (original) (raw)

Dear European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'correspondence with Eurosurveillance'.

To ECDC, Legal Services, Gustav III:s Boulevard 4, Sweden

Groningen, 21 May 2021

subject: confirmatory application / SMS-2021-OUT-2198-MCElKh

Dear European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,

In accordance with Article 7(2) of Regulation 1049/2001, I am making a confirmatory application requesting ECDC’s Director to review the refusal to release (anonymised versions) of two documents.

My appeal / confirmatory application contains eleven (11) sections.

(1): I had requested the release of two (2, twee, zwei) documents:

(a) "A full version of the response, together with all attachments, which was sent in the beginning of February 2021 by the scientific journal Eurosurveillance to Pieter Borger / the International Consortium of Scientists in Life Sciences (ICSLS).";

(b) "A fully anonymised version of the peer review reports of the 5 external experts who have conducted a review on the text which was sent by Pieter Borger / the International Consortium of Scientists in Life Sciences (ICSLS) to Eurosurveillance in the end of November 2020."

The reply "SMS-2021-OUT-2198-MCElKh" only refers to one (1, een, ein) document. Such a response is inadequate. It also implies towards my opinion that ECDC does not have valid motives to refuse the release of document (a). I am therefore reiterating my request to send me this document.

(2): the authors of the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020) have already released parts of (a), i.e. the response from Eurosurveillance to them. It seems to me that this means that the authors will have no objections against the release of everything with is listed in (a).

(3): authors of the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020) are arguing, and keep arguing, that their response from Eurosurveillance does not contain scientific arguments to refute their views. Sources: https://twitter.com/Kevin_McKernan/statu... and https://twitter.com/pjvanerp/status/1395... See also https://web.archive.org/web/202105211224...

A release of document (a) is the only way to refute / rebut these views. There are no other options.

(4): several authors of the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020) are hard-core covid-denialists. They are thus speading (all the time) fake news about the covid-19 pandemy. A release of document (a) is the only way to refute / rebut these views. There are no other options.

To use other words, the refusal to send me this information implies that authors of the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020) will keep arguing that their response from Eurosurveillance does not contain scientific arguments to refute their views. It seems to me that this is a very unfortunate situation for all who are fighting against the speading of fake news about the covid-19 pandemy.

(5): Stephen Bustin declares in a thread at https://twitter.com/Kevin_McKernan/statu... that he is one of the five peer-reviewers for the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020). This implies towards my opinion that Bustin will have no objections against the release of the contents of his review.

(6): it is stated at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ that the journal Eurosurveillance has a possibility to ask the peer-reviewers if they have objections against the release of (an anonymised version) of their peer-review report.

The reply "SMS-2021-OUT-2198-MCElKh" does not contain information about this topic. This is towards my opinion inadequate. I therefore propose Eurosurveillance will contact the peer-reviewers with such a request, and I propose Eurosurveillance will explain to the peer-reviewers that there is a very large public interest in this topic, and that this large public interest outweighs the confidence which was earlieron agreed with these peer-reviewers.

(7): I reiterate that several authors of the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020) have to be regarded as hard-core covid-denialists who are all the time spreading fake-news about the covid-19 pandemy. Some of them have social media accounts with a large amount of followers. Some of them are regarded as experts by other covid-denialists. This all means that these people have a large audience. To use other words, the fake news that these people are spreading about a lack of a proper peer-review by Eurosurveillance reaches alot of people and is an important danger for all of us who are putting much efforts into the combat against the current covid-19 pandemy.

A release of both documents is the only way to stop these people in spreading fake news about a lack of a proper peer-review by Eurosurveillance of their manuscript. To use other words, the public interest outweighs by large and by large the refusal to release both documents.

(8): the refusal of ECDC to release both documents is at the moment undermining the scientific status of the journal Eurosurveillance, because authors of the Corman-Drosten review report (2020) keep argueing that their response from Eurosurveillance does not contain scientific arguments to refute their views. It goes without saying that this situation is at the moment very unfortunate for the status of the journal Eurosureveillance.

I therefore reiterate once again that a release of both documents in the only way to to stop these people in spreading fake news about a lack of a proper peer-review by Eurosurveillance of their manuscript. To use other words, the public interest outweighs by large and by large the refusal to release both documents.

(9): ECDC states in her refusal: "ECDC cannot identify that in this case an overriding public interest in the disclosure."

ECDC has failed to substantiate this view. This view is also incorrect, see above for the motives. To use other words, there is an overwhelming and overriding public interest in the disclosure of these two documents.

(10): ECDC states in her refusal: "We also bring your attention to the fact that the document you require contain personal data (names and personal opinions of its authors)."

I reiterate that I am not interested in personal data, and that it is thus no problem at all for me to receive an anonymised version of this document. Names can simply be replaced by 'peer1', 'peer2', etc. Other personal details can be removed.

(11): ECDC states in her refusal: "The number of individuals with specific subject matter expertise to be potentially invited to provide an expert report on the subject is limited due to the specialisation needed in the field."

ECDC has failed to substantiate this view, for example with solid references. There are towards the best of my knowledge lots and lots and lots of experts within this field of research who are very well capable to conduct a proper peer-review of the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020). See https://www.researchgate.net/publication... for an example.

To use other words, this argument is invalid / void.

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I propose you decide that the above listed motives are solid / valid and that you therefore release (an anomymised version) of both documents.

See http://www.integralworld.net/visser198.h... for some backgrounds about the Corman-Drosten review report (Borger et al. 2020).

A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/corr...

Yours faithfully,

Klaas van Dijk / Groningen / The Netherlands