.coda - "A controversial program for chronic fatigue syndrome faces scrutiny" by David Tuller

Quote:
In past decades, much research into ME/CFS treatment was devoted to psychological and behavioral interventions. More recently, these studies and their reported findings have been widely criticized as deeply flawed. A 2015 report from the U.S. Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine), based on an extensive review of the literature, declared ME/CFS to be a “serious, chronic, complex, and systemic disease” not a psychiatric or psychological disorder.

Given the lack of approved pharmaceutical treatments, many patients have sought relief from alternative approaches — and the Lightning Process has been among the most controversial. Developed in the late 1990s by a British osteopath named Phil Parker, it is a goulash of osteopathy, life coaching, neurolinguistic programming, hypnotherapy and positive psychology.

https://www.codastory.com/waronscience/pseudohealth/lightning-process-chronic-fatigue/

 

I forgot the link, but have added it now.
Thanks, @Trish !

 

All that hard work undone by the clueless editor who wrote the headline. It's not "chronic fatigue". How many times do we have to say it?

I'm sorry, but I can't share this on social media with this title.

 

@dave30th

Thank you once again for your excellent work on our community's behalf. Your expertise and dedication are very much appreciated.

 

“Goulash” is just the best word ever - thank you @dave30th !!

 

Boy, you'd think that, if "the vast majority of participants" achieve good and lasting change, then the program could easily afford to offer a money back guarantee. I mean, think of how many more customers they'd get if they initiated such an incentive. Factoring in economies of scale, I can't think of any reason why they haven't done this already!

 

Trial By Error: Do the “Vast Majority” of Lightning Process Participants Achieve “Lasting Change”?

"Coda Story is an excellent news organization focused on international stories related to the misuse of science and technology, among other topics. Today, it published a piece of mine about the training program called the Lightning Process. Sites devoted to the Lightning Process are full of tales of recovery from prolonged illness. I included one such account in my Coda article along with accounts from others who reported suffering severe relapses after the training. The article also points out that the scientific claims cannot withstand scrutiny.

To be clear, I’m not telling people whether they should or should not do the Lightning Process. If someone checks it out and thinks it could help them, that’s their call. My concern is that it is promoted as scientific, when it is not. And despite the glowing testimonials, it is easy to find people who took it and report having suffered serious harms. Their stories are not posted on Lightning Process sites but nonetheless deserve to be shared as well."

https://www.virology.ws/2021/04/21/...-process-participants-achieve-lasting-change/

 

Thank you, David, it appears the title has been amended.

 

Yes, I'm so used to editors doing that I didn't notice at first. It's an understandable and inadverent mistake from the copy editor/design folks who have no reason to know that CF should not be used as shorthand for CFS.

 

ohh, there's a podcast as well!

Podcast: Coda Currents
Title: When pseudoscience infiltrates healthcare and nutrition
Description: There's a lot of bad science surrounding a syndrome called ME/CFS, or what is sometimes known as chronic fatigue. We talk with David Tuller, a journalist who has been covering this topic for years, about what he's learned from people who participated in one pseudoscientific treatment that's not being marketed to people suffering from long Covid. Plus, there1s a lot of misinformation about dieting.
Duration: 15 minutes

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KdLyCzsutwk68EKrrPke6?si=AcO2PSOLRaOek4po8H80lA

 

Hmmm... I don't think it's fair to speak of pseudoscience infiltrating health care, medicine has been producing plenty of pseudoscience since always and this particular one was pretty much given the keys to the city, and then some. There is an obvious thirst for this, bordering on horniness. It's never-ending, actively sought.

It's definitely not infiltration or weakness when it's promoted with gushing praise. I fully expect a very high % of medical professionals who would read this to take the side of the LP. It's seriously unbelievable until you actually see it.

It's really time to raise the major issue that medicine is infinitely gullible when it comes to psychological mumbo jumbo that tells them they are perfect and infallible so they cannot possibly be missing anything and it must be the patients' fault. It's essentially the same mistake that goes back, again, forever. It's always the same premise: it's not you it's them. Which is as pathetic as it is common.