Search results

I'm saying the reason why patients would reject a referral to MIND is because the treatments will be ineffective. This is what a patient would say to a medical practitioner for example, rather than I don't want that referral because "ME is a physical illness".

We knew in mid 2020 that it was BS. The problem is mildly increased cytokine levels is somehow being equated to a "storm", when this is nonsense when compared to the true cytokine release syndrome where levels are extremely high. Study of critically ill patients finds no cases...

Isn't that an an example of a secondary argument - that patients will only be offered irrelevant/ineffective treatments?

Yes, the primary argument is GET is harmful and ineffective. The 'ME is a physical disease' is merely a secondary corollary from the fact that neither cognitive behavioural therapies nor psychoactive medication is effective. Patients do need to be clearer with our arguments, because 'ME is a...

With the mention of "cytokine storm" in the abstract (which we know isn't associated with COVID), I am not expecting this one to be terribly enlightening.

The authors mistakenly assume this means that participants were actually experiencing more fatigue associated symptoms. But an alternative hypothesis is that watching the video clips simply induced response biases.

Figure 1 contains a literal circular argument - (CS) fatigue causes (CR) fatigue which cases (US) fatigue which apparently feeds back and causes (CS) fatigue. This explains the rationale of Graded Exercise Therapy (GET), which is a type of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The idea is that there...

It shows you they take claims by researchers on faith, rather than actually looking at whether the methodology is meaningful.

Drops of 27% in 3 weeks can only occur in highly trained athletes, not people within a standard deviation of the mean. It is important not to compare apples to oranges, a point which seems to have escaped those authors. Note that reference 26 is a 1968 editorial which doesn't present primary...

It means they have no idea if what they are doing will actually work. ;)

If you strip away the fancy graphics, the study is of low quality as it is a cross-sectional convenience study based entirely on questionnaires, so there is a high rate of participation bias, response bias. A better methodology would be to measure patterns of symptoms over time (prospectively)...

Six weeks is neither here nor there. Three weeks will lead to a lower antibody titre, but higher quality antibodies, since it extends the activity of the B-cell germinal centres in the lymph. Eight weeks or longer will lead to maximal antibody titre, but at a potential cost of antibody variety...

I don't know what they mean by "life-changing" side effects, but I assume most of those are still acute, rather than chronic. It is higher than most vaccines, though some (non-universally used) vaccines like typhoid can cause a similar rate of similar acute side effects.

Likely in a few months when they actually have some supply. This is speculation, but I expect Novavax to pivot at some stage to suggest that it is safer for young adults and children, compared to the other vaccines. If it is genuinely safer, it is likely to be the option used for under 12s.

The 6 minute walking test is not maximal (or reliant on a ramped workrate protocol), so it is fairly meaningless. They are claiming these people are suffering from dyspnea, but without fatigue or pulmonary impairment - but the latter claim is not based on prospective data and is therefore...

Here is some excerpts from her recent research: The Female Predominant Persistent Immune Dysregulation of the Post COVID Syndrome: A Cohort Study https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.25.21257820v1.full-text PROMIS Scales for Assessment of Persistent Post-COVID Symptoms: A Cross...

The Tweeter is simply incorrect. 77% of the population with one dose means they have not reached "herd immunity" for R0>5. The current numbers in Iceland are similar to those predicted (in a previous post) by the Grattan institute.

Another twenty diagnoses, maybe!?! Okay, I cleaned up the references to avoid confusion...

I have a headache in the upper front of my head 100% of the time, but it is deeper, I wouldn't describe it as a sore forehead (front of head above eyes) at all. This pain gets much worse when mentally drained. It is quite likely this is related to some sort of blood flow or cerebral perfusion...

Aside: a more personal article by the author: https://hekint.org/2021/06/07/seeking-medicalization-chronic-illness-without-diagnosed-disease/