Category: ME/CFS

One of Mahana Therapeutics’ business advisers is Dr Harpreet Sood, identified as the National Health Service’s associate chief clinical information officer. (Actually, Mahana seems to have it wrong; it looks like Dr Sood is still be at the NHS but moved on a while ago to another position. I guess accuracy isn’t Mahana’s strong suit.…

Back in February, I wrote to some science advisers to Mahana Therapeutics to alert them to the company’s unjustified claims about the impact of its web-based program on the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Two of them–Dr Peter Lu and Dr Carlo di Lorenzo–are gastroenterology specialists at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, a renowned…

If you appreciate this piece and/or my work in general, here’s a link to my current UC Berkeley crowdfunding effort: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/20159 Today I sent a third letter to Dr Mel Heyman, a prominent gastroenterologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr Heyman is one of Mahana Therapeutics’ science advisers. I’ve been trying to understand why…

Given that Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has removed the coronavirus-and-fatigue pamphlet containing the antidiluvian medical advice, I have sent a freedom-of-information request to follow up on one I sent the other day. Dear FOI office: I am a public health researcher and journalist at the University of California, Berkeley. I recently filed a freedom of information…

In this traumatic time, small victories should be savored. Last week, I noticed a tweet from patient and advocate Tom Kindlon about a pamphlet from the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, the entity that oversees NHS services in the Oxford region. Other patients and advocates also flagged it on social media and sent it to…

If you appreciate this piece and/or my work in general, here’s a link to my current UC Berkeley crowdfunding effort: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/20159 As I reported yesterday (oops!–it was Thursday, not yesterday–this is a correction made a few minutes after posting!), the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, which oversees NHS services in the area, recently published a pamphlet…

On the Mahana Therapeutics website, Robert Paull, the CEO and co-founder, explains in a statement that his personal interest in developing treatments for GI problems arose out of the longtime suffering of a family member. His account is heartfelt and compelling. Unfortunately, Mr Paull and his company have placed their bets on the wrong horse.…

If you appreciate this piece and/or my work in general, here’s a link to my current UC Berkeley crowdfunding effort: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/20159 Since the coronavirus epidemic hit, people with ME have been concerned about the possibility of a secondary wave of post-COVID-19 cases of prolonged disease–especially given emerging evidence of neurological complications of the illness. Key investigators…

As the world continues to wrestle with the coronavirus epidemic, President Trump is calling on us here in the US to get back to work. So I decided to start seeking answers again from Mahana Therapeutics, which announced in January that it had licensed a web-based cognitive behavior therapy program for irritable bowel syndrome from…

At this time two years ago, I was in Australia on a six-week work trip. As part of my tour, I visited Perth so I could meet and spent a little time with Alem Matthees. I also got to spend time with his lovely family–his mom Helen, his step-dad Jim, and his sister Mya, who…

This is another non-coronavirus post–my second in two days. Before we were interrupted, I had been looking more into so-called “medically unexplained symptoms,” or MUS. A recently published study with data on the length of time needed to obtain a diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus, commonly known as lupus, has highlighted some of the core problems…

In the days before coronavirus was everything, I was writing about a major study of cognitive behavior therapy for irritable bowel syndrome. The study tested telephone-delivered cognitive behavior therapy, web-based CBT against treatment-as-usual for IBS symptom severity and other more generic domains. Although the pre-COVID era feels like ancient history already, my last post on…