Norway: Opinion piece on "Facts and myths about ME" by Reme, Flottorp and Wyller

An excellent short opinion piece from Mark Vink from Nov. 26th:

Dårlig underbygde beskyldninger om ME
google translate: Poorly substantiated allegations about ME

quote:

I read with interest the article Facts and myths about ME by Silje Endresen Reme, Signe Flottorp and Vegard Bruun Bratholm Wyller (Aftenposten, 25 October). They claim that CBT and Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) can make many patients healthier, and that "it is fraudulent to claim that there is scientific evidence that such treatments make patients sicker".

 

All respect to these guys and Tuller and those who keep going with the slog of replying to all these things, ridiculous as they normally are - it's like being beaten with lies in the hope you are exhausted and finished off by the constant having to call someone a fibber politely, so the more often and more ridiculous the claims to take time to just say 'well obviously no' is the focus over what you'd think anything academic would be about.

I just went through various links on this one to get to the following (BPS myths paper) by Reme, Flottorp, Woller Oct 2022: https://www-aftenposten-no.translat..._sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

I'm astounded by some of the deceitfulness, one of which being the following:

So rather than say only 1,161 biomed/biological studies have been carried out into ME (Not a lot) since 1979 - and then noting the sheer number of psychosomatic studies - which tend to use CFS, chronic fatigue etc or, more accurately to above including them in the % terms, they've divided the bio studies by the number of bio studies in the hope a high % makes it seem like a high number

 

I thought they made themselves look silly/transparent with that line.

In their list of 'things other than ME that give PEM' they actually listed 'ME' as the first to lengthen their list, then the sister condition fibro - which as a condition includes a large % of ME sufferers (people have both and 'pick on based on if pain is the bigger issue' or which label they get is based on the preference of the specialist they see).

Those I know who have fibro and don't have ME make a point of saying to me that it's quite different particularly in as far as the PEM and exertion thing, gentle exercise being good for them - so quite a different approach and not getting this after it takes a listener with a science (observational brain) not long at all just makes me think how they don't care about doing a good job or learning these people must be. It's to me on a similar level as choosing to confuse asthma with hayfever level of stupid, insisting on continuing with that for decades by putting your fingers in your ears to info 'nuance' such as 'erm pollen compulsory and you can have both' and still claiming you are a doctor despite that 'blindspot'. And saying 'hayfever is just fatigue and CBT works because a runny nose around pollen can also be found in people with asthma'

The other 2 seem obviously rubbish - does IBS have PEM where you do a small exertion like watch a film and end up in bed unable to move for days? So inserting that line to then list nonsense examples just makes them seem laughable for bothering with it at all. It's like someone called them on it and said 'name them' and they still chose to include the line in the hope noone read the 'list'.

Burnout has a completely different pattern to ME. At certain levels an ME person might hide in plain sight as long as they've had a massive rest prior and it is short enough and this goes on for decades, with constant limit-pushing leaking to horrible deteriorations. BUrnout is the treacle-like fatigue that comes in from someone constantly wading through overwork, but without ME. They don't recover from that overnight and maybe not ever to what they were but the pattern isn't ME and if it is then their doctors should be looking at whether it actually is that (because you know overwork to that extent would trigger it in susceptible people).

They just make themselves seem like they can't see patterns or history or medicine (which makes you wonder what their job is because.....erm isn't this a key part of most of these areas that you can distinguish these things?) - whether it is a pretence they think will convince others, or they really are that lacking I genuinely can't work out.