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Well said @rainy .

Somewhat surprised that apart from my thumbs I have no lunula (fingers and ties). I have no idea when they disappeared. Is this pretty universal? Do we need a poll on finger and tie nail changes?

I remember when I was training and then newly qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist lots of anecdotal evidence of harm from possibly/probably unnecessary tonsillectomies, particularly palatal incompetence, but more recently I am aware of several young adults having to research the...

Interesting to read the paragraph on sleep anxiety: This suggests that the ‘sleep police’ who see pushing for ‘normal sleeping patterns’ as self evidently (ie unevidenced) a desirable target in treating ME may not helpful, and certainly overall questions how useful such off the shelf sleep...

I echo the need to be able to read the survey through before starting. My reasoning is that given the historical problems that much ME research has been designed with a specific agenda I do not want to invest time and energy in a questionnaire that half way through leaves me feeling I can not...

Very interesting but again an association is a long way from indicating cause and effect in either direction. As @Andy points out both phenomena could be arising from a distinct common cause. Are there similar fluctuations in viral loads in other conditions?

Is there any evidence that the PACE researchers believed exercise intolerance exists, I had assumed they believed that patients were miss reporting the effects of unfitness or ‘deconditioning’, that all patients were on a single fatigue continuum with no qualitative distinction between those...

An excellent overview, many thanks for posting.

To which the nutritionalist who believes diet can cure all including cancer, would respond ‘in our society we are over fed but under nourished’. I agree people with ME would benefit from appropriate support in relation to their diet, but because of all the practical issues raised by @Invisible...

I suppose when talking about an adequate ‘control’ it is important to ensure the right things are being controlled for. You could argue that a ‘no treatment control’ or a ‘treatment as usual control’ is ‘controlling for the passage of time’, demonstrating that any change in the treatment group...

I have not yet written a personal letter of protest, but as well as that is there anything we can do in relation to the health director’s refusal to receive the petition?

Especially when they reject this evidence of harm because such qualitative evidence is not acceptable, and then a paragraph later say that this type qualitative of evidence is exactly what we should accept if it supports their preferred intervention.

In Karl Popper’s understanding of the word, the BPS crews’ approach to research is not ‘science’. Expressed very crudely ‘science’ can never prove something, there are always alternative interpretations, it can only disprove things. So you can only have what is currently the best hypothesis, but...

Normally studies looking at intolerances, assuming what we are seeing in ME in relation to alcohol is an intolerance, is to withdraw the foodstuff/drink from the diet completely for a number of weeks or even months before reintroducing it. One of the problems with examining the effects of...

Thank you it is useful to have this clear statement from Sharpe, though I suspect he is happy to suggest one thing to one audience and something else to another. The BPS researchers in their publications do not present a clear distinction with different case definitions so we can not know...

Re-reading the Turner-Stokes and Wade Editorial I was struck that they gave two reasons for rejecting the reports of harm arising from GET as it is “based on qualitative evidence provided by a small number of service users”. I would regard the ‘small number of service users’ as a downright...

Have now finished reading through all our final recommendations/comments in relation to the NICE draft guidelines. I repeat how I am impressed by and grateful to those that have put so much work into collating and editing our response. It is clear that, though the NICE draft represent a massive...

I was thinking how nice a good long hibernation would be, then I thought what it would be like when I woke up. It would not be two or three hours to come too, but two or three months. (A single night at a time of unresfreshing sleep is enough for me.)

Wow, what a fantastic piece of work. I feel deeply grateful to those that have put in the supreme effort to pull this all together. I have only so far read through about half of this, but am most impressed with the clarity of the work and endorse heartily what is said.