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I strongly suspect that the patients studied are in no way representative of hypermobility in children (forget the EDS). They will be children with fatigue and pain problems who have been referred to a local physio who has it in their head that pain and fatigue go with 'EDS' and so get referred...

Oh dear. Maybe the treatments don't actually work.

Aha, not so fast! A controlled trial is not just a trial with controls. It is a trial with appropriate, or adequate, controls. In a similar vein a fastened seat belt is not just a seat belt with fasteners. Unfortunately, that 'controlled' implies 'adequately controlled' is never mentioned...

I had previously assumed it was likely that this video has remained mysterious because Wessely and colleagues were advised that it should not be discussed - probably because the author was deemed to be mentally ill. If that were the case it was clearly irresponsible for Wessely even to hint at...

POTS, EDS and MCAS are variously used to describe the clinical problems of people with real illnesses but I am not convinced that any of them are 'real illnesses' in the sense of being watertight categories. POTS is used both to describe a physiological measurement and a 'syndrome' that seems...

Not sure why it became such an issue with cfs. But ME Society directed a lot of hostility to psychs and it was quite demoralising. Almost as bad as that Gandhi fella, wot!

It would be interesting to know what members of the NICE guidelines committee thought about the validity of these figures from the study and in what way that might differ from PACE etc. It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that any therapy that teaches patients to say they are better will lead...

I think this study, like the SMILE trial, may be useful in showing just how close the overlap is between so-called respectable science like PACE and complete junk. And the Cook Islands meeting makes it look very much as if these are all chums with the same aim of making money out of...

I don't this deserves to be called an article. It is pseudoscience dressed up in the form of a scientific article by a private clinic. Anybody can make stuff like this up. It is full of contradictions. It is stuff like this that makes me think the whole POTS/EDS/MCAS story is junk. There are...

The remaining worry about vaping is that you still have nicotine addiction and nicotine is a very powerful vasoactive agent. I am not sure how much harm it does but I am glad I am not addicted to it. It seems to be as bad as heroin from the addiction point of view.

Despite the fact that the experts say they are not paid to hype e-cigarettes they seem very keen to sound as if they are. presumably they are so used to hyping things they don't know what else to do. The message I get from this study is that people trying to give up smoking are more likely to...

As we have been told on another thread these 40% of cases do not actually have a medical condition. They need to play chess. Psychotherapists are much too expensive these days.

As I indicated in a previous universe the original meaning was: Cardigan Bleu Thérapeutique

Yes, it seems this is a rather anomalous situation that might perhaps be more open to misrepresentation than the usual one.

It is not allowed. So it inevitably involves a misrepresentation when signing that approval has been obtained. How often this happens I have no idea. My past experience makes me think it would be quite hard to do a study without the right ethics approval because there is regular monitoring of...

Thanks @large donner, I don't think I previously knew of those details.

I do not remember that Stephen Holgate had anything to do with Keith's harassment - which I understand fortunately got no traction.

There may be several journalists lazy enough not to question the old activist narrative. However, I suspect there are not very many who are going to make this the theme of a piece having done some homework. They may be countable on the fingers of one hand - even that of a two-toed sloth. Most of...

I agree that repeated testing over a period of days would be interesting. However, I would not suggest trying to push up to any thresholds. I would be interested to see what happens with the sort of low level aerobic activity that can induce PEM. I have never really understood the value of...

I can confirm that Dr Racaniello's recommendation has not been taken up. I have not been contacted by any journalist. I will not be surprised whether or not a piece appears. But I am surprised that a journalist would be naive enough to have come this far, unless of course someone is pushing...