Trial By Error, by David Tuller
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From UK’s National Health Service, “Your COVID Recovery”
In the UK, the National Health Service has launched a website called “Your COVID Recovery,” part of its strategy for coping with the after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This effort is geared toward “supporting your recovery after COVID-19.” In other words, it appears to be targeting the “long-haulers,” as those experiencing lingering symptoms after an…
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Some Stuff to Read and Watch From Rivka, Natalie & Anil
Massachussetts writer Rivka Solomon has had moderate* [I initially wrote “severe,” and Rivka corrected me.] ME for many years but still manages to get out there (metaphorically) and organize lots of stuff. A couple of years ago, she arranged a talk for me to give about the PACE trial debacle at a Boston-area hospital. She’s…
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Disinformation About Treatments for Post-Covid Syndrome
Professor Trudie Chalder is a lead investigator of a series of studies of rehabilitative interventions for so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” that have failed to meet expectations but have nevertheless been promoted as demonstrating treatment success. The piece of crap known as the PACE trial is a prime example. Most famously, Professor Chalder declared at the…
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Columbia Experts Urge BMJ to Retract Problem-Plagued Study
On Thursday, Professors Vincent Racaniello and Mady Hornig, both from Columbia University, wrote to BMJ’s research integrity coordinator. I have been corresponding with BMJ, and specifically the research integrity coordinator, about the Norwegian study of cognitive behavior therapy combined with music therapy as a treatment for chronic fatigue in adolescents after acute EBV infection (known…
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Another Letter About BMJ’s Music Therapy Study
I am still waiting for answers from BMJ about the Norwegian study of cognitive behavior therapy plus music therapy for treatment of chronic fatigue in adolescents after mononucleosis. The study was published in BMJ Paediatrics Open. I have written about it here. This morning I sent the following letter to the BMJ research integrity coordinator…
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No Evidence for CBT and Other “Conversion Disorder” Therapies
I have recently written critically about the CODES trial of cognitive behavior therapy as a treatment for the phenomena that have long been called “psychogenic non-epileptic seizures” but that some neurologists and psychologists are trying to rebrand as “dissociative seizures.” (Many people understandably find it offensive to be told they have a “psychogenic” disorder; perhaps…
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NICE on Exercise and Post-Covid Syndrome
As post-covid syndrome has emerged as a major public health concern, so has the likelihood that members of the biopsychosocial ideological brigades will roll out their typical interventions for the “long-haulers”–patients suffering from profound exhaustion and other symptoms for many weeks and months after getting infected with the coronavirus. The situation has created an unforeseen…
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Excellent News Coverage of UK Genetics Study in The Times
Note: The DecodeME team held a Facebook Q-and-A this week. If you want more information about the study, you can watch the video here. Two major UK government funding agencies recently announced grants totalling £3.2 million to support a major genetics study of ME. Whatever the long-term findings of DecodeME, spearheaded by the CFS/ME Research…
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Nudge for BMJ About Music Therapy; Letter to “Health Anxiety” Expert
I have written two more letters and have posted them below. The first letter is a nudge to BMJ’s research integrity department, which missed a deadline this week for providing me with an update on the status of that music therapy study from Norway. You know, the one that started off as a fully powered…
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Now There’s CBT for ‘Health Anxiety’ in CFS
In late December, the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology published an article called “Prevalence and treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and co-morbid severe health anxiety.” This paper, from investigators at the University of Bath and Oxford University, actually included two separate studies documenting the purported relationship between a construct called “health anxiety”…
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A Few Interesting Studies
I’m always highlighting dodgy research from the CBT/GET ideological brigades. These studies are fun to tear apart (metaphorically and sometimes literally), but it’s also nice to be able to recommend some decent research. Below are a few recent papers that I have found to be of interest. All of them were published by the journal…
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My Letter to Author of CODES Commentary
Earlier today, I sent the following letter to Dr David Perez, a neurologist and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr Perez, an expert on functional neurological disorders, wrote a commentary for Lancet Psychiatry that accompanied the publication of the results for CODES, a major study of cognitive behavior therapy as a treatment for…