Year: 2021
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Professor Steven Lubet on Misogyny, Homophobia and Long COVID Denialism
My friend and colleague Steven Lubet is a professor of law at Northwestern University. He and I have collaborated on a number of articles, including a response to Professor Michael Sharpe’s views on so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” in the journal Medical Humanities and a piece on links between ME/CFS and Long COVID for STAT. This…
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Professor White & Colleagues “Regret” Ignoring Null Results in GETSET Trial Follow-Up
Last week, I wrote about the correction made to the “Highlights” section of the paper reporting the long-term follow-up results for the GETSET trial. (The trial was conducted by Professor Peter White, one of the three lead PACE investigators, and colleagues.) I noted that this correction was not indicated or identified—a fact I attributed to…
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Quartet of Trials Reveals Limitations of CBT for “Medically Unexplained Symptoms”
A year ago, I wrote a post about how the biopsychosocial ideological brigades had completed a trifecta of major studies that investigated cognitive behavior therapy for a variety of so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS). As a group, the studies demonstrated the overall ineffectiveness of CBT as a treatment for this category of disorders—despite herculean efforts…
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Journal Corrects “Highlights” of GETSET Paper; A Letter about Prof White’s GET Safety Paper
I have pressed the Journal of Psychosomatic Research to correct a recent paper—”Guided graded exercise self-help for chronic fatigue syndrome: Long term follow up and cost-effectiveness following the GETSET trial.” The senior author is Professor Peter White. Now the journal has published a revised “Highlights” section of the paper that accurately presents the study’s null…
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Lowenstein’s Guardian Opinion; Eliot Smith’s Post-NICE View; Tack’s Take on Blinding Study
The Guardian has published a lot of nonsense about Long COVID and has provided a platform for people who argue that robust manly thoughts are the path to recovery. Of course, it also published George Monbiot’s powerful columns on the topic, including his rebuttal of silly accusations that he was triggering more Long COVID cases…
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Did the IBS Trial Really Show that Web-Based CBT Offered Significant Clinical Effectiveness?
I wrote some posts last year about the ACTIB trial–a major study of telephone-delivered and web-delivered cognitive behavior therapy (TCBT and WCBT) for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Contrary to how the results have been framed by those with reputational and financial interests in promoting them, the study demonstrated that WCBT did not provide clinically significant…
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Null Outcomes Presented as Success in Yet Another CBT Trial from Prof Trudie Chalder
Trudie Chalder, a professor of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) at King’s College London, has recently published yet another high-profile paper: the main results for “efficacy” from a trial of CBT for patients with so-called “persistent physical symptoms” (PPS) in secondary care. As usual with this group of investigators, things haven’t turned out well. But despite…
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#MEAction’s Chronic Illness Survey; Patients’ Research Informs CDC’s Long-COVID Advice
New survey to assess links between chronic conditions Jaime Seltzer, #MEAction’s Director of Scientific & Medical Outreach, has been pretty busy lately. This week, she appeared on a panel at the World Health Organization’s Long COVID webinar—alongside no less than the distinguished and always affable Professor Sir Simon Wessely. Seltzer has also just been named…
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More Disinformation from Professor White in Journal of Psychosomatic Research
The Journal of Psychosomatic Research seems to be suffering from some sort of identity crisis. Earlier this year, the editor and his two immediate predecessors published an admirable editorial in which they noted the serious risk of bias in subjective outcomes in studies that are not rigorously blinded. Yet the journal’s editorial advisory board is…
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Norway Rejects New Clinical Trial of Woo-Woo Lightning Process
In a welcome display of scientific acumen, Norwegian research ethics authorities have rejected a proposed study of the woo-woo called the Lightning Process as a treatment for ME/CFS. Since Norway generally appears to be a hotbed of biopsychosocial thinking, this excellent decision is a bit of a surprise. It follows a heated public debate about…
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Journal Editorial Calls for Caution in Exercise-Based Rehab Programs for Long COVID
The Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy recently published an editorial called “Humility and Acceptance: Working Within Our Limits With Long COVID and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.” The editorial emerged from a collaboration between rehabilitation specialists and patients, mostly from Canada. It confronts the conundrum of whether those experiencing what is called Long…
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More Letters about Professor Anthony David’s Mis-Citations of Key Study on Costs of MUS
I have been in correspondence with the journal Psychological Medicine in my efforts to get it to correct an undisputed factual era related to the cost of so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS). After three weeks, the journal’s co-editor-in-chief, Professor Robin Murray, finally alerted me on May 4th that the authors “have agreed” to a correction–as…