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  1. rvallee

    Protocol Efficacy of patient education and duloxetine, alone and in combination, for patients with multisystem functional somatic disorder:... 2024 Jespersen+

    This endless loop of identical useless trials doesn't even pass the plausibility test. It's not even plausible that this should work, it has no possible value and will not inform anything, but they get away with it because 'pragmatic', while claiming to target etiology, for which they have no...
  2. rvallee

    USA: Mount Sinai PACS clinic and Dr David Putrino

    One thing I'll say about this disaster: if you're not outraged, you're not getting it. Although people have different of expressing outrage, this is one instance where expressing it is definitely warranted. If anything it should be screamed louder, but in our situation it only makes things worse...
  3. rvallee

    News from Canada

    No, no social, no bio, only psycho. That's the biopsychosocial way, most letters are actually silent, need to be spoken with a dog whistle.
  4. rvallee

    Psychological flexibility in somatic symptom and related disorders: A case control study 2024 Selker et al

    Worthless drivel. All these people show is that they understand nothing about illness, and that they lack the empathy and imagination to see how this is simply a consequence of being ill. But since they don't believe in the illness, they pursue the same worthless nonsense decade after decade...
  5. rvallee

    Who is Simon Wessely?

    Only once he's retired. That's what power is all about. It will only make the fall harder, but progress in medicine happens at the pace of funerals. Although one important thing here: the man did not promote himself to those positions, other people did, and his ideas have widespread support in...
  6. rvallee

    Efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy targeting severe fatigue following COVID-19: results of a randomized controlled trial 2023, Kuut, Knoop et al

    They're trying to use the excuse where a treatment that is found to be too effective to withhold from controls, even though it obviously did not meet this. Then they have no means to compare and simply declare it anyway, even though the outcomes are trivial at best in an excessively biased...
  7. rvallee

    Trial Report Exploring the content validity of the Chalder Fatigue Scale using cognitive interviewing in an ME/CFS population, 2024, Gladwell

    That seems to be the fundamental problem with PROMs: they can't be calibrated. Instead they get 'validated' by some convoluted process involving acceptability, reproducibility and few other hoops, but none of those actually provide any reliability or accuracy. More often than not they're not...
  8. rvallee

    They’re young and athletic. They’re also ill with a condition called POTS.

    This is probably a bit of an overestimate, but there definitely is an overrepresentation of physically active people. Makes all the nonsense about deconditioning look at that more foolish. But still 4 years into LC most MDs stick to it like it's damn mantra, most still advice to exercise. I...
  9. rvallee

    Perceived misdiagnosis of psychiatric conditions in autistic adults 2024 Kentrou et al

    Misdiagnosing autism as CFS has that "finding an octopus inside a computer because someone misinterpreted the problem and this was judged to be the appropriate solution to that problem" feel to it. It legitimately raises concerns over the validity of psychiatry. Not of psychiatric diagnoses or...
  10. rvallee

    The Association of Emotion Regulation and Somatic Symptoms 2024 Petzke and Witthöft

    Well this sure is some jumble of random questions and correlations that don't support a common meme, but as is tradition: Their recommendation is literally that they want more money to do the same thing again. Good grief. There really is a money tree somewhere, it just dispenses funds in some...
  11. rvallee

    UK:ME Association funds research for a new clinical assessment toolkit in NHS ME/CFS specialist services, 2023

    I think I got to the point where PROMs aren't just useless, they're actively harmful. Not inherently, rather it's because they are misused, but since they are systematically misused, and it's basically how evidence-based medicine works, it's a distinction without a difference. There is a...
  12. rvallee

    Cass report, quality of evidence in evidence-based medicine and double-blinding

    I hope to keep discussion strictly on the methodology aspect, but I noticed how many of the issues overlap with the general problem of evidence-based medicine, the arbitrary application of standards, seemingly based entirely on preferences, and how very low quality evidence can influence real...
  13. rvallee

    Petition: S4ME 2023 - Cochrane: Withdraw the harmful 2019 Exercise therapy for CFS review

    Another problem that has long been solved in software development. In most library packaging systems (basically ways to use code written by someone else) there is a versioning system that will throw warnings or errors when using deprecated versions of a library, even sometimes email the authors...
  14. rvallee

    News from Austria and Switzerland

    Consensus without the participation of everyone isn't really consensus. Doesn't mean it will be bad but, well, it usually is. If you're not invited at the table, usually you're what's for lunch.
  15. rvallee

    Editorial: A special issue of The BMJ, led by patients [welcomes proposals for patient led articles, deadline 30th April 2024]

    It would be great if we could submit something. Sadly I say this as someone who likely can't contribute much... It'd be great if we could go a bit above the usual issue of ME/CFS and chronic illness and focus on the fundamental shortcomings in evidence-based medicine and how it has been...
  16. rvallee

    The use of the labels ME, CFS, ME/CFS

    All I can think of here, that a few letters are supposed to make some difference here only heightens my extreme disappointment in our sad species. There's no real difference here, it's all about beliefs and the weirdest-ass politics that humans can muster. Dunno if this breaches rules for...
  17. rvallee

    Brian Walitt and his role leading ME/CFS research at the USA NIH

    There is the public version. And there is the private version. If you read what's published about psychosomatic medicine, it all sounds and looks so benevolent and good. If you can read or hear what they privately think of the patients, it reveals why it's none of those things and will never...
  18. rvallee

    NEWS: Chairman Bernie Sanders Releases Long COVID Moonshot Legislative Proposal

    The lack of any mention of not just ME/CFS but other chronic illnesses, this has to include POTS/dysautonomia, IBS and other issues commonly resulting from infections, is a major disappointment but something that can be influenced. I have no doubt that many LC advocates are pushing for it and...
  19. rvallee

    Opinion 'Long covid' and how medical information is causing illness: A philosophical issue affecting public health, 2023, Garner, Vogt

    Those are real explanations leading to useful, practical outcomes. The general fluffy meaning of providing meaning like the one in that blog is always based around cultural tropes and other weird biopsychosocial nonsense derived from old narratives about how our lives are empty and devoid of...
  20. rvallee

    Long COVID—ACOEM Guidance Statement, 2024, Stave et al.

    Critics of this model are correct and are speaking to our own experience. This is literally what happened from day 1: gaslighting, dismissal, denial. But, hey, if you ignore that, it should lead to more holistic care. Assuming that more holistic care is a desired objective, and it seems here to...
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