I suppose it was inevitable that when backed into several difficult corners on the VGE front you would just pretend it didn't happen and move onto something new.
So...
In 2008, the Undersea Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) held a 2 day workshop called "Decompression and the Deep Stop workshop".
Correct. I think it is probably relevant to point out to the forum that you did not attend the workshop even though many of the things you have written about it in the past imply that you did.
It was chaired by Simon Mitchell (who was also an officer of UHMS at the time).
Incorrect. It was co-chaired by Peter Bennett, Bruce Wienke, and myself. I did chair the consensus session at that end, and was chosen for that role because I had no conflict of interest either in terms of commercial interest or published research directly related to deep stops. I'm not sure whether I was on the UHMS executive at that time or not, but I fail to appreciate the relevance.
Many of the worlds deco researchers and peers were in attendance. Much relevant data and reports of interest were presented. The nedu test was one of the reports under review. In the follow up questions, the nedu test received a great deal of criticism, for all the same reasons I have mentioned in these threads. None of the peers gave it a favorable comment.
It did not "receive at great deal of criticism" and little of the related discussion bore relevance to the "reasons you have mentioned in these threads". The question time following scientific presentations is for people to have points clarified. In asking related questions it can seem that people are being "critical" but the reality is that there was widespread admiration among the scientists present (with the possible exception of Bruce Wienke).
I want to make something very clear. All of Simon Mitchell's "growing list of evidence" that he claims today, was presented and discussed in this workshop.
No it was not. Most importantly, in 2008 the NEDU study was not properly published with all the related analysis around the profiles. The full technical report emerged in 2011. A lot of discussion of the study has taken place since then (just as it has on the technical diving forums) and there is now far better insight among my colleagues of the implications. In addition, I am aware of two further studies pending publication that will further illuminate the debate. I accept that you do not have knowledge of these at this point.
At the end of the workshop, there was a consensus discussion to resolve two summary statements (Simon Mitchell was chair): All of the consensus discussion pages are here:
2/ The Efficacy of a Deep Stop?
So there you have it. A peer review of all matters to do with deep stops and tests and data to date, resolved to the above.
This is an incomplete interpretation of what was actually a radical departure from widely received wisdom (that deep stops represented optimal decompression) at that point in time. For a start, the "conflicting evidence" in favor of deep stops was anecdotal only and not of comparable quality to the emerging evidence against, but this was never going to be reflected in the consensus for several reasons. The workshop had no formal decision making process, other than a show of hands among attendees. These attendees included many non-expert technical divers and representatives of instructional agencies who believed in, utilized, or taught bubble model decompression. The workshop took place when deep stop approaches were virtually at the height of their popularity. The consensus certainly cannot be represented as a objective evaluation of the evidence purely by scientists. Under those circumstances, just to get a consensus that there was "conflicting evidence" was a remarkable outcome. Even Bruce Wienke acknowledged this when he said:
"Just to give you my perspective on this, as a technical diver, not as a scientist. I can tell you that if you even say there is conflicting evidence now, this will cause a storm in the technical diving community. Because since Pyle stops the vast majority have taken this (deep stops) as fact for years now. This is going to be a big eye opener."
Thus, in the context of the workshop circumstances, and the era in which it took place, the "consensus" was not nearly as bland as you are trying to portray it.
If you read the consensus pages, you can see Simon obviously wasn't satisfied with the peer position in 2008.
You have tried to say this on the RBW threads before and got called out by Bruce Partridge (Shearwater) - who, unlike you, was actually there - for misrepresenting the truth. Other than preventing a deep stops supporter from canning the whole process when he could see that the consensus was not going to be a ringing endorsement of deep stops, I made no decisions that could be construed as favoring either side.
One person is not happy with the peer position, So he does an end run around the peer process. He has taken his preferences direct to the public, to forums, to youtube were he makes his personal preference statements known, without the worry of a peer review or a peer challenge in public.
Oh for goodness sake Ross. The "peer position" within the science community is that the NEDU study was an important and seminal piece of work. I am flattered that you attribute the improvements in knowledge and the practice shifts that have occurred over the years solely to me, but I prefer to acknowledge the scientists who actually did the studies. David is on this thread defending his work. So that makes at least two of us. I doubt whether Wayne Gerth has walked away from believing in his own study; nor the French team from theirs. I doubt that the Split group no longer believe they detected all those bubbles when using VPM, and I doubt that the wider diving science community sees it any differently, especially in the complete absence of any comparable evidence that bubble models are the optimal approach to decompression from deep dives.
Simon M
