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It seems the article was written by a freelance journalist often used by BMJ. If an article is going to be so heavily politically loaded you would have thought it better written by the editor. This is presumably a way of keeping the head below the parapet.

it would fit with the theory that this 'illness' is essentially a political construct designed to placate the bruised feelings of the intelligence/diplomatic community at a time when they are finding themselves unwanted. Sure people will have been ill. But the tweet with the MRI says "The CIA...

Not that I am aware of.

As indicated on another thread, NICE seem very confused about what conflict of interest means. Charles has no conflict of interest because his interest onNICE and his interest at MEA are identical - providing honest information for the benefit of PWME. For the therapists the situation is very...

Moved post I think Charles is right not to challenge this since the report is all but completed. But there seems be a serious confusion at N ICE about 'conflict of interest'. Just to note that for a psychologist or physio member of the committee the decision whether or not to recommend these...

My mental arithmetic suggests that about 35% of men with RA wouldn't have had it if they hadn't smoked and about 16% of women with RA. So in women the great majority got RA for other reasons. Since about three quarters people withRA are women the overall figure may be about 20%. That is...

I think the causal role of smoking in RA is pretty well established and it is not small, even if not as dramatic as lung cancer. I think there is a specific link between smoking, antibodies to citrullinated peptides and HLA DR4. It looks as if cigarette smoke contains innate chemical danger...

That just seems to be an observation on this pattern of B cell increase. Smoking is the most important environmental causal factor for rheumatoid arthritis so we know it does things to B cells. B cell counts in ME have a normal range in samples of about 50 cases but PPBL is said to be rare...

All but two patients with PPBL suffered from a progressive long-lasting fatigue. Yes, but well people with PPBL probably mostly never get diagnosed and people with more specific symptoms may well get them attributed to something else. I am not saying that is the whole story but working from a...

Yes, I did see the reference to Dr7 and the isochromosome which may make it worth considering an entity of genuine interest. Maybe having a lot of confused lymphocytes is one way in to ME. But ti sounded as if most people with PPBL were pretty well. There may be a clue here but the study looks...

I think there may be a major spurious element to this. PPBL seems really just to mean people with rather high B cell counts, and B cell counts are known to vary greatly without it mattering. Maybe starting off with 'patients' with PBBL is a self-fulfilling move. What if we change the definition...

That's so. But to validate the concept of individualisation it is pretty neat.

A cunning ruse, @Keela Too .

It used to be called palmistry.

Yes, it is intriguing @Esther12. I have been having a discussion on HealthWatch (where a lot of people have worked to dislodge homeopathy from the NHS). Just this morning it came to me that the comment (source confidential but maybe now found in any BACME type mag), that it didn't really matter...

But this would be indirect - detecting supposedly specific phage DNA patterns. And all you need is some leeway in the primers and overcooking and you have false positives, if my experience is anything to go by. I agree with Milo that a link up with Red Labs is not encouraging.

Why do the same names and the same organisations keep reappearing in this story and in such paradoxical ways? (A rhetorical question.)

This reads like a student essay assignment. (In fact the assignment is likely to have been given to the senior author who passed it down to a fresh junior wanting publications.) It is devoid of any intelligent analysis and nobody has proof read the English properly. Complete drivel again I am...

I find Dr McFarlane's approach a bit scattershot and he obviously has his own agenda but I was having a conversation with Nick Ross on another forum couple of days ago and I find the connections suggested in this blog interesting!

Floaters can be seen on standard slit lamp examination. I have had them for decades according to my ophthalmologists and opticians.