Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

Amw66 said:
"At least in the short term" to me is the worst part of this thread.
This infers that adverse effects/ harm being done were well known...
Click to expand...
Most trials are short term, few look for long term effects and most drugs never get tested for long term effects.
That said i think there was a followup (or was there supposed to be) who knows what happened there
 
Alvin said:
Most trials are short term, few look for long term effects and most drugs never get tested for long term effects.
That said i think there was a followup (or was there supposed to be) who knows what happened there
Click to expand...

There was a 2.5 year follow up for PACE which Sharpe spun as supporting PACE (because improvements remained) but the other arms caught up. Looking at the TSC/TMG minutes a major part of the follow up should have been economic data but this was never published.

In addition there were plans that they would do a 5 year follow up and at some point it sounded like they had funding.
 
Adrian said:
There was a 2.5 year follow up for PACE which Sharpe spun as supporting PACE (because improvements remained) but the other arms caught up. Looking at the TSC/TMG minutes a major part of the follow up should have been economic data but this was never published.

In addition there were plans that they would do a 5 year follow up and at some point it sounded like they had funding.
Click to expand...
Interesting.
I suspect when they decided to do the PACE trial they really believed in what they were peddling, the numbers started catching up to them so they had to fudge their way to success. Once they realized they could not support their reality denial they had to scramble to save their enterprise. For a while it worked, patients didn't believe them but they beat them into submission but the dam has broke now and they can only attempt damage control.
 
Adrian said:
There was a 2.5 year follow up for PACE which Sharpe spun as supporting PACE (because improvements remained) but the other arms caught up.
Click to expand...
More troubling for Sharpe and co is the slopes of those lines from 52 weeks to 134 weeks (the post-treatment phase of the trial).

Over that period the slopes for the APT & SMC arms are better on both primary outcome measures than for the CBT & GET arms. Meaning the rate of improvement in the post-treatment phase is better for APT & SMC.

Furthermore, if you look at the overall shape of improvement rates over time they suggest that CBT & GET are tending to level off asymptotically (i.e the rate of response is reducing over time in a standard decay curve pattern, which is what you would see if the effect was just regression to the mean). But for SMC & APT they are quite different patterns: they either continue to improve at the same rate (SMC on Physical Functioning), or the rate of improvement actually increases (SMC & APT on Fatigue, APT on Physical Functioning).

Even though the result of the 2.5 year follow-up was null (i.e no statistically significant difference), the slopes in the post-treatment phase suggest that both SMC & APT will deliver significantly better longer term outcomes than CBT or GET (e.g. at 5 years).

http://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/2040675016/2054318872/gr2.jpg

Figure 2 Fatigue and physical functioning at 2.5year follow-up.jpg
 
Last edited:
Saddened to see that the people and institutions supporting Sharpe are mysteriously unable to click the 'Like' button on his tweets. It makes it look like they don't want to be seen supporting him. I hope he manages to fix the technical problem soon.
 
Indigophoton said:
Sharpe clarifies what he means by objective,


This sounds like it's recommending boom and bust?
Click to expand...


I have had to read a lot of BPS rubbish these two past years. But this tweet really takes the cake when it comes to idiocy.

It's no longer a mystery to me how these people end up with such insane theories. What is one to expect when these clowns are not even able to distinguish between objective and subjective criteria.
 
I think twitter is providing a diversion to draw you in and use up limited energy resources for something that is disintegrating.

The IAPT/ illness coding/ MUS/ BDD / mental health act issue is where energy should be focused - it needs wider publicity asap - as it affects so many people with chronic illness ( a lot of which is better understood by the public than ME)
@Nathalie Wright @Gary Burgess
 
Amw66 said:
I think twitter is providing a diversion to draw you in and use up limited energy resources for something that is disintegrating.

The IAPT/ illness coding/ MUS/ BDD / mental health act issue is where energy should be focused - it needs wider publicity asap - as it affects so many people with chronic illness ( a lot of which is better understood by the public than ME)
@Nathalie Wright @Gary Burgess
Click to expand...
Yes, absolutely This ^

Thank you for tagging journos as well, as this needs to be widely disseminated, and I think should and could gain serious traction bc it effects *all* human people who ever seek medical help for complex or unknown symptoms. Should be headlining every news outlet everywhere relentlessly until it is axed forever.
 
Binkie4 said:
@Amw66said


Is this Sharpe's motive for engaging in this way? Keep us occupied while we think we are moving forward.
In the meantime, their real work goes on behind the scenes.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I think we as a community need to change focus a little and stop spending so much energy bombarding him with tweets and contesting everything for days. It’s not going to stop Michael Sharpe from doing anything.
 
Binkie4 said:
Is this Sharpe's motive for engaging in this way? Keep us occupied while we think we are moving forward.
Click to expand...
I don't think so. I suspect Sharpe is engaging at least in part because of the optics. To anyone who doesn't know the facts, he will be coming across as reasonable, polite, cordial and very patient with the pwme who keep challenging him.

To illustrate, consider the conversation below from the point of view of someone who knows nothing much about ME and nothing about PACE (split over two posts because of the forum software limits):




 
Dr Carrot said:
I agree with this. I think we as a community need to change focus a little and stop spending so much energy bombarding him with tweets and contesting everything for days. It’s not going to stop Michael Sharpe from doing anything.
Click to expand...
I think this is true, but I also think that it's important to have put the other side, as various members of the community have done so well. Unfortunately it's not enough to be right scientifically - I wish it was - there is a political dimension too.
 
@Binkie4 I don't know whether he is a master politician and spinmeister, or whether he genuinely believes what he's saying. I find it hard to get my head around someone not seeing all the flaws here, there and everywhere, but he is so consistent that I'm beginning to think he really has convinced himself that it's all good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom