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Well played, Parry. Well played. I hope the naming and shaming continues. So many, many parallels to our own situation as PwMEs.

This is an interesting change of tack. Up till recently, the PACE authors have dismissed patient charity surveys on the grounds that they are inherently unreliable, because people who join these groups are socialised to believe they are ill. I think they realise that gives away too much about...

Fascinating explanation, @Jonathan Edwards. I was a bit excited about this study, because it followed so closely on the heels of that recent one examining individuals in first episode schizophrenia - the one that examined various blood markers of inflammation, and found them to be higher in...

If its any comfort, the mod team do keep an eye out for people purporting to be someone they're not. All are welcome, but they should not misrepresent themselves for nefarious purposes. It would actually be pretty stupid for someone to join up under false pretences, because once they're logged...

I noticed that Michael Sharpe has retweeted the article. Which is quite revealing. Means he's all for reviving the anti-science death threats narrative. Interesting to know, just in case you were starting to believe his 'just a trial' line. If questioned, he might protest that "retweet does...

Yes, I'm also a bit tired of the "we should be congratulated for taking these people seriously" line. If claiming patients are just imagining they're ill, and need reeducation to set them straight, they're not taking us all that seriously. Sure, they stop short of saying patients are...

This: Perfectly summarised. Its huge.

bioarxiv.org is a big thing in science at the moment. One of the key strands of the open science movement is the posting of preprints so that people can get early feedback on their work, and so that studies that yield null results and are therefore hard to publish don't vanish from existence...

Yea. My take on the Bishop reply is that she is kind of uncomfortable with the fringey-ness of LP, but can see absolutely nothing wrong with the way the trial was conducted. This enables her maintain a position that Schrodinger would be proud of: able to support her follow SMC member, while at...

I'm really glad @Indigophoton, that you took the time to tag this article with "head scraping", so that members wishing to locate head scraping material can find it quickly!

I love that sad, deflated one on the right. Edit: Duh! I see I wasn't the first to mention that!

OMG, I just realised that this is EXACTLY what people say about ME!

Isn't this exactly what is said about MECFS? If there was a biological abnormality beneath it, we would have found it by now? All of us here are aware of how that sort of reasoning can lead to real harm. Actually, in some depression subgroups, 'biological abnormalities' have been found, such as...

The article is interesting and troubling at the same time. Sure, I agree that a lot of what is classed as depression and medicated for is just distress due to circumstances. When I first got ill, I was very upset about the loss of my life. After two years of really incapacitating illness (most...

Prof Bishop does come across as sincere. And she seems to genuinely believe that Crawley was just testing LP out of some sort of commitment to the scientific process, in spite of having doubts about it (we know that story is false). I think she probably genuinely believes that these researchers...

So many inferences made from fMRI data are problematic. But isn't it good to know that we are making those problematic inferences based on the most expensive, high resolution scanner available. That's a great comfort.

I am very worried about the Edwards-Harrison contingent, and feel strongly that research needs to start with the periphery, and only progress to the brain once we have something more to go on. Else anything that's found could potentially be misused as a justification for sending PwMEs back into...

Very nice, simple, clear and powerful letter, @Lou Corsius. I hope it will reach the right ears.

Yes, I think you have to avoid opioids, and that includes things like codeine ( I've found panadeine to be useful when really ill, so that was a bummer). I think there are bigger downsides for men, something to do with the drug enhancing estrogen production.

Update: I'm still continuing to have some better periods on cimetidine. So less days in bed, more days where I can be active. Last week, some days that I felt 100% back to normal. Of course, I still can't tell if this is just a good patch anyway - could have nothing to do with the cimetidine.