Trial By Error

Author: David Tuller

  • The UK Health Research Authority’s Missteps on PACE and the Declaration of Helsinki

    *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 *Note: To give credit where it’s due, Magical Medicine: How to Make an Illness Disappear, an exhaustive investigation from Malcolm Hooper and Margaret Williams, first…

  • PACE Team Stages a Comeback Tour

    *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 Professors Peter White, Trudie Chalder and Michael Sharpe seem to have embarked on what could be called the PACE Rehabilitation Tour. This is an apparent…

  • More on the REGAIN Trial for Long Covid Patients

    *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 I wrote recently about the problematic REGAIN study from the University of Warwick, which is testing an exercise-and-psychological-rehab program as a treatment for long…

  • Can Someone Please Slap a Warning Label on this Exercise-and-Rehab Long Covid Study?

    I’ve been writing for a while about the rush to treat long Covid patients with the outdated and debunked approach long applied to ME/CFS. A major effort to demonstrate that an exercise program can lead to “recovery” from long Covid, sponsored by the University of Warwick and funded with £1.200,000 from the UK’s National Institute…

  • British GP Journal Retracts “Opinion” About Lightning Process Written By LP Practitioner

    This week, a journal under the umbrella of the British Journal of General Practice published–and a day later unpublished–a laudatory piece about the Lightning Process from a Lightning Process practitioner. The author, Anna Chellamuthu, is also a GP at Royal Cornwall Hospital. She wrote that the controversial program combining neurolinguistic program, osteopathy and life-coaching cured…

  • The Usual Suspects Promote a Psychosocial “Research Agenda” for Long Covid

    In what could be described as a form of epistemic land grab, core members of the graded exercise therapy/cognitive behavior therapy (GET/CBT) ideological brigades have proposed a “research agenda” for long Covid that reflects the premises of their crumbling treatment paradigm for ME/CFS. This is not surprising. It has been clear from the early reports…

  • My Letter Responding to Norway Health Leader’s Efforts to Denigrate My “Activist” Work

    Updated on March 2, 2022: Yesterday I received a thoughtful note from Professor Miek Jong in response to my recent letter to her (see below) regarding the effort on the part of a leading Norwegian doctor to denigrate my work by describing me as an “activist.” I have sent Professor Jong the following answer: Dear…

  • The Lancet Publishes Whine de Coeur from Impassioned GET/CBT Defenders

    The Lancet has just published an anguished whine de coeur from supporters of the graded exercise therapy/cognitive behavior therapy/ [GET/CBT] approach to ME/CFS. (Or CFS/ME, as these authors insist on calling the illness in what those familiar with the debate will recognize as a childish fit of pique.) These impassioned members of the GET/CBT ideological…

  • My Exchange of Letters on Amygdala Retraining; That Undead Lightning Process Study

    Earlier this week, I wrote to Helena Liira of the Helsinki University Central Hospital about a new trial of “amygdala and insula retraining” for so-called “functional disorders”—fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome along with ME/CFS and long Covid. (I critiqued the trial here.) In particular, I wondered how the investigators justified use of the phrase “amygdala…

  • More on the Dutch CBT Long Covid Trial; Finnish Study of “Amygdala Retraining” Program

    Update: I have sent the following letter to the responsible person listed on the clinical trial registration for the Finnish study of “amygdala and insula retraining”: Dear Dr Lira– I am a public health researcher and journalist with the Center for Global Public Health, part of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. I frequently comment on research in…

  • CBT for CFS Should Target “Problematic Worry,” Says New Study from Professor Chalder

    Apparently, after 30+ years of promoting cognitive behavior therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (so-called), Professor Trudie Chalder has discovered something new: Patients worry a lot! And those with worse symptoms tend to have higher worry levels! She believes CBT for CFS can be tweaked to make a difference. She presents this information in a new…

  • Does “Long Covid” Need Rebranding As “Ongoing Covid-19 Recovery”?

    Now here’s a paper called “The Effects of Messaging on Expectations and Understanding of Long COVID: An Online Randomised Trial,” from researchers at the UK’s Health Security Agency. Two of the nine authors, including the senior author who conceived the study, are also affiliated with a National Institute for Health Research unit that partners with…