Trial By Error

Category: Commentary

  • An open letter to Psychological Medicine, again!

    Last week, Virology Blog posted an open letter to the editors of Psychological Medicine. The letter called on them to retract the misleading findings that participants in the PACE trial for ME/CFS had “recovered” from cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy. More than 100 scientists, clinicians, other experts and patient organizations signed the letter.…

  • The Dutch Studies (Again!), and an Esther Crawley Bonus

    Wow, the research from the CBT/GET crowd in The Netherlands never ceases to amaze. Like the work of their friends in the U.K., each study comes up with new ways to be bad. It’s almost too easy to poke holes in these things. And yet the investigators appear unable to restrain themselves from making extremely…

  • A Follow-Up Post on FITNET-NHS

    Last week’s post on FITNET-NHS and Esther Crawley stirred up a lot of interest. I guess people get upset when researchers cite shoddy “evidence” from poorly designed trials to justify foisting psychological treatments on kids with a physiological disease. I wanted to post some additional bits and pieces related to the issue. I sent Dr.…

  • The New FITNET Trial for Kids

    The past year has been a disaster for proponents of the PACE trial. They have faced growing international resistance to their exaggerated claims that cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy are effective treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as ME/CFS. The recent court-ordered release of key trial data has confirmed what was long…

  • The Real Data

    ‘The PACE trial is a fraud.’ Ever since Virology Blog posted my 14,000-essord investigation of the PACE trial last October, I’ve wanted to write that sentence. (I should point out that Dr. Racaniello has already called the PACE trial a “sham,” and I’ve already referred to it as “doggie-poo.” I’m not sure that “fraud” is…

  • My Questions for Lancet Editor Richard Horton

    In January, I posted a list of the questions I still wanted to ask the PACE authors, who have repeatedly refused my requests to interview them about their ethically and methodologically challenged study. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, has similarly declined to talk with me, ignoring my e-mails seeking comment for the initial investigation,…

  • Once Again, Lancet Stumbles on PACE

    Last February, Virology Blog posted an open letter to The Lancet and its editor, Dr. Richard Horton, describing the indefensible flaws of the PACE trial of treatments for ME/CFS, the disease otherwise known as chronic fatigue syndrome (link to letter). Forty-two well-regarded scientists, academics and clinicians put their names to the letter, which declared flatly…

  • A Few Words About “Harassment”

    David Tuller is academic coordinator of the concurrent masters degree program in public health and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.   Last week, a commentary in Nature about the debate over data-sharing in science made some excellent points. Unfortunately, the authors lumped “hard-line opponents” of research into chronic fatigue syndrome with those who question climate…

  • More Nonsense from The Lancet Psychiatry

    David Tuller is academic coordinator of the concurrent masters degree program in public health and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.   The PACE authors have long demonstrated great facility in evading questions they don’t want to answer. They did this in their response to correspondence about the original 2011 Lancet paper. They did it again…

  • Did the PACE Trial Really Prove that Graded Exercise Is Safe?

    By Julie Rehmeyer and David Tuller, DrPH Julie Rehmeyer is a journalist and Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who has written extensively about ME/CFS. Joining me for this episode of our ongoing saga is my friend and colleague Julie Rehmeyer. In my initial series, I only briefly touched on the PACE trial’s blanket claim of…

  • Questions for Dr. White and his PACE Colleagues

    I have been seeking answers from the PACE researchers for more than a year. At the end of this post, I have included the list of questions I’d compiled by last September, when my investigation was nearing publication. Most of these questions remain unanswered. The PACE researchers are currently under intense criticism for having rejected…

  • Revisiting the PLoS One economics analysis of PACE

    On October 23rd, virology blog published the third installment of David Tuller’s investigative report about the PACE study of treatments for ME/CFS. In the post, Dr. Tuller demonstrated that the key finding of an economic analysis of the PACE trial, published in PLoS One in 2012, was almost certainly false. The finding–that cognitive behavior therapy…