BMJ: Rapid response to 'Updated NICE guidance on CFS', 2021, Jason Busse et al, Co-chair and members of the GRADE working group

Yes, that would be interesting.

It seems Busse and Guyatt know each other from McMaster University's "Clarity faculty":

http://www.clarityresearch.ca/

Another detail from Busse's CV:

In 2011 Dr. Busse co-formed the evidence-based insurance medicine research group, an international collaboration with members from McMaster University, the University Medical Center Groningen, and the Academy of Swiss Insurance Medicine.

He is a Director of the Cochrane Insurance Medicine Field Group (http://insuremed.cochrane.org/our-team).

Anyone heard of the "Cochrane Insurance Medicine Field Group" before?

Guyatt is mentioned there, too:

Additional initiators
Wout de Boer, PhD, EbIM (CH), Prof. Kristina Alexanderson, Karolinska Institutet (SE), Jan Buitenhuis, PhD DACIM (NL), Jan Hoving, Assist. Prof. KCVG (NL), Shanil Ebrahim, PhD, McMaster University (CAN), Gordon Guyatt, McMaster University (CAN), Jürgen Barth, PhD, EbIM (CH).

(Edited to add links.)

Edit: Guyatt was Busse's PhD supervisor, see https://www.s4me.info/threads/bmj-r...-grade-working-group.19317/page-8#post-328694

 

I was not aware that anyone else had been associated with Prisma?

 

SW admitted to having been an advisor in about 2001. It was claimed that it was unpaid.

 

Where Wessely's funding comes from | Page 2 | Phoenix Rising ME/CFS Forums

 

It may well have been 'unpaid' but presumably he received 'compensation', if for nothing else than for the time it took to find, buy and bring his own water to whatever working lunches he attended (presumably he learned about this practice from somewhere before he started employing it himself).

It has recently emerged, recently to me anyway, that some people see a difference between being 'paid' for their time, and receiving 'compensation' for it - and will voraciously insist that monies received in 'compensation' in no way mean that they have been 'paid'.

It's also evident that the media do not question this 'distinction'.

 

Assuming they managed to pass the spot-the-difference test, which I'm rapidly losing confidence in their ability to do so.

 

Thanks very much, change it.

Aha! Good to know!

 

yes, I wondered if this was a Canadian affiliate or some such.

 

Prisma Health Canada seems to be a branch of an organisation with branches in USA, Canada, Germany at least.

Interestingly, since this is a UK issue first and foremost, Paul Garner seems to be the only UK author on the Busse rapid response. I wonder if he was asked in by Flottorp or Guyatt. The preponderance of non-Brits suggests that the BPS world is anxiously waiting to see the UK deal with this item of unpleasantness.

 

https://www.s4me.info/threads/gover...blishing-the-bps-model.2319/page-2#post-84353

 

So it looks as if Prisma Health Canada might have a lot to lose if the NICE guidelines go through.
The next question is why someone associated with the EBM programme at McMaster should now be Clinical Director at a private company selling CBT? Perhaps Prisma thought it would be good to have someone with friends in EBM in charge? If so this week would appear to be delivery time. I think it's called revolving doors?

 

perhaps also a different tax liability - if its compensation then it may not be earnings......
I had a friendd at uni who got round renting rooms in her flat ( bought by parents) as tenants were not tenants but friends making a " donation" to running costs.....
ot was not considered her income then by HM customs and excise, no doubt that loophole has been plugged.

 

Busse and Guyatt's interest clearly goes beyond the application of GRADE - they were, in 2008, described in this paper as members of a "Medically Unexplained Syndromes Study Group".

 

It was good of Busse to put his name to this. Now he and Prisma Health, Canada and McMaster are on the radar as part of the clusterfuck that is policy based evidence with no science in sight.

@ScottTriGuy and if there are any other Canadian people online who could look further into this. I tried tagging CIND but don't seem to be able to do that. It would be great if some of the Canadian charity organisations for ME found their way here.

Scott I feel bad periodically only tagging you.

Maybe McMaster (the relevant dept) needs a copy of the Journal of Health Psychology issue. I really can't think what would be the best way to approach these things.

 

And maybe also there is an increasing reluctance in the UK camp to expose themselves to valid criticisms they have no valid answers to, given their usual alternative tactic of attacking the critic rather than the scientific argument; perhaps they can see a downside to slagging off NICE themselves, and prefer others to do it for them. Maybe others are being "encouraged".

But of course for any of them to be slagging off NICE, just clarifies to NICE how unscientific the BPS'ites attitude is, and very neatly confirms that what people have been saying for years about the BPS camp is true.

 

I wonder if part of the problem here is that Universities expect researchers to bring in money oh and some researchers might want to earn some extra cash.

I haven't been following this closely so I had to Google "ebm programme at mcmaster university" laughed/gritted my teeth/shook my head when I read "Evidence-based health care" ---. Think I heard somewhere that when somethings flawed [like the claims this is EBM] then you can sell it as having that very property [EBM in this case].

 

Thanks -- I've just given a heads up to a relevant person.

 

'Evidence-based' in the same way as those combustion tests on ACM cladding panels, perhaps?

 

Carson is mostly talking nonsense in this thread but I think this may be a hint into the process that is taking place behind closed doors: requiring PEM is "making up a new definition" and thus the process is invalid.

Without the context of the pandemic this may have worked, nobody knew or cared what PEM is outside of the ME community and our few researchers and clinicians. That has changed a whole lot since, but I assume this will be one of the plays here.

Of course requiring PEM literally invalidates the entire ME-BPS construct and every bizarre claim and assumption it makes, but then again building an evidence base on an invalid definition always carried the certainty that one day it would be washed away in a single stroke.

 

Sounds like whining to me.

Theoretically:

A study was done on MS that included anyone with long term fatigue. How valid / applicable were those results to MS?

A study was done on people with alzheimers that included all people with cognitive fog issues.
How valid / applicable were those results to PwA?

A study was done on ulcerative colitis it included anybody who reported recent tummy troubles. How valid / applicable were those results to UC?

A study was done on women with endometriosis. It included anybody with pelvic pain.
How valid / applicable were those results to endometriosis?

But yeah sure lets do studies on ME that include anybody with ongoing fatigue and let's not get too specific.