Author: David Tuller
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Update on BMJ’s CBT-Music Therapy Study (h/t Steinkopf and Tack)
I have written multiple posts this year about a Norwegian study of cognitive behavior therapy plus music therapy as a treatment for chronic fatigue after acute EBV infection (aka mononucleosis and glandular fever). The study, published in April by BMJ Paediatrics Open, was rife with methodological and ethical flaws. It should not have been accepted in the…
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The Science Media Centre and UK’s Coverage of New NICE Draft
As Trump’s legal team continues to spout nonsense rather than acknowledge that the orange balloon lost the election, core members of the UK’s biopsychosocial ideological brigades are also engaged in embarrassing denialism. Last week, a draft of new ME/CFS clinical guidelines issued by a key British health agency advised against graded exercise therapy and cognitive…
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Jennie Spotila’s Annual Review of NIH Funding
Every year, Jennie Spotila posts her analysis of annual funding for ME from the US National Institutes of Health on her invaluable blog, Occupy M.E. (On the other hand, Occupy Me is a 16-minute gay drama from 2015 about an interlude between two guys. I have no idea if it’s any good, but looks promising!)…
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NICE Draft Rejects GET, Lightning Process, and CBT-As-Cure
The draft of the new ME/CFS guidance from the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is out–posted just after midnight, London time, on Tuesday, November 10. This is the headline: The draft represents a repudiation of the GET/CBT paradigm and the deconditioning hypothesis. Here are key take-aways: *Graded exercise therapy, other interventions based…