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yes The problem is that one bone marrow sample is very unpleasant. People with life-threatening leukaemia may get half a dozen bone marrows over a period of months or years but one at a time. To do this B cell sampling in ME/CFS you would need ten samples on the same day. A bit like being in...

I think there was one who reported permanent recovery from the blinded phase. And what makes it all the more spooky is that of course at that stage the expectation was for permanent benefit or perhaps indeterminate benefit. The expectation of a six month optimum came later after I had pointed it...

I don't know but I suspect not. Presumably the trial authors said that Cochrane could only have their raw data if they could be authors. Not sure what sort of theatre but maybe No?

I think we know what the question is and I think @MelbME would agree. It is whether any skewing to VH3-30 is occurring because of a shift in checkpoint-dependent selection in the bone marrow environment or once the cells have gone out into lymph nodes. If we could answer that it would be of huge...

We can consider the possibility but I think the probability is vanishingly small. What I think people forget sometimes is that for any given chemical compound that might be called drug D, the chances of producing any improvement in Illness I is unbelievably small. Thee are probably at least...

Well if you raise all these interesting and difficult questions, @Sasha, you may be obliged to start answering them one day!!

You are never going to pass those Witchdoctor exams, @Utsikt .

It isn't showing yet. I wouldn't hold a lot of breath.

“There already is a men’s health strategy: it’s called the NHS; it’s already designed by men for men,” she said. I find that sort of remark offensive. I spent most of my life looking after women. The more that people make such simplistic comments the more justification there is for sticking to...

Book an appointment with Dr Oystein Fluge. He is the placebo incarnate. And it is not his fault because he is just very committed, very compassionate, very modest, very keen to get the science right and an overall loveable guy. And I think that caused him some problems but he and Olav Mella did...

A big problem with bone marrow is heterogeneity within the tissue. Different types of cells are competing for niches to develop in. We have no successful studies of marrow in other diseases like lupus or RA that answer this sort of question as far as I know. Bone marrow sampling is also very...

That is still structural. You would be changing the shape of your lens or eye muscles. I also think it fairly unlikely that this would occur. When one is reading the eye charts with different lenses the optometrist relies on very rapid optimisation by your brain to a better selection...

Thee may be a 300 word limit on a letter so I have sent this in as a Rapid Response that may be chosen as a letter. “Advocates of the intervention launched a full-on bid to try to stop the project. “ Dear Editor, Your 27th January News article by Jacqui Wise (2025) gives a fair account of the...

Yes, this is very unfortunate. It reflects the earlier USA committee decision in 2015 and greatly weakens the case. The case is simply that none of these trials provides any reliable evidence of efficacy under any circumstances. Using other diagnostic criteria is in itself entirely legitimate...

This is relevant but it wasn't Cochrane. The infamous 'there is a way' author might have figured in both but that would be speculation!

Thanks for all the comments. I have to make a decision whether to go ahead and try to send this. That may mean a cooling off period of another day or two. Further comments welcome.

What I was referring to was a version of the same exercise - a Systematic Review of Exercise for ME/CFS - intended to be upgraded by individualised data handling. It was the same team plus a lot of people who were included, apparently because their data were being used. (And also Glasziou, for...

Yes, but Tovey had already identified it as substandard.

I don't think so. I don't think severity scales are of much use to doctors. Each patient has a host of different problems and you do your best to deal with them as they are. Rheumatoid has four grades. I think grade four is wheelchair bound but I never used them. Grades may be useful for...

Nice point and not too long.