Medical Independent: Is it just ME or is this a real disease?

The author doesn't seem to have involvement with ME/CFS, but learned about it from the novel written by Nasim Marie Jafry:
The State of Me prompted my effort to learn more about the competing biomedical and biopsychosocial models of the condition, and I’ve discovered that where ME is concerned, the world of so-called scientific truth is stranger than Jafry’s world of fiction.
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He talks about the downfall of PACE a fair bit, which gives us a look from an outsider's perspective:
Such was the stushie raised by the PACE trial — and I’m embarrassed to admit my ignorance of it until recently — that six years after its publication, a whole Special Issue: The PACE Trial was published on 9 August in the Journal of Health Psychology (2017, 22, No 9). In one paper, Keith Geraghty refers to the fact that in September 2016, a tribunal ordered the PACE trial’s lead author’s institution to release data following a Freedom of Information case brought by a patient with CFS. The released data, according to Geraghty, “showed that the effectiveness of CBT and GET, in comparison to SMC and adaptive pacing therapy (APT), fell by almost two-thirds”. This released, writes Geraghty, “a perfect storm of patient anger and professional defensiveness”.
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Then something odd happened. On 2 July 2008, someone called Dr Marc-Alexander Fluks appeared online to point out that Prof Hooper’s paper had been retracted, which was the first the Professor had heard about it.
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There was a person with this name, Dr Marc-Alexander Fluks, on forums I used many years ago. He used to be reasonably well known, I thought. I was away from forums for some years before joining PR so I have no idea about his recent involvement or otherwise.
 
(Post merged from duplicate thread)

Not sure if many have seen this comment piece from two weeks ago in The Medical Independent, a fortnightly Irish medical journal. I met the science writer by chance during summer and after chatting, he became very interested in PACE, which he was previously unaware of (having worked on blood/Coxsackie himself in virology lab in 80s he was aware of ME but had not followed the story). He hopes to write more on ME and is very tuned into our truth, a real boon to have a writer with his qualities (an actual scientist/biochemist turned writer) on our side.

'George Winter examines the evolution of recognition for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)':

http://www.medicalindependent.ie/100315/is_it_just_me_or_is_this_a_real_disease

(*The stock photo and title 'Is ME real disease?', of course, are not the writer's doing, but the substance/subtitle is excellent.)
 
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