After more than 20 months, French medical authorities in Occitanie have finally decided to... offer the same failed model that has failed everywhere: rehabilitation and physical reeducation. "Listening to sick people", uh uh. Still zero clue what LC is, just not paying attention. https://twitter.com/user/status/1470485996705918979
PEM is now listed as a symptom of Long Covid in France. I don't think this rises to the level of "recognizing", since it means nothing until medical professionals are trained on and apply this knowledge reliably in clinical practice, which is basically 99.9% of the work. So with the UK going first, France is the 2nd country to at least minimally acknowledge that PEM is a thing.... in Long Covid, while continuing to pretend that ME has never existed and probably never will. This is so silly, like recognizing that other planets aren't flat, just the Earth. Urgh. (Original translation was post-effort discomfort, ugh) https://twitter.com/user/status/1505969264976662532
Yesterday MillionsMissing France held a number of ME awareness events. More details in their Facebook post Code: https://www.facebook.com/MillionsMissingFrance/posts/3162550734024528
Unexplained post-acute infection syndromes, 2021, Iwasaki et al French twitter discussion about this paper.
"Back in January, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research @Inserm published a well documented, extended article on ME/CFS featuring interviews with the rare few French clinician-researchers. English version fr.calameo.com/read/005154450…"
Some French scientific committee has published an opinion labeling Long Covid and post-infectious syndromes in general as functional disorders. Hard to dispute that evidence is entirely irrelevant in so-called evidence-based medicine. There's the extra irony that they are labeled as psychosomatic, with an admission that they are poorly understood and understudied, which is basically the entire makeup of everything psychosomatic. Out of ignorance, come psychosomatics. Always ignorant. https://twitter.com/user/status/1585214919821078528
https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/s...e&recherche=des+syndromes+des+post-infectieux pdf: https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/avis_du_covars_du_20.10.2022_sur_le_covid-19.pdf Google translate of relevant section: D. Clinical impact of the current epidemic The epidemic wave that appeared in mid-September 2022 and linked to the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants has a less significant direct hospital impact than previous waves. Current support for COVID-19 is mainly ambulatory, with symptomatic infection resulting in people vaccinated "immuno-competent", by an acute febrile illness, mainly ENT, followed by 1 to 2 weeks of asthenia. Re-infections seem more frequent than with the BA.1 and BA.2 viruses, often little symptomatic, but remain rare and are being analyzed. However, very old people or with immunosuppression who respond poorly to vaccines, people who are not or incompletely vaccinated remain at risk of severe form of COVID-19 and worsening of an underlying comorbidity requiring hospitalization, or even intensive care, which can lead to death (+112 death on 17/10/2022 according to SPF). In addition, viral replication is often prolonged in these patients, which amplifies the risk of emergence of a new mutation, especially in the presence of a sub-optimal treatment. Prior exposure to SARS-COV2 infections and vaccination could account for the limiting the severity of the disease in the majority of cases. The management of the COVID-19 pandemic must also integrate the long-term, multiple and systemic, directly related to the virus. Persistent forms of COVID-19 constitute an entity complex in its definition, pathophysiology, description, variable clinical expression and fluctuating confusing patients and caregivers who are sometimes helpless or even defeated. Despite difficulties of detection, SPF estimates that approximately 2 million people were affected in France in April 2022 (i.e. 30 % of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 more than three months ago), the prevalence being higher in women, the active and after hospitalization, but decreasing with time since infection. However, 18 months after infection, more than 20% of people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 were still showing signs of a post-COVID-19 condition. The care offer remains heterogeneous on the territory, with sectors often quickly saturated when they exist. The scientific debate also exists as to the imputability of the symptoms to SARS-CoV-2 or another trigger agent. Research work on "COVID-long" should make it possible to better approach the complexity of post-infectious syndromes in general, improve the management of these so-called "functional" poorly known and little studied. ----------------------- text quoted in Tweet underlined. "so-called "functional" poorly known and little studied" - doesn't exactly sound especially negative - unless Google translate is giving an especially anodyne view. Other than some general comments about general mental health and a comment about mental well being of young people, there doesn't seem to be anything re: psychology/psychiatry.
From what I see coming out of France, it's as bad as in Norway or Denmark. The entire system is obsessed with psychosomatics and considers it a fact as plain as the Earth being round. I haven't seen much that isn't fully this, and what's said privately is even worse. Zero chance this is not bad and intended to stick with full BPS.
I get the impression that France isn't good with chronic conditions. Some years back, I heard of doctors in France trying to psychologize autism.
Yes - though best to avoid labelling a committee as a pro psych when it's said nothing of the sort. France is a unique case, no other Country has made intellectualism such a major part of its National identity and nowhere else has 'psychologie' been part of intellectualism. Psychoanalysis especially has an authority in French national life that far exceeds its role in medicine, as such removing its influence from within medicine is a far greater challenge than just rejecting a single psychological model. I maybe missing something but there seems little in the way of BPS influence in French psychology and the role psychosomatics seems somewhat unfocused: Psychosomatic Medicine in France
I am French and I have advocated for a ME association. It is absolutely wrong to say that the BPS model is not influent in France. Just as in the US and the UK, the BPS model of chronic pain is seen as the Holy Grail of good healthcare such that all pain centers are based on it. With regards to Covid, the French College of Psychiatry has a significant influence on this COVARS committee as well as on the long Covid guideline committee at the HAS (French equivalent of NICE). A consultant who is involved in setting up long Covid care pathways personally told me, during an advocacy call, that they have considerable lobbying power. In fact, the head of the long Covid committee at the HAS was almost fired from her position as co-lead of the infectious diseases unit of the hospital she works at because she was considered to have committed a serious professional error by treating her patients outside the long Covid center set up at her hospital. This center is run by the head of the psychiatry unit, a very vocal BPS proponent… who also happens to sit on the HAS committee for long Covid. As for psychanalysis, it remains present but French organizations that promote critical thinking and evidence-based medicine have been keen on debunking it. However, and sadly, the very same people are in favour of the BPS model. It is a Kafkaesque situation.
@cassava7 Do these French BPS proponents publish - or just propound from positions of authority ? I'd be interested in names/papers.
You could look at the works of Prof Pascal Cathébras — an internist and long time denialist of ME and fibromyalgia who has expressed his support towards Wessely, Sharpe against patient-activists —, in particulier his well known book “Troubles somatiques fonctionnels” (2006), as well as those of Prof Cédric Lemogne (psychiatrist). Recently, Prof Brigitte Ranque (internist) has teamed up with Lemogne. They all hold positions of authority, so it is a combination of authority and publications that make them influent.
BPS blather from Saint-Étienne: Chronic fatigue: What investigations? And what for? 2023 Gramont et al Cathébras supervised.
Association Francaise du Syndrome de Fatigue Chronique, Appelation Internationale: EM/SFC We now have an organisation news thread for this CFS organisation. They have published a guide to pacing.
Merged thread Suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis, Laëtitia experiences “hell” in her “centenarian body” https://time.news/suffering-from-my...tia-experiences-hell-in-her-centenarian-body/
Merged thread #millionsmissing France demo today Rendons visible l’encéphalomyélite myalgique à Rennes ! Place de la Mairie Urrugne, 30 septembre 2023 14:30, Urrugne. https://www.unidivers.fr/event/urrugne-place-de-la-mairie-2023-09-30/ https://millionsmissing.fr/
