ME/CFS Research Review: "On BPS & disease causation: George Davey Smith’s cautionary tale" by Chris Ponting

[forestglip]

A post written by @Chris Ponting on @Simon M's blog, ME/CFS Research Review:

On BPS & disease causation: George Davey Smith’s cautionary tale

First paragraph:

A guide to the Biopsychosocial model recently put out by Long Covid Advocacy ultimately brought me to a 2005 book chapter, written by Professor George Davey Smith, entitled The biopsychosocial approach: a note of caution in Biopsychosocial Medicine: An Integrated Approach to Understanding Illness, edited by Peter White and published by Oxford University Press. The chapter is available from a University of Bristol website. I thought the divergence of opinion between Profs Davey Smith and Wessely was sufficiently interesting to write this short commentary.

 

[Peter T]

A post written by @Chris Ponting on @Simon M's blog, ME/CFS Research Review:

On BPS & disease causation: George Davey Smith’s cautionary tale

First paragraph:

This blog is a clear and concise summary reminding me of @ME/CFS Science Blog’s excellent, though obviously much fuller, series on the various health conditions, including peptic ulcers, that were previously mischaracterised as psychogenic.

 

[rvallee]

Good post. This happened in 2005, and since then there have been hundreds more studies and trials, and absolutely nothing has changed, yet the ideology has firmly established itself as an immovable force, absurdly enough, on the basis of "evidence-based medicine", despite there being no real evidence for any of it. If anything, the evidence has clearly gone downhill, and yet it's more powerful than ever.

I don't know who or what can force things to change, but this is all a very bizarre thing, one of the most bizarre things in history, really. Even on the issue of peptic ulcers, most times it's pointed out as evidence for psychosomatic silliness, I see physicians excusing it with an "akshually" argument that basically mirrors the "functional overlay" excuse that has become standard these days: it might not be the cause, but it's a factor, a big one, and lalalalala can't hear you.

How do we even reach the medical profession with this? The facts are indisputable. And yet they dispute. It's all so clearly irrational and based on vibes and being unable to admit to mistakes.

 

[hotblack]

It's all so clearly irrational and based on vibes and being unable to admit to mistakes

Yes and that’s the real underlying truth about human psychology. Ironically. Our inability to admit mistakes, especially if it challenges our image of self.

This is why I think those invested in these ideas about us are lost and arguing with them is pointless. Our target should be the larger group who are not invested in them.

 

[neurophusion]

Good concise post from Chris Ponting. Just one small issue:

"A year later, Simon Wessely, Peter White and Trudie Chalder, the three principal investigators of the PACE trial, with others, objected to this guideline."

I think he meant to say Michael Sharpe here, not Simon Wessely, since it reads as though Wessely was one of the three principal investigators. The sentence would be better as:

[A year later, Peter White, Michael Sharpe, and Trudie Chalder (the three principal investigators of the PACE trial), with Simon Wessely and others, objected to this guideline.]

But I wonder what George Davey Smith think now, he had a falling out with James Coyne over the PACE trial and then resigned from the editorial board of the Journal of Health Psychology because of the special issue was too hard and one-sided against the PACE trial.

And of course Wessely had to have a swipe at ME/CFS 'activists'. He probably still holds a grudge about being discouraged from the field, which was to be his play thing, and lashes out behind the scenes instead of in public view, now on the NHS England board of directors, a scary thought.

Medicine learnt little from their mistakes about misclassification of illnesses as psychosomatic and only grew more confident that the remaining 'unexplained' symptoms are psychosomatic?

 

[Sean]

Our inability to admit mistakes, especially if it challenges our image of self.

The threat to ego, career, empire, status, place in history, and well above average income and a comfortable retirement is a, um, persuasive package of very powerful disincentives to facing up to the truth.