Paul Garner on Long Covid and ME/CFS - BMJ articles and other media.

I've just watched this segment on the BBC. Both were being presented as experts, but were discussing personal experience. Should this not have been made a lot clearer?!

The plural of anecdote is not data

 

Personally, I don't condemn the BMJ for publishing an opinion piece. That would only seem justifiable if they had refused to publish responses, and they haven't. Last night I saw that one response had been deleted, presumably because it was abusive or off-topic, but a number of strongly worded, highly critical responses, some written by fellow health professionals, have been published.

It's about the fact that someone who, despite being in a very good position to know better, nevertheless decided to submit the article. Lots of people have written personal, emotional, poorly-informed pieces online, especially at times of illness and stress. The difference is that they used social support forums, not their professional journals.

 

I guess this is the military exercising set up PG is talking about in Sefton Park:

https://www.bemilitaryfit.com/liverpool-sefton-park

 

I am not sure that decided to submit the article necessarily gives the right impression of events.
I strongly suspect that he was more or less invited to do so, maybe having mentioned his recovery to chums who are also chums with the editorial staff. That is usually how journal's work.

 

Interesting, and is there usually some kind of checking of the content of opinion pieces or can people just say what they want (within reason) with little oversight?

And to people get paid to write editorials?

 

ME/CFS-patients who would exercise like he did but who would get worse would be blamed for boom and bust behaviour. (resp. all-or-nothing-behaviour because of an alleged perfectionist personality)

His exercise style sounds much more like Lightning Process and not so much like classic GET (first establishing a baseline than gradually increasing exercise)

 

Trial By Error: Professor Paul Garner’s BMJ Blog Post on His Powerful Cognitions
https://www.virology.ws/2021/01/28/...ers-bmj-blog-post-on-his-powerful-cognitions/

 

Gerada says: “I don’t know what the pathophysiology is but I certainly had problems with my muscles.”

There seems to be an inconsistency here. If she subscribes to the CBT/GET models, why does she appear to rule out the possibility that she was suffering from unhelpful illness beliefs? There is no evidence that she had any ongoing pathology and she can’t possibly have become significantly “deconditioned” in 7 days, so, if the BPS model is correct, it must have been her beliefs that were perpetuating her symptoms and preventing her from being able exercise at her normal level. I wonder if her BPS friends would interpret her claim that she’d rather have cut her legs off than experience the muscle pain as evidence of “catastrophizing”?

On the other hand, if she believes she had some ongoing unidentified pathology, as she appears to, why is she so certain that there are not similar unidentified pathologies which prevent other people from being able to do far less and/or increase their level of activity? It’s logically inconsistent, as with so much of their thinking.

 

I've wondered about that. I feel that I gave a talk to his group in good faith, and now I feel like he's said "fuck you" to me as well as to patients. I might send him the post. I don't know.

 

A problem with getting through the point that PG is not discussing science and with regard to C Gerada's point that exercise is always good is Boris Johnson.

Having had covid he now also has a personal trainer and bikes to work. Reinforcement at the highest level. I'm sure they (BPS) feel they can say just about anything they like with impunity. Just about. It seems they can create zealots that can go too far in self contradiction even for them.

 

What they (CG and PG) don't seem to talk about is how they managed to resume housework.

 

Yes. Good point.

 

There will be careful checking but since the editor will have known what was likely to come the checking may not bhquite the sort of checking others might perform!

I don't think people get paid for this sort of thing. There are plenty of self-important people happy to provide opinions. As Trich points out there are even more non-self-important people in the wings.

 

Besides not having long Covid, I think that Boris Johnson wanted to exercise more due to his obesity. In this sense I think he is trying to be more of a 'role model' with regarding to following a healthy lifestyle, of which exercise is just one aspect.

 

This is my experience when I've written opinion posts for some US journals when I know an editor. I check in with the editor if they're interested first and then the piece is edited in-house but not sent out for peer review. That is likely the case here. I wouldn't think money would enter into it at all.