Trial By Error

Year: 2020

  • Psych Issues Do Not Predict ME/CFS, New Chicago Study Shows

    For decades, investigators have argued over the causes of the illness or cluster of illnesses variously called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS),  ME/CFS, CFS/ME and other names. In the absence of an adequate explanation for the debilitating symptoms, a flawed approach to intervention based on the perceived need for psychological and behavioral rehabilitation…

  • Swedish ME Patient Fears Forced Psychiatric Treatment

    Holger Klintenberg, a 35-year-old from the southern Swedish city of Jonkoping, has severe ME. His illness began after a bout of mononucleosis (or glandular fever) when he was 19. He has recently experienced difficult interactions with the health care system. His family fears he could be forced into psychiatric care against his and their wishes.…

  • A Letter to BMJ From Prof Hughes, Prof Racaniello and Me

    I have sent the following letter to Fiona Godlee, editorial director of BMJ and editor-in-chief of The BMJ, on behalf of Professors Brian Hughes and Vincent Racaniello as well as me. We were responding to the recent editorial regarding the new draft of ME/CFS clinical guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence–as…

  • BMJ Pushes Back Against New NICE Draft

    The BMJ has published an online “editorial” slamming the new draft of clinical guidelines for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The position expressed is an interesting one: Non-pharmacological treatments for “complex conditions” cannot be adequately measured by randomized trials, according to the two authors. It is, of course, noteworthy that…

  • Professors Chalder and Crawley Join Forces to Push CBT for Kids

    On November 10th, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence published a draft of new clinical guidelines for ME/CFS. The draft represented a blunt rejection of the argument that the combination of “unhelpful cognitions” and deconditioning drives the illness. Under this once-hegemonic framework, indicated therapies include cognitive behavior therapy to overcome the unhelpful cognitions…

  • Letter to Author of Removed GET/CBT Training Program for GPs

    Earlier today, I posted a blog about the decision by the Royal College of General Practice to remove from its site a training program called METRIC, which promoted the GET/CBT approach. I then sent the following letter to Carolyn Chew-Graham, a professor of general practice research at Keele University in Staffordshire and the main author…

  • GP Group Removes Online GET/CBT Medical Training Program

    In early 2019, I wrote about an awful online training course for general practitioners on recognizing and caring for patients diagnosed with what was referred to as CFS/ME. The module, called METRIC, promised to provide “GPs and other primary care practitioners with an overview of the presentation, diagnosis, assessment and ongoing management” of the illness.…

  • My Zoom-Talk on the NICE Draft for Sheffield ME Group

    On Monday, I gave a Zoom-talk hosted by the Sheffield ME & Fibromyalgia Group on the new draft of ME/CFS clinical guidelines from UK’s National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. The draft rejected the GET/CBT treatment paradigm. I haven’t watched the video, but most likely one of my eyebrows is hopping up and down…

  • FDA Approves Web-CBT for IBS; GET/CBT as Tomorrow’s “Rubbish”

    Mahana set to announce FDA approval for ineffective IBS program Earlier this year, I spent a lot of time blogging about the unethical and dishonest manner in which a San Francisco start-up called Mahana Therapeutics was promoting an eight-week web-based program of cognitive behavior therapy for patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome. The company had…

  • Thoughts on The Observer, The Guardian, and Paradigm Shift

    Earlier this week, I blogged about a story in The Observer that provided an inaccurate description of what it called chronic fatigue syndrome. For much of the piece, the writer, Eleanor Morgan, offered a sympathetic portrait of people, including herself, experiencing prolonged symptoms after an acute bout of Covid-19. A lot of what she presented…

  • The Observer Slips Up; ME Association Responds

    News organizations continue to misrepresent ME (and its various iterations) in their coverage of what has come to be called long-Covid. A current UK example is Sunday’s Observer article by writer Eleanor Morgan, who is experiencing prolonged symptoms since falling ill last spring. (It’s on The Guardian site; the two organizations are linked in some…

  • My Letter to BMJ Paediatrics Open about the CBT-Music Therapy Study

    On November 12, I received my latest letter from BMJ’s so-called research integrity office about the pile of potential research misconduct otherwise known as the pediatric study of cognitive behavior therapy and music therapy as a treatment for chronic fatigue after acute EBV. This study was published in April by BMJ Paediatrics Open and immediately…