Trial By Error

Category: ME/CFS

  • Some National Health Service Branches Fail to Respond to New NICE Guidelines for ME/CFS

    In late October, the UK’s National institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) released its new ME/CFS guideline, which specifically recommend against graded exercise therapy (GET) and a specialized form of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Last week, I wrote about how King’s College London continues to host a page on “CBT and chronic fatigue syndrome,”…

  • Is Something Shifting at the Science Media Centre?

    For years, London’s Science Media Centre has fiercely promoted research into graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for the illness or cluster of illnesses variously referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome, myalgic encephaloymyelitis, CFS/ME, ME/CFS, and other names. Some of the prominent experts in this field have had close relationships with this…

  • Authors Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt and Nasim Marie Jafry Discuss Their Novels

    It is hard enough to write when you’re feeling healthy. So I’m in awe of people who manage to write despite suffering from a debilitating chronic illness—especially one that messes around with cognitive functioning. That number includes some ME patients who have written novels. (I don’t write fiction; I have a hard enough time keeping…

  • King’s College London Is Still Hyping “Bespoke” CBT for CFS as “Recommended” in UK

    A week ago, Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published its new, evidence-based guideline for ME/CFS, which recommended against graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavior therapy offered as curative rather than as supportive care. Not surprisingly, this event creates some public relations problems for members of the CBT/GET ideological brigades, who have spent…

  • PACE Authors Now Blame “Misunderstandings” for GET/CBT Criticisms

    It is hard to know what to make of the news that a peer-reviewed journal has actually accepted a PACE-reunion paper from the three lead investigators—Professors Michael Sharpe, Trudie Chalder, and Peter White. Even more so for a paper titled–without irony, it seems–“Evidence based care for people with chronic fatigue syndrome and myalgic encephalomyelitis.” This…

  • NICE Announces Upcoming Release of ME/CFS Guideline After Prolonged Hostage Drama

    Two days following a high-profile meeting with opponents and supporters of its new-but-still-unpublished ME/CFS guideline, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence announced on Wednesday that it plans to release the document next week. The decision comes after a powerful cabal of medical practitioners held the process hostage for two months with unwarranted…

  • Advocates Issue Hopeful Comments After NICE Pow-Wow on ME/CFS Guideline

    Two months ago, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) abruptly delayed publication of its new ME/CFS clinical guideline under fierce objections from the GET/CBT ideological brigades and their minions. Today (Monday, October 18th), the agency hosted a meeting to allow these powerful dissenters from some of the British medical associations grandly…

  • North Bristol NHS Trust’s Biased Survey of Patients Attending “CFS/ME Specialist Services”

    *October is crowdfunding month at Berkeley. I conduct this project as a senior fellow in public health and journalism at the university’s Center for Global Public Health. If you would like to support the project with a donation to Berkeley (tax-deductible for US taxpayers), here’s the place: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/27513 Two years ago, the North Bristol NHS…

  • Professor Lubet’s Take on The New Yorker’s Long Covid Article

    I wrote a post last month about the recent wave of Long Covid coverage—some of it excellent (The Atlantic) and some way over the edge in its assertions of psychogenic causation of symptoms (The American Spectator, Spiked). Then there was the seemingly sympathetic New Yorker article by a physician, with its more subtle form of…

  • UC Berkeley’s October Crowdfunding Campaign

    When I launched the Trial By Error project in 2015 with a 15,000-word investigation of the piece of crap known more formally as the PACE trial, I had no idea I was launching anything. I figured it was a one-off. After all, could such a disaster of a study really survive the sort of in-depth…

  • BBC’s Problematic Coverage of New Long COVID Study

    Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting an equivalence between COVID-19 and influenza has been a consistent approach among those seeking to downplay the current situation. So it’s not surprising to see something similar happen with comparisons between Long COVID and the delayed recovery some people experience after an acute bout of the flu.…

  • Good Long Covid Coverage from Atlantic; Skeptical Coverage from New Yorker and Others

    On September 1st, The Atlantic published another excellent piece by Ed Yong—“Long-haulers are fighting for their future.” In exploring how this population has confronted widespread misunderstanding in the medical community, the article highlighted the links between the experiences of Long Covid and ME/CFS patients by focusing on the crucial symptom of post-exertional malaise. That led…