Trial By Error, by David Tuller
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New Zealand GP Group Disavows Lightning Process Endorsement; BBC’s Con or Cure Takes Skeptical Look at LP
“A small step in New Zealand” Sometimes there is modest good news. In this case, the good news is all due to the diligent efforts of Nina Steinkopf, who writes the always useful blog MElife (MElivet). Steinkopf, who was diagnosed with ME in 2010, mostly covers goings-on in Norway and across Scandinavia. That means she…
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My Visits with Alem Matthees, 2025
In 2018, I spent six weeks in Australia, visiting multiple cities on a kind of “chronic fatigue” tour around the country. (In Australia, doctors and patients more often than not referred to the cluster of overlapping illnesses now generally being called ME/CFS as simply “chronic fatigue.”) Near the end, I spent five days in Perth.…
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A 2015 Letter from the Countess of Mar to Suzanne O’Sullivan
Before she retired from the House of Lords a few years ago, the Countess of Mar was a steadfast supporter of people with ME/CFS. When neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, a champion of psychosomatic explanations for unexplained symptoms, published her first book in 2015—“It’s All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness”–the Countess sent her a…
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Suzanne O’Sullivan’s “Psychosomatic” Mis-Diagnoses
Neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan has been conducting a media blitz for her new book, “The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker.” The Guardian ran a lengthy excerpt in early March. O’Sullivan appeared on the popular podcast Freakonomics. Multiple publications have published profiles of her, with credulous assessments of her…
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Some Things I’ve Read Recently…
Lisa McCorkell leaves Patient-Led Research Collaborative after five years… Way back in 2020, when it became clear that some people were experiencing prolonged symptoms after an acute bout of COVID-19, Lisa McCorkell helped found the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (PLRC). The organization grew out of an online health-related support group, which published the first survey on…
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Lancet Letter Exchange on Claimed Success of “Persistent Physical Symptoms” Trial Despite Clinically Insignificant Findings
Last year, The Lancet published a paper from Christopher Burton and colleagues called “Effectiveness of a symptom-clinic intervention delivered by general practitioners with an extended role for people with multiple and persistent physical symptoms in England: the Multiple Symptoms Study 3 pragmatic, multicentre, parallel-group, individually randomised controlled trial.” Per the norm for research on psycho-behavioral…
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New Study Documents Iatrogenic Harm from Perceived Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Misdiagnoses of Rheumatic Diseases
In 2020, I wrote a post about a paper, published by the journal Rheumatology Advances in Practice, called “Medically explained symptoms: A mixed methods study of diagnostic, symptom and support experiences of patients with lupus and related systemic autoimmune diseases.” The corresponding author was Melanie Sloan, a researcher in the Department of Public Health and…
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BMJ’s Strange Response to Our Letter of Concern Regarding “Living Systematic Review” of Long Covid Interventions
In December, I sent a letter, co-signed by 18 colleagues, to The BMJ‘s editor in chief, Dr Kamran Abbasi. The letter requested a correction to a problematic study called “Interventions for the management of long covid (post-covid condition): living systematic review.” According to this review, there is “moderate certainty evidence” that a physical and mental…
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A Reprise of a 2018 Post on My Visits with Alem Matthees
In 2018, I spent six weeks in Australia, visiting multiple cities on a kind of ME/CFS tour around the country. Near the end, I spent five days in Perth. The local patient and advocacy organization arranged for me to give a talk, do some lobbying with local government, and so on. But my main motivation…
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Our Presentation at the University of New South Wales
On Tuesday, I gave a presentation at the Kirby Institute, a renowned research center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, along with my friend and colleague Dr David Joffe, a respiratory medicine specialist. David spoke about the pathophysiology of Long Covid as well as the enormous economic burden of the disease. I spoke about…
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My 2018 Post on Andrew Lloyd’s Memory Lapses, Revisited
Yesterday, in Sydney, I gave a presentation at the Kirby Institute, a renowned research center at the University of New South Wales, along with my friend and colleague Dr David Joffe, a respiratory medicine specialist. David spoke about the pathophysiology of Long Covid as well as the enormous economic burden of the disease. I spoke…
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A Bogus Request for Corrections to Recent Post on a Long Covid Exercse Study
Zachary Grin is a physical therapist in New York City who specializes in functional neurological disorder. Over the years, we had what I considered a good-natured, generally respectful exchange of views. As a gay man, I felt empathy for him—he posted about having difficulties with his parents after he came out. But I blocked him…