BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

I remember prof. Ola D. Saugstad said in a talk a few years back it could make sense if there were higher prevalence in Nigeria, as there are more infections among the population. He was referring to a paper from Jason et al comparing prevalence in a region in Nigeria with a region in USA (if I remember correct).

Henrik Vogt said in a recent radio interview that ME and Long Covid is more or less the same and has to do with nocebo effect, therefore it's a higher prevalence in countries where it's talked about.

ETA: When I read stories from Long Covid patients it seems most were pretty sure they'd bounce back within two weeks after infection. Patients in the first wave had never even heard about Long Covid so I don't understand how a nocebo effect could have played a role.

 

How unprofessional and irresponsible to make such a claim without evidence. Not to mention utterly absurd, given how severely impaired long covid patients often are. I doubt there is any reason to believe that nocebo effects can cause long lasting disability. It's just something Vogt and others made up in their minds.

 

This is some galaxy brain logic, considering that even in developed countries where ME is more commonly thematized, diagnosis is completely bottlenecked by lack of GP and specialist education. It's hard to diagnose a condition if you do not even have the words to operationalize it. I would like to know if there actually is any well-defined nocebo effect that goes beyond expectancy effects on pain and nausea, parallel to the placebo effect, but that goes beyond the scope of this topic.
But thank you. I'm just going to file this in my BS folder, then.

 

On an afternoon magazine show in the 90s, one BPS proponent, Sittaford I think his name was, was being dreadful to phone in callers. When it was his turn to talk he sad that another guest, an airline pilot, has been chatting to him in the green room and said that in his country, Czechoslovakia, they were too poor to have ME. Oh how him and the presenter chortled about that even after listening to the terrible stories from the phone in people.

On a brighter note, the guest speaker from the ME association Ann, her name is gone but she was very knowledgeable, was talked over by Sittaford and the (male) presenter. As Sittaford pontificated on his experience as a doctor and why he had the eminence to crush patients, she lent across and said "Is your experience not as a doctor working for the insurance industry?" He huffed and puffed, it was a beautiful moment.

Only the names have changed over the years

 

Adding a little bit more context More details about the criticism of Ludvigsson's research (Ludvigsson is the researcher in the article that Sharpe highlighted).

Critics slam letter in prestigious journal that downplayed COVID-19 risks to Swedish schoolchildren
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ous-journal-downplayed-covid-19-risks-swedish

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1368651470929879044

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1368932614933987330

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWH995xmebU

The Optimum Health 'Clinic' have jumped on the long covid band wagon. I'm surprised it took them so long tbh. They've just released a video about the role of stress in long covid.

 

How does the presenter of that video know that raised cortisol is the fault of the patient's life choices and not a direct effect of having had Covid?

 

Ah, but the spoon will only bend if you believe it can bend. Otherwise it obviously cannot bend.

 

It's not just cortisol. Adrenaline also becomes dysfunctional. And while it's convenient to blame that on patient's I have often experienced this adrenaline instability in the middle of the night when there is no situational stress present (except the stress of waking suddenly from a pounding heart).

Just a thought.

 

Opionion piece in a Swedish newspaper today It's a response to this (posted in the long covid thread last week):

Rehab efter covid viktigare än verkningslösa läkemedel
https://www.gp.se/debatt/rehab-efter-covid-viktigare-än-verkningslösa-läkemedel-1.42656467

Google Translate, English

Reimer and Gyll, same old same old. Reimer has been criticising everything about ME in ridiculous opinion pieces since 2009 or maybe earlier than than as well?

I hadn't come across Stibrant Sunnerhagen before. Very long list of publications. She has recently been awarded 2 475 000 SEK (approx 209 800 GBP, 244 100 EUR, 291 000 USD) by the insurance company AFA for a research project:

The Dallas bedrest study:
The Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study Revisited After 50 Years
A Forty-Year Follow-Up of the Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study
A 30-Year Follow-Up of the Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study

More about B12 and IVO's investigation here.

Sten Helmfrid has confronted Reimer many times over the years, for example here, here, here and here.

 

The very same claim can be made about non-pharmacological 'rehabilitation' approaches.

 

Looking at the Dallas bed rest study, the volunteers had 3 weeks extreme bed rest with no load bearing at all followed by 8 weeks intensive exercise training so going from one extreme to the other.

Maybe the results would have been better if they reflected real life where there is a very gradual increase in activity from anything which required such extreme rest. Even with bedbound ME patients many still manage to visit the bathroom or use a commode so are still load bearing occasionally.

 

There is no spoon.


(sorry that will only make sense to fans of The Matrix, but i couldnt resist it).

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1371457443528597504

 

Us chemists prefer using gallium spoons rather than mind-tricks.

 

Here's an article from a Norwegian news site about research where researchers and the journalist seem to conflate Long Covid with PTSD, depression and anxiety.

Etter korona-pandemien kan vi få en bølge av psykisk sykdom
google translation After the corona pandemic, we may have a wave of mental illness

 

Trial by Error by David Tuller
Biopsychosocial Brigades Seek Traction with Long Covid

Quote:
- The biopsychosocial brigadiers have been losing the argument over ME/CFS, given the questionable body of research they have produced and continue to cite. The NICE draft demonstrated that the tide was shifting in the other direction. With long Covid, they seem to be making much the same arguments over again—and simultaneously trying to un-write the last few years of critical debunking of the PACE approach.

 

A comment by Nigel Speight on David Tuller's Facebook post says:

"They won't disappear. Can't you see they are trying to build whole new research empires which will "prove" that GET cures long Covid. I heard a rumour that Prof Garner has already landed some big grants for such research"