Trial By Error, by David Tuller
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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…
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CODES Trial Commentary Promotes ‘Eminence-Based Medicine’
By all accounts, the recently published CODES trial was the most authoritative study to date of whether cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) was an effective treatment for so-called dissociative seizures–a point confirmed in a commentary accompanying the paper in Lancet Psychiatry. Unfortunately, the CODES investigators and the commentary author seem to interpret the null results for…
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UK Funds Genetics Project; My Letter to CODES Investigators
UK Funding for Major Genetics ME Study Two of the UK’s largest public funding agencies announced this week that they would provide £3.2 million (around $4 million at current rates) for a study that will analyze genetic material from as many as 20,000 people to search for underlying causes of myalgic encephalomyelitis. The Medical Research…
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More Questions About CODES Trial of CBT for Seizures
[*In the last paragraph, I mistakenly referred to the CODES protocol rather than the CODES statistical analysis plan. I apologize for the error.] I have recently written about CODES, the high-profile clinical trial investigating whether cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) could reduce the frequency of dissociative seizures, also known as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. The trial, published…
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BMJ Responds to Appeals About Norway’s CBT-Music Therapy Study
Earlier this week, I sent a nudge to Professor Imti Choonara, editor-in-chief of BMJ Paediatrics Open, and Fiona Godlee, editorial director of BMJ, about a problematic “feasibility study” published a few months ago. That followed a letter two weeks ago, to which I had not received a response. Previous posts on this issue are here…