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I see nothing reasonable or responsible about using a treatment with no evidence base and no credible scientific base that will drive a wedge between family and health care professionals. Two wrongs do not make a right. I absolutely agree that there are the problems with GET you mention but that...

That looks like a partisan view. If it was a genuinely independent view it would be written differently. We would be given a few pieces of convincing hard data rather than lists of frightening possibilities. It says: The scientists who signed this appeal arguably constitute the majority of...

Yes, the H+ should have the arrow in the other direction. Where does the diagram come from? OH gross attached to carbons do not dissociate. The OH group in a carboxyl complex can shed an H+ to become an anion for some reason relating to the two carbon-oxygen bonds existing together. Pretty much...

We have discussed this before but the answer I think is no because saline given IV will be passed out in the urine within 20 minutes just the same as saline drunk by mouth. There is absolutely no credible reason for giving saline IV as far as I can see as someone trained in clinical physiology...

That looks to me like a redox change, not an acid-base change. Adding two uncharged hydrogens does not generate positive hydrogen ions. The added hydrogens are not part of the dissociating carboxyl group.

I am really not familiar with cell pH control but I am not sure things work like that. Lactate and pyruvate ions are basic rather than acid in themselves. They mop up hydrogen ions like there's no tomorrow. If the blood is alkaline then presumably pyruvate would be more likely to be imported as...

I think it may be highly 'irresponsible' to suggest that homeopathy is only water. If I remember rightly the 'only water' is dropped on to chalk tablets and then allowed to evaporate. So homeopathy is actually only no water either.

Is there actually any evidence for cells being more acidic and blood more alkaline. I am not a metabolic doctor but it sounds a bit unlikely to me.

It is basically a matter of finding evidence of abnormal antibodies that can reasonably be linked to the arthritis. For rheumatoid factor or anti-citrulline antibodies, which are highly specific for inflammatory arthritis the situation is very straightforward. If these are not present further...

It isn't really so much a case of subgrouping as of trying to pin down what physiological abnormality you think you might be wanting to address and then picking those with evidence of that abnormality. So in that sense 'diagnoses' like ME are actually blunt instruments. When I set up trials in...

But 'having clinical effect' implies a cause and effect relationship, which cannot be deduced from single cases, only from formal trials. So there is never a case of having clinical effect before the trials have been done. I don't think subsets are likely to be relevant. The trials have to be...

The trouble is that is exactly the same argument as used in the Cochrane review for amitriptyline (* see below) - no evidence but sure it must work sometimes because people got better. I think we have to move away from that. We have to see that IVIG, GET, antivirals, CBT, amitriptyline and IV...

The Cochrane review is quite revealing. There is no decent evidence but the reviewers say it obviously works anyway so go on using it. This now seems to be the level of Cochrane.

I am not sure how this fits in here. My point about things like IV saline is that not only are they not based on any evidence or any credible science but they are presented as some sort of alternative to conventional care that drives a wedge between professionals and ends up with disastrous...

I came across this other relevant Cochrane review, which again shows just how intellectually broke they are: Conclusion: Amitriptyline has been a first-line treatment for neuropathic pain for many years. The fact that there is no supportive unbiased evidence for a beneficial effect is...

It is driven by the Cochrane hierarchy's obsession with 'demedicalisation'. Anything that does not involve drugs, whether faith healing or exercise, is better than drugs. Unless of course the drug company is providing some help with funds...

Yes, but there was a time when people used to distinguish first class shit from business class shit and economy shit.

Yes, well, academics are not supposed to do that - whatever discipline they might be in. They are supposed to know whether what they are doing means anything.

They are just behaving like clowns now. I could not see any reference to blinding in this review. We really do live in a post-truth age.

Which tells you b***** all, and anyway they are different in different places in the brain. A real interpretation of an EEG is a bit like reading an orchestral score and picking out the harmonies.