Category: ME/CFS
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Two Reports on the Financial Burden of Long Covid and Its Impact on ME/CFS Prevalence
*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 It is clear that long Covid—however that term is defined–is having enormous impacts on employment, social benefits, disability insurance, and other domains. Even the coronavirus…
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An Interview with Meghan O’Rourke, Author of “The Invisible Kingdom”
*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 Last Friday, I interviewed poet, journalist and editor Meghan O’Rourke about The Invisible Kingdom, her insightful and affecting memoir of living with chronic illness. As…
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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…
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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I’ve been writing for a while about the rush to treat long Covid patients with the outdated and debunked approach long applied to ME/CFS.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…
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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This week, a journal under the umbrella of the British Journal of General Practice published–and a day later unpublished–a laudatory piece about the Lightning Process from a Lightning Process practitioner.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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…