There is now an update to this story here.
Last month I reported on how I got cancelled from the NHS Health and Care Analytics Conference 2023.
In response, I sent the following (more or less the same) subject access request letter to the various organisations involved in the conference, namely Birmingham University who hosted the conference, The NHS Strategy Unit, who organised the conference, and the various NHS Trusts supporting the conference.
Dear Sir or Madam
Subject access request (relating to cancellation of my presentation to Health and Care Analytics Conference 2023.
Following the cancellation of my presentation on Bayesian networks to the Health and Care Analytics Conference 2023 as described in this article: https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/blasphemers-begone please supply copies of all emails and other available electronic communications between conference committee members (including the co-chair Ben Goldacre) and others in which my name or conference contribution is mentioned.
Yours faithfully
Professor Norman Fenton
While I have yet to get the responses from the various NHS recipients, I have now had a formal response from Birmingham University (which, in its previous replies to many of my supporters who wrote to them to complain, responded with a form message simply saying that the decision to cancel me had nothing to do with them).
Here is the Birmingham University cover letter which sets out what they claim are the limits to the information they can provide:
And here is the 12-page (heavily redacted) report containing the relevant emails and correspondence about me:
For those who don’t wish to wade through it all, here are some ‘highlights’:
It is clear that Birmingham University received a lot of emails complaining about the decision to cancel me:
There follows several examples of the emails they received, but the most revealing information is this ‘Teams data’ transcript at the end; dates are not provided (I assume the ‘Monday’ messages were 19 June) except for the last one dated 20 June at 15:43. This is where I am referred to as a “hardcore anti-vaxxer”. The email informing me of my cancellation was sent just minutes later at 16:08 on 20 June.
Teams data
Monday 08:56
Seen the emails about Norman Fenton for NHS.
Monday 12:35
Causing us all the issues with Norman
Monday 08:35
Looking through the emails, there is one from redacted who is blaming the university for the Norman Fenton thing.
Monday 08:54
We’ve had a really tricky one from Norman himself
Monday 08:58
We can reply to say that we weren’t involved in the decision and our only involvement was to remove him from the programme.
Monday 11:53
This Norman thing is causing a lot of backlash.
Monday 12:19
Asked Norman for a few details – we have a draft we can go with but thought invite him to share the info.
Norman does some things around Covid counting. How stats have been used and whilst its all accurate and from a mathematician’s perspective, there is an angle.
20 June 15:43
Someone has just flagged on Twitter that Professor Norman Fenton is a hardcore anti-vaxxer
I look forward to the eventual responses from the NHS organisers and especially any correspondence involving the event co-chair Ben Goldacre who has so far refused to respond to the many people who have written to him about this.
Just wow. As if any institution in the so-called "developed" world has a shred of decency, respect and integrity left. You have to wonder about the people who still think so? I bet there isn't a single email from this alleged academic institution where anyone actually asks about the quality of your analyses and whether anyone has taken a scientific approach to determine the validity of your insights and claims?
Norman does some things around Covid counting. How stats have been used and whilst its all accurate and from a mathematician’s perspective, there is an angle.
Says it all: 'Norman does some things around Covid counting'. Is this the best we can expect from a leading university?
Why hasn't 'bad science' Ben Goldacre replied to Professor Fenton, an acknowledged expert?
This is starting to resemble Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition,albeit more sinister