Michael Sharpe: Mind, Medicine and Morals: A Tale of Two Illnesses (2019) BMJ blog - and published responses

Maybe he has finally met someone who can out-drivel him and has cold feet.

 

Is it normal practice to publish a " taster" and invite comments prior to publication of the full piece?
It just seems weird.

 

Either or both of them might have cold feet! She might have had cold feet having realised that she was co-authoring with only a part-time driveller. Cold feet might be catching - in a biopsychosocial sort of way.

 

Maybe the BMJ has cold feet? There were a lot of complaints about this article.

 

I keep misreading Dr Greco as Dr Gecko...

 

With a commenting system but systematically censoring all comments.

Weird and weirder.

 

It makes sense that this was based on something from 2016, when they were still getting away with that sort of BS.

 

Then again...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1133817356306845696

 

Or badly written fluff, it seems.

And where were the debates about poor quality of trial methods.

 

I wrote an email to the editors and they said they expect it to appear next week.

 

Shies away from debate almost immediately and censors all comments on the actual post.

Good job, hue manatees!

 

It's been published: Chronic fatigue syndrome and an illness-focused approach to care: controversy, morality and paradox
https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2019/06/18/medhum-2018-011598

but without any accompanying commentary as was promised.

...eta: although having now read it - it's fairly lightweight - even the blog had more substance tbh!

 

Just what we’ve all wanted - MS helping us out with our ‘illness-without-disease’ paradox.
He’s so entrenched in his beliefs, we haven’t any hope of changing him. Luckily I don’t think many people will fall for this guff.

 

Is this following statement true?

What a pile of contrived bile this is. The hypothesis these treatments are based on is totally unproven for ME/CFS, meaning their safety and efficacy are also unproven. That is the objection.

 

I don't know... there seemed to be a number of important claims in that piece which had no reference to support them.

 

I suspect it is true to the extent that when people are asked they say their fatigue is reduced to a similar degree - i.e. not much. But fatigue has not been found to be relieved in any reliable way - at least not in ME.

It might be interesting to lookout the way self-reported fatigue changes in cancer patients. It might turn out to be rather more dramatic than the teensy bit of change in PACE (once you draw the full y axis).

 

So much for discussion.

"We're here to discuss, as long as you agree with us."

I only skimmed because there's no point but I really like that the article cites the Kelland article for which Sharpe himself was the source. Sharpe is literally citing himself giving his opinion and using the publication of said opinion as a source to validate his own opinion. Truly a king ouroboros of bullshit.

Good job, hue manatee!

 

ah the captain of the great ship PACE

 

(My bold.) Funny that. Last year on Twitter he was proclaiming that ME and CFS are two different conditions and that PACE only studied CFS and wasn't about ME. Previously, he had always stated that they are alternate names for one condition. When a few Twitterers supplied him with documentary evidence of his having previously said they are the same, he blocked those members. Now he's back to saying ME and CFS are the same thing again. Does he just change it to suit the intended audience of the moment?

ETA:

Unfortunately, they do, at least here among the UK Establishment. Hook, line and sinker.