Year: 2019

Because of various developments in the UK and elsewhere, I’ve neglected goings-on back home. I’m working on a couple of things now but in the meantime I decided to post something typically insightful that Jennie Spotila published last week on her blog, Occupy M.E. It’s a frustration with this project that I don’t have the…

I thought it might be helpful to re-post a list of questions I wanted to ask Professor White and his PACE colleagues in September, 2015–more than a month before Virology Blog posted the first installment of “Trial By Error: The Troubling Case of the PACE Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study.” I originally posted this list on…

Added Feb 12: I realized today that I wanted to add a couple of details. The new version of the BMJ article about the Health Research Authority analysis of PACE includes this sentence at the bottom: “Correction notice: On 8 February 2019 a new version of this article was posted with clarifications added.” For unexplained…

Last week, I reported that Bristol University had launched an independent investigation of research led by Professor Esther Crawley, at the request of the UK’s Health Research Authority. Today, the HRA released a report on the PACE trial that has portrayed it as a well-conducted study. GET/CBT supporters are framing this report as a vindication.…

Update: Since posting this several hours ago, I have learned that the story I’ve been “prebutting” is not in fact likely to appear imminently; I suppose that means it could be weeks before publication. I’m not sure whether I misinterpreted the reporter’s statement that obtaining my response to the “harassment” claims was the final outstanding…

Last week I broke the news that Bristol University is conducting an independent investigation of a number of studies that were exempted from ethical review on the grounds that they qualified as “service evaluation.” Because the issues involved are confusing and complex, I thought it would be helpful to repost here part of my initial…

Yesterday I reported that Bristol University, at the request of the UK Health Research Authority, is investigating a number of studies conducted by Professor Esther Crawley. The results of this investigation are expected in two months or so. Today I can disclose that the scrutiny involves papers linked to a specific research ethics committee (REC)…

The reporter writing the story I posted about earlier also contacted Professor Racaniello. Here are the questions asked, and his answers: Could you please say why David Tuller publishes his blog posts on your site, instead of publishing it on a blog/website of his own? A number of years ago a retrovirus was suspected to…

*I have corrected the paragraph involving tweets to Sir Simon Wessely. See note at end of post. A major news organization is preparing to publish what seems to be a piece about me and my work. The piece also seems to be focusing on the narrative that dangerous and irrational patients are running rampant and…

In the last year, I have raised multiple concerns about studies from the University of Bristol with the UK Health Research Authority, among others. The HRA is the National Health Service arm that oversees approvals for research in England; the agency’s role is to ensure that research receives a favorable opinion from an ethics committee…

Earlier this evening, I sent the following e-mail to Carolyn Crew-Graham, a professor of general practice research at Keele University. Professor Chew-Graham is the lead author of METRIC, the atrocious online training course hailed last week by Steve Brine MP as addressing “misconceptions” about the illness variously called ME, CFS, CFS/ME and ME/CFS. Professor Chew-Graham…

Update on January 29: I love how patients keep me on my toes. A savvy reader pointed out to me today that even members of the GET/CBT ideological brigades have dropped the notion that attributing symptoms to a physical cause itself leads to a poor prognosis. That was the prevailing outlook some years ago, but…