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

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355517722633916418

 

I feel like people are being close-minded about the possibility that Garner really did have something that is very close to or the same thing ME/CFS is, if only for a several months. His bizarre interpretation of what led to his recovery is a distraction from the important observation that he clearly described PEM in his earlier posts.

 

A perspective I had not thought of:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355599504666312706

 

very good piece.
this bit rings true in so many ways

 

My centrally sensitised ear found it hard to miss.
The hollow cowbell sound of hypocrisy.

 

I have posted about this several times eg
https://www.s4me.info/threads/chron...n-lubet-july-21-2020.15999/page-3#post-275757

Ironically in the Oxford criteria definition they introduced PIFS as a distinct diagnosis from CFS
(post-infectious fatigue syndrome), https://www.s4me.info/threads/oxford-criteria-should-papers-using-it-be-excluded.2218/

not sure why they created another name for PVFS unless it was to cover all infections not just viral, or because PVFS was considered synonymous with ME.

 

The PIFS category required evidence of the initial infection (patient self-report not considered sufficiently reliable) with laboratory confirmation. Also had to meet Oxford CFS criteria and have syndrome present for 6 months post-infection onset.

 

Blog

https://acomfortableplace.blogspot.com/2021/01/read-paul-garner.html

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355557072469946374

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355839060531683330

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355843231209168904

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355844548543606786

https://twitter.com/user/status/1355856963251400707

 

Obviously “criticising” should be “criticised”:
https://twitter.com/user/status/1355454066411921411

 

From: https://www.healthcarehubris.com/po...er-s-change-of-heart-on-long-covid-and-me-cfs:

Reading the above made me realise the similarities between what PG wrote and what Fiona Fox wrote in that bizarre article when she was a leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (see https://www.s4me.info/threads/artic...he-revolutionary-communist-party-c-1996.3452/) eg Fox: “I do feel that being one of the few people in the world who can really understand imposes a certain burden and definite isolation ... quite frankly if it is a choice between carrying the burden of RCP politics and ending up like my old friend Carol [who has ME] there's no choice involved.”

The same hubris, the same cultish language. And Fox is reported to have a sister with ME too. Almost makes me wonder if she helped him write it.

Another thing that struck me was PG’s implied criticism of people with ME for sending him “unsolicited emails”. Not only are these the same people he was praising and thanking in previous blogs, but he then goes on to attribute his recovery to a student who sent him an unsolicited email promoting what appears to be a pseudoscientific cult.

[Correction: PG was not sent an unsolicited email by the student – he says he was put in touch with the student having cast around his “international network of medical evidence specialists for help”.]

 

My Tweet https://meassociation.org.uk/2013/0...are-gerada-to-attend-their-annual-conference/
Good2talk! Remember2013? Chair Royal College of GP invited to CPD-Accredited event to explain the effects on GPs & their patients of NHS reforms into the way LT conditions, particularly ME, are managed -“Infection, Immunity and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis

 

Post Covid SMS?
Short Memory Syndrome?

 

I am thinking he could, like many, be experiencing ongoing cognitive confusion. Or else he has zero comprehension of how his words might impact others. The above sentence bothered me personally. I reached out to him initially but was not insistent. He engaged with me and himself invited me to speak to his group about PACE. I never provided advice about how people with long-Covid should be treated except to suggest that applying PACE treatments willy-nilly to long-Covid did not seem justified. And yet I feel dissed and really pissed off by his suggestion that everything he heard was "unsolicited." It comes across as very ungrateful and very ungenerous to patients who reached out to help him when he was flailing.

 

It would be a pity if Paul Garner's physicians did not collect and store samples of his blood, spinal fluid, microbiome, etc. during the phase of his illness where he met the CCC (though there's little reason to think they would have).

It might have been interesting to see how they compared to samples taken following his recovery.

I've been hoping that some group would do this on a large scale as a longitudinal study. If data were collected on a large enough number of post-viral ME cases, some of those people might recover like Professor Garner (even without adjusting their mental attitude). Maybe the results would be interesting, or maybe not, but comparing self-to-self seems like the ultimate control.