Category: Syndicated
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Three Blogs–Julie Rehmeyer on Beth Mazur’s Death; Whitney Dafoe on Real Life; Elke Hausmann on Exercise and “The Salt Path”
Two years ago, Beth Mazur, who co-founded #MEAction and spent years advocating for better care and more research, committed suicide during a stay with her close friend and fellow person with ME, Julie Rehmeyer. It is hard to imagine what feels unimaginable—the shock and pain of finding the body of someone you love in their…
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Letter to eClinicalMedicine about Exercise Recommendations in Flawed Meta-Analysis of Long COVID Interventions
A journal under the Lancet umbrella, eClinicalMedicine, recently published a study from China called “Effects of therapeutic interventions on long COVID: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” (I wrote about it here.) The authors themselves determined that most of the research they included was, to be charitable, on the crappy side. Nonetheless, they claimed “high-certainty…
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Hungarian Experts Make Goulash out of NICE Guidelines
In April, the Hungarian journal Orvosi Hetilap [Medical Weekly] published an article called “Interdisciplinary consensus statement about the diagnosis and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelopathy.” The goal, according to the abstract, “is to provide appropriate information for professionals working in the Hungarian health care system: physicians, psychologists, physiotherapists, and dietitians.” [The journal site itself…
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Keystone Gathering Update; Anil’s Severe ME Day Video; Fractured Care for Post-Infectious Illness
Keystone gathering round-up from Sick Times Many prominent Long COVID researchers gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, last week to discuss ongoing research and brainstorm in efforts to advance the field at the second Keystone Symposia on Long COVID and other post-acute infection syndromes. The first such event was held in the same city two…
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Lancet Paper Claims “Exercise” Should be “Prioritized” in Long COVID Rehabilitation
Added: On X, @mecfsskeptic has posted a very useful thread explaining how loosely the investigators applied the meaning of “Long COVID” in accepting trials for their meta-analysis. A Lancet journal, eClinicalMedicine, has just published a paper called “Effects of therapeutic interventions on long COVID: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” The study reviewed randomized controlled…
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DecodeME Pre-Print Reports Eight “Genetic Signals” Related to Immune Function and Nervous System
People with ME/CFS differ genetically from the general population, according to the long-awaited results of the largest biological study of the disease to date. By comparing DNA samples from more than 15,000 patients with ME/CFS diagnoses to samples from those who were not diagnosed, the investigators identified eight “genetic signals,” including ones relating to immune…
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BMJ’s “Commissioned” Propaganda Piece Hijacked Death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill; Boothby O’Neill’s Mum Responds
Under the editorial leadership of Kamran Abbasi, The BMJ and other journals in BMJ Group have become, at times, mouthpieces for members of the biopsychosocial ideological brigades. That hasn’t been surprising, given his actions during his previous tenure as editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Under his stewardship, the journal published…
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After ME-Related Suicide, Second Coroner in England Issues “Report to Prevent Future Deaths”
A coroner in west England has called out the shortage of services for those with severe ME after conducting an inquest into the case of a woman with the illness who committed suicide last summer. The coroner for the Avon area, Debbie Rookes, prepared what is called a Regulation 28 Report to Prevent Future Deaths…
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Study Finds Signs of “Functional Limb Weakness” in Patients Not Reporting Actual Limb Weakness
A recently published study about functional neurological disorder (FND) has reported some perplexing data. Of almost 300 patients diagnosed with Long Covid, 100 were identified as demonstrating one or more “positive signs” for “functional limb weakness,” a form of FND. Yet only 14 of those 100 patients reported experiencing limb weakness in the first place;…
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Interview with Dutch Journalist Sander Zurhake
Sander Zurhake is an investigative reporter for Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS), a major Dutch broadcasting organization. On May 30th, NOS released television, radio and online reports about the potential harms of psycho-behavioral treatments for children with ME/CFS. In particular, the stories focused on the kind of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT, although rendered CGT in Dutch)…
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Updated Medical Textbook Still Promotes Biopsychosocial Ideology
For decades, Kumar & Clark’s Clinical Medicine has been a standard textbook for medical education around the world. Last month, Elsevier pubished the 11th edition. The miniscule section on what it calls “chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalopathy” is pathetic. This section is in a chapter called “General Hospital Psychiatry,” promotes “psychological symptoms” as a core component…