Category: ME/CFS
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Todd Davenport on Post-Exertional Symptom Exacerbation in Long Covid and ME/CFS
Todd Davenport is a professor of physical therapy at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He is also part of a research team from Workwell Foundation, an exercise physiology center in Ripon, California, that pioneered the use of 2-day cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) to document the core ME and ME/CFS symptom of post-exertional malaise (PEM).…
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In a Tub Talk, Therapist Damon Jacobs and I Discuss ME/CFS, Long Covid & AIDS Activism
Earlier today, I posted a conversation about post-exertional malaise featuring Todd Davenport, a professor of physical therapy at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. I’d conducted the interview in April but had forgotten to post it here. And here’s another video I forgot to post—what I assume is the first “tub talk” to…
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Todd Davenport on Post-Exertional Symptom Exacerbation in Long Covid and ME/CFS
Todd Davenport is a professor of physical therapy at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He is also part of a research team from Workwell Foundation, an exercise physiology center in Ripon, California, that pioneered the use of 2-day cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) to document the core ME and ME/CFS symptom of post-exertional malaise (PEM).…
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A Letter to Journal Brain About Paper Claiming POTS Is a “Functional Psychogenic Disorder”
I recently criticized a study from New York University’s neurology department. The investigators wildly over-interpreted their findings in order to argue that postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, is a “functional psychogenic disorder.” This morning, I sent a letter to Brain, the journal that published the paper, on behalf of several colleagues as well as…
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King’s College London Still Promoting Discredited CBT/GET/Deconditioning Paradigm (Update)
UPDATE, August 16, 2022: Last week, Charles Shepherd, medical advisor of the ME Association, received a response to his inquiry about the King’s College London website from an administrator at the relevant unit. Here’s the note: Dear Charles Please find below response from our Team: Thank you very much for taking the time to search our websites for us…
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Is POTS a “Functional Psychogenic Disorder”? Yes, According to NYU Research Team
Research into conditions categorized as “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS) or “functional” disorders seems rife with studies that eagerly interpret associations and correlations as causal relationships. Not surprisingly, these proposed causal relationships tend to flow in the direction required by the investigators’ hypotheses, not in the direction that would undermine their arguments. A classic example is…
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A Few Things I’ve Read (or Heard) Lately About ME/CFS and Long Covid
Here are a few things I’ve recently read (or listened to). FreakonomicsMD podcast The Freakonomics brand is well-known in the US. I didn’t realize there was a Freakonomics, M.D. podcast until I listened to this recent half-hour episode. The podcast is hosted by Dr Bapu Jena, a physician and economist at Harvard Medical School. The…
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Professor Chalder Reports CBT Does Not Work for Post-Stroke Fatigue, Calls for More Research
Calling out a Trudie Chalder paper is way too easy. It’s also old hat for Virology Blog—going back to 2015 and my initial investigation into the now-discredited PACE trial, of which she was one of three lead investigators. She is a professor of “cognitive behavioural psychotherapy” at King’s College London, so she researches the impact…
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A Conversation with Patient Advocate Adam “Beyonce Holes” Lowe
Adam Lowe, known in some incarnations as Beyonce Holes, is a longtime ME/CFS patient and advocate in Manchester, England, served as a lay member of the committee that produced the new clinical guidance published last October by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (This conversation was a follow-up to one I previously…
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Mom Speaks Out About NHS “Abuse” of Daughter; Norway Approves Lightning Process Study
On Monday, The Times (UK) published a story about a 17-year-old girl with ME who has experienced hospital treatment that her family has referred to as “neglect and abuse.” The details are harrowing—but should not be unfamiliar to people aware of similar experiences reported by other teenagers with severe ME. Parents and kids caught in…
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My Letter to BMJ Paediatrics Open About Missing Peer Reviews for Crawley Paper
I recently noted that BMJ Paediatrics Open did not publish the peer review history of a 2021 study from a team led by Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. The study (Clery et al) was titled “Qualitative study of the acceptability and feasibility of acceptance and commitment therapy…
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If Professor Crawley’s ACT Study Was Peer Reviewed, Where Are the Peer Reviews?
Yesterday, I wrote a blog about a just-published but already out-dated conference abstract from a team led by Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. After I tweeted about it, I heard from Naomi Harvey, a zoologist, who said she’d written to BJPsychOpen about the abstract’s flaws. Hopefully, she—and…