Trial By Error

Tag: Long Covid

  • Journal Editorial Calls for Caution in Exercise-Based Rehab Programs for Long COVID

    The Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy recently published an editorial called  “Humility and Acceptance: Working Within Our Limits With Long COVID and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.” The editorial emerged from a collaboration between rehabilitation specialists and patients, mostly from Canada. It confronts the conundrum of whether those experiencing what is called Long…

  • Prof Sharpe Fact-Checks Comment on Blog About How George Monbiot Is Causing Long COVID

    In a surprising development, Professor Michael Sharpe has left a comment on a blog I posted yesterday. The blog was about Professor Sharpe’s apparent belief that Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Long COVID support groups, among others, are causing the wave of prolonged symptoms being reported by many thousands of people after confirmed or presumed…

  • Guardian Columnist George Monbiot Is Causing Long COVID, Says Professor Michael Sharpe

    In a remarkable display of—well, I’m not even sure what to call it–Professor Michael Sharpe has blamed Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Long COVID support groups, among others, for the wave of people reporting prolonged symptoms after acute bouts of COVID-19. And during the same February presentation in which he made those observations, Professor Sharpe…

  • Long COVID, the Long COVID Alliance, and ME International

    The advent of Long COVID has brought an enormous amount of attention to the illness or cluster of illnesses collectively known these days as ME/CFS. That attention is not always positive, as we saw recently with a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that dismissed both ME/CFS and Long COVID as forms of mental illness. The…

  • Biopsychosocial Brigades Seek Traction with Long Covid

    Last week, two major articles on long Covid appeared in well-known US publications—one in the Atlantic, the other in Vox. Like the New York Times Magazine article that ran in January, these stories addressed with nuance the complex and unclear relationship between the varieties of long Covid and the group of entities collectively known these…

  • National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins on Plans for Long COVID Research

    The US government seems to be taking Long COVID seriously. In December, Congress allocated $1.15 billion over four years for research into the issue. This week, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, announced the agency’s plans for that funding. (I’ve posted his announcement in full below.) In a post last month he…

  • New Biopsychosocial Paper on Long-Covid and Somatic Symptom Disorder

    Biopsychosocial Campaigners Target Long-Covid New papers from the biopsychosocial campaigners often provide opportunities to highlight unwarranted assertions, misleading use of data, and—in particular–associations interpreted as if they were causal relationships and not, well, associations. An article co-authored by Trudie Chalder, a professor of cognitive behavioural therapy at King’s Collge London, and published recently in the…

  • Professor Paul Garner’s BMJ Blog Post on His Powerful Cognitions

    Professor Paul Garner, an infectious disease doctor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, has had a rough time with long-Covid. He has written about his experiences in a series of compelling blog posts on BMJ’s site. At first, he bonded with members of the ME/CFS community and expressed shock at the shoddy treatment these…

  • The Observer Slips Up; ME Association Responds

    News organizations continue to misrepresent ME (and its various iterations) in their coverage of what has come to be called long-Covid. A current UK example is Sunday’s Observer article by writer Eleanor Morgan, who is experiencing prolonged symptoms since falling ill last spring. (It’s on The Guardian site; the two organizations are linked in some…

  • Professor Chew-Graham’s Apparent Shift in Position on GET/CBT

    Carolyn Chew-Graham, a professor of general practice research at Keele University in Staffordshire , is a longtime proponent of psycho-behavioral interventions for so-called “medically unexplained symptoms,” or MUS—a category in which she and her colleagues include the illness they call chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis. She and other members of the biopsychosocial ideological brigades have long…

  • UK Docs Speak Up on Long-Covid; Mayo Shifts Gears (a Little)

    Doctors in UK urge caution on long-Covid exercise advice Despite BMJ’s current dereliction of key editorial oversight responsibilities, it has provided a forum for members of the medical community with Covid-19 and post-Covid symptoms to express their strong views. The reference to current dereliction of key editorial responsibilities involves a case I and others have…

  • Some Stuff about Long-Covid, BMJ and ME

    It is clear that there will be much grappling going forward over the similarities and differences between long-Covid and ME (or CFS, or ME/CFS, or whatever this illness or cluster of illnesses is being called). The two entities overlap in some ways, but no one should conflate them. We are past the pandemic’s half-year mark.…