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FND has features that make decisions regarding outcome measurement particularly complex.4 5 These include heterogeneity and variability of symptoms and the marked influence of attention, beliefs and expectations.6–8 Discrepancy between objective measures and patients’ subjective experiences of...

Generally speaking not. But the Beighton manoeuvres for hypermobility are a mixed bag that probably test a combination of e.g. ligamentous length, ligamentous elasticity, bone congruity, and musculotendinous length. I am pretty sure that Carter and Beighton had no real idea why they were...

How many times can Simon Wessely keep writing this stuff?

In contrast to this poorly structured little study there are some big population based studies now indicating that hypermobility has little or no relation to ME/CFS or chronic pain syndromes. It may be worth noting that Dr Eccles is a psychiatrist specialising in mind-body interaction and the...

Only if you put the lime in the right way. So many people don't!

Maybe, but my memory is that for influenza in the early twentieth century young males were hit much harder and that might be for other reasons. If HLA Class I is a risk factor then it may be that pulmonary complications are a reflection of aggressive T cell response - and that tends to go with...

Probably not. Blood brain barrier leakage shows up on standard MRI and is not seen in ME/CFS. It also produces characteristic clinical signs that are not features of ME/CFS. I am afraid that an awful lot of publications on 'systemic inflammation' are based on poor understanding of very basic...

This is quite interesting. My guess is that reported cases are not only 97.6% from 20 upwards but very likely with an even bigger skew to older age groups. So being in the 61+ age range does not necessarily mean that fatality rates are four times higher than the average (if most deaths are in...

If these are quotes from Hilda Bastian then I am concerned (although maybe this was in her sitting on the fence days). The issue has nothing to do with the review being out of date or with new trials being added or whatever. It has to do with the fact that a complaint was lodged pointing out...

I am afraid it sounds very much like Bendyourdata of the type normally associated with the Brighton criteria.

That would be ratateusli then?

I note a rather different tone in the US from that in the UK (which is 'don't panic ducky'). Someone has said: We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad. That seems honest although the meaning is somewhat tortuous. How does one prepare for an...

There is something odd about HLA-B27 in several respects. If I remember rightly it is associated with the slowest conversion (very slow) of HIV infection to clinical AIDS. It is also specifically associated with a spectrum of illnesses probably mediated by CD8 T cells - ankylosing spondylitis...

I wonder what on earth 'beyond bones' is supposed to mean. No way would a serious scientific study start with that. It is the sort of catchy title you might give an invited editorial. Why put it up on Medrxiv?

I think you have to take into account that to know each persons status you really need to test every day and at some point decisions have to be made without perfect information. It may be that the officialdom is incompetent but on the other hand it may be that medical staff are just trying to...

If the curve has dropped off from an exponential upsweep then at least measure are having some impact. The curve seems not only to have straightened but bent down the other way. That for me is as good as one could expect. The fact that most of the European cases so far seem to have fizzled out...

If there have been four deaths it seems likely that the virus has been around in the are for about a fortnight - presumably it went undetected during early spreading. I remain optimistic that if individuals like ourselves are careful we can avoid getting infected living in Western Europe but...

I think it is becoming clear that it is no way as simple as that. The problem in practical (rather than ethical) terms is the number of people who need specialised hospital care with isolation and perhaps ventilation. It may be as high as 5% of people infected. In China that is 50million...

So one device triggers nerves and the other doesn't but the person cannot tell (that their nerves are triggered or not). I find this reasonably implausible. And if I remember rightly there is no reference to vibrations of the placebo device in the paper?

There now seems to me to be a likely explanation for the shapes of the curves. At the beginning there is no real difference between treatment and placebo. The difference comes later - with no apparent catch up in the placebo group when given treatment. The treatment throughout group might not be...