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Yet that is exactly the view of researchers in the field. They cannot personally think of a better way, so they assume their inadequate trials are good enough. Note: Professor Bentall co-authored the Powell 2001 et al. graded exercise 'education' trial and the FINE trial. See also...

Notably, there has been no studies that actually ask patients which outcome measures are most relevant. Likewise, none of the PROMs have been tested to determine whether patients find them relevant, despite two systematic reviews on PROMs suggesting this is a major problem.

Horton is rushing out a book on COVID19 this month. I'm trying to remember what he was saying about travel restrictions and other COVID related issues back in Jan/Feb... It's easy to throw stones at people in glass houses... edit - seems he was somewhat concerned from Feb 1st, but didn't make...

Apparently (according to Richard Bentall) I'm profoundly ignorant as I believe that a lack of patient blinding can lead to response biases when patients talk to assessors and this bias reverts to the mean at long term followups. Richard Bentall is in the camp that believes that unblinded trials...

No one wants to point out the emperor has no clothes because it means we would necessarily throw out a lot of evidence for non-pharmacological therapies for many different conditions. It means that many people would have to admit they were at least partially wrong (from policy makers, to...

It's also important to consider that there is a difference between placebo effects and reporting biases. The former would be actual reduction in pain (in the case of trials of analgesics/anaesthesia), rather than a change (bias) in pain reporting behaviour. Both placebo effects and reporting...

Indeed, torturing mice with forced swims might cause fatigue, but it certainly isn't CFS or ME. Side note: Heme oxygenase is HSP32. Heme is broken down into biliverdin (ultimately bilirubin) and Fe2+ Gilbert's syndrome is not uncommon in CFS patients, suggesting this pathway has increased...

The "compromise" is to simply lump all studies that don't meet basic quality criteria into a "low quality evidence" basket. If all studies fall into this group, then the study must simply conclude all the evidence is of low quality. (The basic quality criteria would require studies to use...

Isn't that kind of arbitrary? I mean any highly specific criteria is going to need sufficient scientific justification and I cannot think of any reasonable justification for excluding a study with 450 participants, instead requiring 500+

If the "pivotal" study was actually excluded because it was of low quality, eg unblinded comparison groups, did not use objective outcome measures and the primary outcome measures had never been tested for relevance to patients (by asking them!), then I'd suggest that the review was correct in...

I believe you are referring to the "original antigenic sin" hypothesis? https://www.jimmunol.org/content/202/2/335

September? Why even bother at all!?!

I wonder if this can be used to estimate disease burden weightings?

CD4+ T-cells are supposed to have some degree of cross reactivity with the viral proteins, even without prior exposure, otherwise the adaptive immune system would never work correctly! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_T_cell But on the point I was making, the claim that there could be...

Further on the topic of "asymptomatic", The Chinese authorities claim they have tested 9.9 million people in Wuhan!!! They claim 300 positive results, however they tried (and failed) to culture live virus from 106 of these samples to see if they were genuine. They also collected 3,343...

I was never a coffee drinker before I was ill, but I've always found it to be counter productive. It counters drowsiness, but it can make it harder to concentrate, so what is the point?

Continuing on with what Michiel mentioned, the full quote: Mhmm... Which means the "symptom amplification" hypothesis (that attentional bias or hypervigilance actually increases somatosensory signals or "heightened perceived threat and vulnerability") has no basis and it is simply...

JB Handley is also a vaccines-cause-autism guy.

That is a modelling study with far too many questionable assumptions. As such, it is important not to confuse pre-symptomatic and individuals who are deliberately not reporting symptoms (there is a strong incentive to do so if you wish to disembark!) with being asymptomatic. Likewise, PCR...

Yes, participation biases, a desire to please the investigators, and the fact that this is not an unheard of explanation can lead to an exaggeration of questionnaire reports.