Trial By Error, by David Tuller
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Why Are Exercise Studies for Long Covid Still Failing to Address PEM Adequately?
By David Tuller, DrPH I have written previously about the issue of exercise studies for long Covid patients. As with the discredited PACE trial for the illness or cluster of illnesses currently being referred to as ME/CFS, the theory behind these studies posits deconditioning as a central cause of patients’ disability. This approach tends to […]
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What the Hell is Going on with Cochrane’s Long-Delayed Re-Review of “Exercise Therapies”?
By David Tuller, DrPH What is going on with Cochrane’s much-delayed re-review of exercise therapy for the illness the organization is these days calling ME/CFS? It is more than three years since Cochrane announced plans to develop this completely new review, but no one outside the organization seems to have much idea of what’s happening […]
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GET/CBT Ideologues Revive 1991 Oxford Criteria as Core Definition for Long Covid Research
By David Tuller, DrPH The Collaborative on Fatigue Following Infection, or COFFI, was formed in 2015 to promote the theories and treatment approaches embodied in the now-discredited and arguably fraudulent PACE trial and related research. In a nutshell, PACE and related research promoted the notion that the symptoms of patients with the clinical entity or […]
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An Interview with Meghan O’Rourke, Author of The Invisible Kingdom (Reprise)
By David Tuller, DrPH Last April, I interviewed poet, journalist and editor Meghan O’Rourke about The Invisible Kingdom, her insightful and affecting memoir of living with chronic illness. The book, a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award, has just been issued in paperback. So I figured I’d re-post the interview. As the […]
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An Upcoming “Biopsychosocial” Long Covid Conference in Finland
By David Tuller, DrPH What is it with the health care establishments in northern Europe? Why are they so devoted to non-evidence-based approaches to treating serious medical conditions? Why do they trust arguably fraudulent research, like the PACE trial and Professor Esther Crawley’s pediatric Lightning Process study? Why are the authors of these studies respected […]
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Correctives from Putrino & Iwasaki (and Others) to the Long-Covid-Is-Psychosomatic Claims
By David Tuller, DrPH When the pandemic began, everyone involved in the ME, CFS, and ME/CFS domain assumed that there would be a wave of post-acute, prolonged complications, since every virus seems to leave in its wake a small but still significant number of people who report a range of non-specific symptoms. It was also […]
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Once More Regarding Inflated FND Rates–and a Reprise of a Letter to a Yale Neurologist
By David Tuller, DrPH Last July, I sent a letter to Benjamin Tolchin, a neurologist at Yale, about the statement, in a 2021 paper for which he was the lead author, regarding prevalence rates for functional neurological disorder (FND). Last month, I sent it again. I’ve still had no response. I am reposting it below […]
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A Response to Call for “A New Paradigm” for Long Covid in Lancet Respiratory Medicine
By David Tuller, DrPH Update, Feb 3rd: After less than 24 hours, our letter was rejected by the journal. Here’s the message I received: Dear Dr Tuller, Thank you for your recent submission to The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. We have now had time to consider your manuscript and unfortunately, on this occasion, we have decided not […]
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My Article About the Life–and Preventable Death–of Maeve Boothby O’Neill
By David Tuller, DrPH Last week, Codastory.com published an article I wrote about Maeve Boothby O’Neill, a 27-year-old in Exeter, England, who died in October, 2021, from complications of ME. The specific cause appears to have been malnutrition. Despite being alerted to the seriousness of Maeve’s condition, the local hospital resisted appeals to insert a […]
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Double Talk on Mind-Body “Dualism” in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research?
By David Tuller, DrPH Proponents of the psychosomatic approach to ME and long Covid–as well as the broader range of so-called “functional” disorders and/or “medically unexplained symptoms”–routinely declare that those who disagree with them are engaging in what they dismissively refer to as mind-body “dualism.” The mind and body are not separate entities, they note, […]