By David Tuller, DrPH
Under the editorial leadership of Kamran Abbasi, The BMJ and other journals in BMJ Group have become, at times, mouthpieces for members of the biopsychosocial ideological brigades. That hasn’t been surprising, given his actions during his previous tenure as editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Under his stewardship, the journal published a piece of crap co-authored by Professor Sir Simon Wessely, a former president of the royal society, and his King’s College London’s colleague Trudie Chalder, the factually and mathematically challenged professor cognitive behavior therapy and one of the lead PACE authors. The 2020 article, Cognitive behavioural therapy for chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome: outcomes from a specialist clinic in the UK, made causal statements even as it declared that its single-cohort study design did not allow for making causal statements.
When my friend and colleague Brian Hughes, a psychology professor at the University of Galway, and I pointed this out and presented other irrefutable evidence of error, Abbasi declined to take action to correct the public record. We published our critique as a separate article in the Journal of Health Psychology.
Since Abbasi’s ascent as editor in chief of The BMJ, BMJ journals have published some egregious work on ME/CFS and Long COVID. (Not that they were good before.) Most recently, in May, The BMJ, the flagship journal, published what I called “a commissioned propaganda piece” from die-hard biopsychosocial-ists. The commentary, which is called “Patients with severe ME/CFS need hope and expert multidisciplinary care,” touted so-called multi-disciplinary treatment approaches that have no legitimate evidence of effectiveness.
The first author of The BMJ’s invited opinion piece is infectious diseases specialist Alastair Miller, a longtime proponent of graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavior therapy as curative treatments and formerly associated with what was called the Liverpool Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Service. Last summer, during the inquest into the death of 27-year-old Maeve Boothby O’Neill from ME-related complications in Exeter in 2021, The Observer published an offensive and stupid opinion piece by Professor Miller. In the piece, he attempted to hijack the tragedy of Boothby O’Neill’s death to promote his persistent ideological beliefs about purportedly successful rehabilitative strategies.
Another author of the new BMJ article is Paul Garner, also an infectious diseases physician, who has now spent years presenting his N=1 case of recovery from post-viral symptoms as evidence of the power of his strong manly cognitions to cure Long COVID. Per Garner’s claim, this medical turnaround occurred immediately after a phone consultation with someone who sounded very much like a practitioner of the Lightning Process—whether or not that is actually the case.
Like Professor Miller’s piece last summer, the new commentary includes, perhaps not surprisingly, a reference to Boothy O’Neill’s death, in the following sentence: “However, functional impairment may lead to malnutrition and dehydration—described as the cause of death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, who died in 2021 at age 27.” To be clear: the claim that Maeve’s “impairment” was “functional” rather than driven by ME-related pathophysiological dysfunctions is an unproven theory and contradicts the coroner’s report. The “functional” claim is this lot’s security blanket. But believing in the tooth fairy does not mean the tooth fairy exists.
This desperate plea for relevance from a group of misguided partisans prompted a flurry of rapid responses. So far, 21 have been publicly posted. Sarah Boothby, Maeve’s mother, twice submitted a rapid response. However, it has not appeared. I have posted her comment below. (A version is also posted on Boothby’s LinkedIn page)
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Dear Editor in Chief, Kamran Abbasi
I submitted the following through the BMJ Latest rapid response portal twice, the second time with a request for acknowledgment. As the BMJ has neither published my corrections and criticism nor acknowledged my communication I am writing to you formally for an explanation. Please explain why the BMJ is commissioning and publishing misinformation specifically on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis?
“In commissioning and publishing the opinion piece by Miller et al (BMJ 2025;389:r977) the BMJ failed to fact check and consequently misled its readership on the risk of death from very severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). Those interested in medical ethics should note:
Maeve Boothby O’Neill died from ME shortly after her twenty-seventh birthday. She was not the first and has not been the last to die from this devastating illness yet the BMJ made no correction to the claim that Maeve died from malnutrition and dehydration. Dehydration and malnutrition are both easily treatable conditions in Britain. The inquest into Maeve’s death took three years investigating how a preventable death could have been permitted to a young woman who did not want to die, had been actively taking medical advice since the onset of symptoms in 2008, and had consented to three hospital admissions in the seven months prior her premature death in 2021.
It took four years of extensive tests and investigations before Maeve was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), by which time she had obtained A* results in Russian, Biology, English and Chemistry at A Level. Such results are not possible without the ability to understand instructions and take advice. Once diagnosed she was under specialist CFS services for eight years, including the Centre of Excellence in Bristol. She meticulously followed the instructions and advice they gave. Maeve never believed she would not recover; she learnt from the bitterest experience how the disease progresses from mild to very severe.
Maeve’s health deteriorated following a mild viral infection from which she (and the rest of her family) appeared to have fully recovered when Maeve was thirteen. Her symptoms steadily progressed to being serious enough that her PE teachers stopped her from joining their lessons; the risk of her being injured was too high.
The facts of Maeve’s death disqualified Miller as an Expert Witness at her inquest. By the end of the three-year inquiry, HMA Coroner was mildly better informed about ME than before the inquest opened. In the process of establishing the facts she confirmed that there are no inpatient services for people with ME anywhere in the UK, either in private or publicly owned hospitals. If the opinions of Miller et al had any efficacy in cases of ME, Maeve would still be alive today.
The Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report mentions six national institutions responsible for failing to prevent Maeve’s premature death. These include the National Health Service (NHS), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). Failure on this scale can only be remedied by systemic change, which must involve leadership at the highest level.
If a provincial inquest can establish these facts about ME, the BMJ should have little difficulty in doing similar. Failure to correct its editorial stance on this disease, when the international consensus is prioritising patient safety, casts doubt on both the reliability and ethics of opinions from the British medical establishment.”
A shortened version can be found featured in my LinkedIn profile here.
Sincerely
Sarah Boothby