Lightning Process study in Norway - Given Ethics Approval February 2022

So, since this is supposed to be a "scientific study," I would assume that the participants will not be expected to pay for the "treatment" they receive. This really would be absolutely necessary to ensure that patient responses are not unconsciously biased by the fact that they have made an unrecoverable financial investment in the treatment.

Also, I think you would need to select participants who have no prior knowledge of what the treatment entails. You don't want subjects who have prior expectations and/or who were going to get the treatment anyway, since this might lead to a choice supportive bias.

Of course, these precautions are totally at odds with all the affirmations you're supposed to engage in on that application form... but that's science for you.

 

Agree. But as long as ME is described and presented as stress and tiredness, and deterioration as "disappointment", I assume nobody in the ethical committees can understand what enormous amounts of harm this actually can cause.

The trial will have a psychiatrist available if any participants are feeling worse, so all is well taken care of according to them.

 

I believe that something like LP has a high risk of long term harm because it attempts to persuade patients to believe in something that is not real. In the short term this might lead to some positive feelings but in the long term it cannot be good.

A person that believes they can and should control the illness with their mind might end up blaming themselves for trying and failing to achieve this.

LP sounds like a recipe to induce mental illness to me.

It could also lead to delays in diagnosis or urgent interventions for ME or other health problems.

 

Thank you for the translation @Kalliope .

Is there any additional info about where the person who shared it on Twitter obtained it?

I think that would be very useful as a reference. Even if the form wasn't used anymore, I think it still shows that the Lightning process is conceived as manipulation.

 

I can accept that about the less zealous CBT and mindfulness, to a very limited point. Not that positive feelings mean anything when what happens is that patients report otherwise than is true, effectively teaching people to lie on a test for the benefit of the person administering the test. Which is basically the same as filling the questionnaires themselves with their own words, and simply using the time in-between to make the participant do it for them.

LP is a cult. This is not at all about positive feelings, it explicitly encourages people to ignore their symptoms. Which, uh, well, when you think of it is exactly the same thing as CBT and GET, just with added MLM conflicts of interest and cult mentality.

Honestly a very good strategy moving forward would be a good social media campaign with useful graphics showing how absurd this is and how it has the fanatical support of medical authorities in several countries, and is peddled by the BMJ. This is not normal, medicine is not supposed to be engaged in pseudoscience and this is basically peak pseudoscience, it has none of the false legitimacy of CBT and GET. Which, clearly, is undeserved anyway.

I am sitting here furious that I could do this by myself if I were healthy, and in my current state couldn't even begin to do it. This is a jumping the shark moment, the whole BPS Big Lie about being a medical paradigm when it is actually the same old psychosomatics that started with Freud.

 

So, reflecting on this: they cheated to get a worthless pseudoscientific experiment with massive bias and conflicts of interest, got medical authorities to get involved and interfere far above what their duties allow, and bypassed all the safeguards meant to protect patients and the integrity of medicine.

And after having successfully corrupted the entire process of medical research, making anything produced by Norwegian researchers massively suspect, they are essentially whining about how hard it was, and how in the future, those safeguards better not stand in their way or it's just unfair.

And of course the story is misrepresented, quite literally propaganda, in a way that portrays this removal of all safeguards and legitimacy on the system as a good thing, in effect arguing that any such protections against biased and corrupt pseudoscience should be removed.

So basically Norway's medical system has effectively taken a stand demanding, literally demanding, pseudoscience and alternative medicine be on the same level as scientific medicine.

The hubris behind all of this is something. They demand the right to cheat and act offended that cheating is hard, like it's their birth right do to so. They are so convinced that they are right that they will do all the wrong things along the way, no matter how hard it can backfire.

Anyway this really sets the stage for the near future, about how the only way forward for the BPS ideology is to keep lowering medical standards until there aren't any, and we're one step removed from this by now. No matter how hard they try to label all of this is psychological, rather than medical, just because they are working on psychology's laughably low standards doesn't change that they are dealing with medical issues. They are wrong for the wrong reasons and doing the most possible harm because of how hard it is to the do wrong thing. And none of this bothers anyone involved, that's the worst part.

 

The NICE guidelines had a unanimous sign off before 3 resigned for unexplained reasons (or was it 2 + Shepherd?). This has been used since as an argument for how this disqualifies the guidelines. And while there was a lot of influencing behind the scenes, it went the opposite way.

So when something similar happens the other way, a clear majority is great. Even though the NICE guidelines were unanimous on sign-off, then during the roundtable not a single issue was raised, again giving unanimous support for the process. Complete double standards, complete lack of integrity. The lying is seriously excessive.

The complete lack of integrity in everything BPS is made far worse by the fact that no one cares how blatant the double standards are. I have rarely seen such duplicitous lying as I witness in medicine, it's revolting.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1548047958372786181

 

maxwhd on Twitter: "@SFlottorp @LeifKennair Its a complete mystery what's going on here. https://t.co/2r1A5ZbyiK Not. " / Twitter

Direct link to the video:

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1455349593785475076/pu/vid/534x450/zMJgoTOE0DXRyDAO.mp4

Again, it would be helpful to have some additional info about that source so that it could be used as a reference.

 

I imagine there was a huge amount of lobbying behind the scenes and Flottorp et al's opinion piece in the Lancet helped too.

So the discussion now I think should [again] include a rebuttal of the misleading spin of those LP apologists in The Lancet, the bmj and other renowned medical journals.

Also haven't checked, but Flottorp's professional role might give her undue credibility, and especially to those who are affiliated with her in any way. Also of course those who are affiliated with the study team.

So have potential COI of the people who now approved the LP study been taken into account? COI of people who deliver an official verdict surely should be considered and are more relevant than the interests of those who complained?

edit -- clarity

 

Nina E. Steinkopf sent me this on Twitter: https://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/health/lightning-process.html. It seems like Parker and his team have basically been going around the world trying the same thing over and over again.

The worst part about this article from 2008 is that aside from the year it could have been published verbatim yesterday. Even the gushing acceptance that this is valid and not obvious pseudoscience. Ah, no, this changed:

Endorsed by UK and Norwegian medical authorities now. And pretty much gushed over by thousands of physicians. Also: the Romanian journal of experiential psychology, or something like that?

Interesting quote:

Do they say that? Or does Parker say that? Without evidence. Because lots of people say lots of things about the health benefits of drinking their own urine. This was in 2008. How much money has this con man made from this? If it was already thousands scammed by 2008.

Can't remember seeing that "study":

Maybe it's not fair to speak of a creep of pseudoscience in medicine, I guess medicine has always loved pseudoscience as long as it says one thing and one thing only: not our responsibility. It's terrifying seeing how gullible most physicians seem to be about this stuff, it's as unquestionable as religious dogma.