Health Sense article: Why deny patients with chronic fatigue syndrome treatments that can help?, 2022, by Peter White

I agree with Jonathan, i.e. this is such old ground it is hard to know what more to say.

I also recall Jonathans advice i.e. that medicine is now evidence based, rather than theory driven.

In the case of GET, & CBT, typically trials are unblinded and use subjective outcome criteria; these simply do not provide reliable evidence. Regarding the PACE study, as stated by Vink "There was no significant improvement on any of the [PACE] trial’s objective measures, such as numbers returned to work or levels of fitness." Therefore, the claimed success of CBT, & GET, based on the outcome of the PACE trial, is simply the selectively reporting of unreliable evidence i.e. responses to questionnaires, while ignoring the (limited) objective evidence.

If anyone seriously holds the view that these interventions work, then they should seek funding for a trial which uses objective outcome criteria such as actimetry (FitBit type devices), returning to work, education --- normal life.

I've quoted Brian Hughes comment, speaking to the Norwegian Association*, that science advances one retirement at a time (misquoting Max Planck) - [EDIT - White, the author of this article, has retired; therefore,] it seems that Planck's original quote is more accurate**.


*https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/reg...EBEKxMo5u42qHuj91fbzOBYrj_souFFZPkv9F31w6jsUA
**“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

 

not sure if this has been posted
(Mod note - discussion on this topic elsewhere in the forum has been moved to this thread, and appears earlier - April 10)

from April 10th in the Guardian, letters

https://www.theguardian.com/theobse...-take-note-learning-is-about-more-than-recall

 

They have used that line or something very similar but about ME/CFS in the past. They may have used strange rather than bizarre, but it definitely rings a bell.

 

It is a meaningless sound bite that looks profound at first sight then a second look tells you how stupid it is. There is nothing bizarre about it. Every disease is something that is different from the norm for the healthy population That could be the very definition of disease.

Children are tested within a few hours of birth for genetic diseases where something that is healthy for the population is deadly for them.

It just shows up the sort of intelligence shown by White, Sharpe and Chalder. Good for getting their own way, bad for medicine and science.

 

The really bizarre thing is how supposedly top-level scientists cannot see what an absurd and self-incriminating statement they are making. It is so woolly and open-ended, yet intending to support their efficacy and safety claims about very specific treatments. It's like they employ some sort of logic-scrambling device (I suspect in a sense they deliberately do!). Non sequitur or what? Talk about a comedy of errors.

 

Agree about it being technically correct - if you he is talking about the original 2007 guidelines.

Goodness knows what he thinks he is adding anyway? other than more of the same tactics. I suspect that they've seen him in the bracket 'useful idiot' (as I suspect Chalder is), and am intrigued whether he randomly chose them or was handpicked and brought in - and at which point and what did he have.

It also seems strange that he got so much press by the start of May 2020 for being ill for 7weeks which seems to stem from a BMJ blog he'd already been given at a point where it was written and published/commissioned by that point.

Couldn't resist looking back through his twitter account to see who he is as it seems strange for someone with a career in infectious diseases to turn himself into a twitter lobbyist for biopsychosocial one day in 2020.

Got back as far as 2013, as even compared to expected his twitter activity is very thin before 2016 then seems to accelerate from there. Lots of politics until the covid stuff. Obvious spots are that he and Ben Goldacre have been retweeting each other for a long time, and we don't need twitter to note he is linked with Cochrane and Deborah Cohen (newsnight).

A retweet of the following in July 2018:

and a retweet of the Sense about Science evidence week on 25th June 2018

 

Looked this one up as an explanation for 'useful idiot': https://unherd.com/2018/06/six-types-useful-idiot/

Maybe I'm just niche in finding this interesting. It lists 6 types as being: the seeker, the utopian, the power worshipper, the relatavist, the stability-fetishist and the nostalgist. My gut-feeling is looking at the 'stability-fetishist' having noted the 'politics-heavy' feed and friendship circle. With a bit of 'seeker' thrown in if he actually did have something (then had to explain it as being for a higher purpose). But that still misses if he has actually changed his job where/how that would fit in? I'm intrigued to keep watching ..