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

I heard back from the HealthSense newsletter editor - nearly missed it as it went to my junk folder...

Hello Caroline,

Dr Carson replied to my request for clarification on his comment made on twitter and followed up with a personal response. No issues were raised that justify further publication, and the HealthSense committee have suggested that correspondence on this issue be drawn to a close as we have nothing of value to add.

Best wishes

Mandy

I replied asking whether they think it's OK for someone to say publicly I have made "several basic errors" and then not say what they are. And also to confirm I have a right to reply to White's post

The public criticism without adequate follow-up is like the pronouncement of a feudal lord. When you demedicalize a disease and portray its sufferers as malcontents, a response isn’t warranted. I feel the Long Covid community is finally seeing the writing on the fall as White, Chalder, etc intimate a desire to test their theories on a new crop.
 
Trial By Error: PACE Team Stages a Comeback Tour

"Professors Peter White, Trudie Chalder and Michael Sharpe seem to have embarked on what could be called the PACE Rehabilitation Tour.
....
Last week, HealthSense, a UK watchdog group formerly called HealthWatch, posted Professor White’s umpteenth defense of the £5.000,000 PACE trial, which he co-led with Professors Sharpe and Chalder. The trial purported to show that GET and CBT were effective treatments. Professor White’s article was a feeble response to a cogent HealthSense commentary by Caroline Struthers, a Senior EQUATOR Research Fellow at Oxford University (also a friend and colleague), called “It is not only drugs and devices that can harm.”"

https://www.virology.ws/2022/04/11/trial-by-error-pace-team-stages-a-comeback-tour/
 
An excellent article, @dave30th. Thank you. I think it's a very good idea to bring to the fore again the breach of the Declaration of Helsinki by the PACE principal investigators who did not inform patients of their conflict of interest in working for the insurance industry recommending these same treatments. There are also some good responses under the article.

I hope there's a way of spreading the word about this article and David's work and fundraiser among the Long Covid community too.
 
I think it's a very good idea to bring to the fore again the breach of the Declaration of Helsinki by the PACE principal investigators who did not inform patients of their conflict of interest in working for the insurance industry recommending these same treatments.

I've never really understood the failure to take this seriously. And the Health Research Authority really whitewashed this and did not call them out on it. No one forced them to promise to adhere to Helsinki but they did. If they hadn't, I don't know that the prevailing standards in 2005 would have mandated these disclosures.
 
I heard back from the HealthSense newsletter editor - nearly missed it as it went to my junk folder...

Hello Caroline,

Dr Carson replied to my request for clarification on his comment made on twitter and followed up with a personal response. No issues were raised that justify further publication, and the HealthSense committee have suggested that correspondence on this issue be drawn to a close as we have nothing of value to add.

Best wishes

Mandy

I replied asking whether they think it's OK for someone to say publicly I have made "several basic errors" and then not say what they are. And also to confirm I have a right to reply to White's post

That is outrageous. It calls your professional competence into question and needs to be addressed. I would think you had a legal case against them.

What sort of person says someone has made basic errors and then refuses to say what they are and what sort of person would condone that?

Despicable people, that's who. :mad: No one who deals with ME shows any ethics whatsoever unless they are some of the few defending patients. If the patients were truly wrong or misguided then the case against them could be stated in a clear manner and no twisting and breaking of the moral code would be needed.
 
The public criticism without adequate follow-up is like the pronouncement of a feudal lord. When you demedicalize a disease and portray its sufferers as malcontents, a response isn’t warranted. I feel the Long Covid community is finally seeing the writing on the fall as White, Chalder, etc intimate a desire to test their theories on a new crop.
Sniping from the safety of ivory towers works fine when the crowd is thin and divided. Works very poorly when it masses up all the way to their floor. A low wail for help doesn't carry far, but make it a crowd and it's impossible not to hear.

For sure the trope of a "small vocal minority" will carry on for a while but time will only make it more ghoulish, reveal a deep rot in the system of healthcare for allowing such needless cruelty. Somehow, the reaction is about as haughty as the most privileged aristocrats out there, they really have no clue how deeply the peasants are furious at them.
 
An excellent article, @dave30th. Thank you. I think it's a very good idea to bring to the fore again the breach of the Declaration of Helsinki by the PACE principal investigators who did not inform patients of their conflict of interest in working for the insurance industry recommending these same treatments. There are also some good responses under the article.

I hope there's a way of spreading the word about this article and David's work and fundraiser among the Long Covid community too.

Dr Asad Khan (14.5K followers on twitter) is on the case @Trish !




 
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Why deny patients with chronic fatigue syndrome treatments that can help?

Now that is some dishonest framing.

That is outrageous. It calls your professional competence into question and needs to be addressed. I would think you had a legal case against them.

What sort of person says someone has made basic errors and then refuses to say what they are and what sort of person would condone that?

Despicable people, that's who. :mad:
Yep. It is dirty gutless behaviour.
 
I will write a response to White's post as soon as I can. It will include the claim by Carson that I made basic errors in my original commentary, and the refusal by Carson to say what they are. Of course, HealthSense may refuse to publish it...

……if they refuse to publish it…..

In which case, if you would like @Caroline Struthers, I am sure that some influential social media people would be more than happy to post your letter publically and ask (tag) “HealthSense” to explain
a) why you have not been given the courtesy of a response requesting details of such alleged “basic errors”? and,
b) indeed, why your right to reply has not been published?

ETA - worded better
 
……if they refuse to publish it…..

In which case, if you would like @Caroline Struthers, I am sure that some influential social media people would be more than happy to post your letter publically and ask (tag) “HealthSense” to explain
a) why you have not been given the courtesy of a response requesting details of such alleged “basic errors”? and,
b) indeed, why your right to reply has not been published?

ETA - worded better
Am writing a response now. The HealthSense newsletter is only published 3/4 times a year, so I will put my response on my blog, Tweet it, and tag HealthSense, Carson etc. Such fun!
 
Am writing a response now. The HealthSense newsletter is only published 3/4 times a year, so I will put my response on my blog, Tweet it, and tag HealthSense, Carson etc. Such fun!
Yes I'm told* that putting it on social media is a good idea - may force a response

*Former colleague, who worked in the Minister's private office - my approach was/(largely) remains to write emails etc. However, their advice was to put it on social media - more public and thereby more likely to require a response/action.
 
Peter White said:
Why deny patients with chronic fatigue syndrome treatments that can help?
A similar argument might be: Why deny people needing an adrenaline boost the right to engage in Russian roulette?

It's not just about people a treatment can help, but also very much about people the treatment can harm, and whether there is any way to know beforehand which group any one person will end up in; at the moment for ME/CFS no one knows that, and for some practitioners no one cares.
 
I agree with strategists points. I think any response should also challenge White's description of ME/CFS as deconditioning resulting from fear of exercise. That has never been substantiated.
The deconditioning notion is total, total, BS. They have got their logic completely @rse backwards with this, and seem totally incapable of understanding that some more severely affected patients will be suffering from ME/CFS plus deconditioning, the latter being a consequence of the former. The fact they can only see the deconditioning, and bias everything they do to filter out everything else ... not only should they not be scientists, they should not be engaging in anything technical, or requiring logical thinking, at all!
 
They are going to get many earfuls about this from long haulers, how their singular obsession with calling this all "fatigue" is a bunch of nonsense, and never learn a damn in the process. They can simply ignore everything they don't like as noise. They can only think of their career and self-interest, the rest of the visible universe only exists to satisfy their need for relevance.

A self-imposed Truman Show
 
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