Sense about Science: Join our talks on science, scepticism and free speech (Garner et al)

There was a Q&A afterwards where he also spoke about the PACE trial and ME/CFS a couple of times. Perhaps someone else can make a transcript of that.

 

Nice of him to set out how he's adopted various positions on the 'facts' according to what he's experienced emotionally at various times. I wouldn't bet against him doing another 180 at some point.

 

From Garner's ramble:

"You’d wake up in the morning and sometimes feel absolutely fantastic and some days you would feel dreadful and wouldn’t be able to move, have headaches and back pain and all sorts of things. And this fatigue, exhaustion: I could hardly lift my hand from the bed at one stage and I couldn’t read. I was utterly exhausted. You feel that all you can do is sleep and that’s the way you’ll get better but it never seems to work very well."

Do PwME sometimes wake up and feel absolutely fantastic?

 

Do they ever feel like they just have to sleep more to get better?

 

Is this the same Toby Young previously writing for Spiked and standing alongside Living Marxism in heavily underplaying the genocide on Bosnians in the early nineties? In that case I’ll bet you Monbiot is already caught up in researching!

 

Impressive jumble of selective memory and a very odd perspective on things.

But I guess this explains why Cochrane has effectively shut down the process while pretending otherwise.

I'm sure he believes this is what happened. Or whatever. But he has mixed some comically wrong misinterpretation of things along with interpreting however he preferred things to have happened.

If this is the kind of thinking that the influential people in evidence-based medicine rely on, wow does it explain everything about how it's a complete mess. They're all winging it completely, have no idea what they're actually doing over there.

 

Pretty much overwhelmingly you find the same thing as well in LC: mornings suuuuuuck, are the worst time of day. I've never heard of people feeling various horrible, then had fantastic days, then back. Some better days, but definitely not "absolutely fantastic". Can still be a thing, but it'd be pretty rare, and so unrepresentative.

So either it's all a cock-up of things he read and jumbled together, or he's basing this entirely on his own personal experience and nothing else. It appears to be a bit of both.

 

According to himself he had LC because he read about it online, so it probably amounts to the same.

 

Don't think it is highlighted in this thread that Garner is now on the Board of trustees of Sense About Science, https://senseaboutscience.org/who-we-are/board-of-trustees/

 

No.

If I sleep long enough, I do feel more rested, but never ever feel well.

 

Just realised, I thought I saw him the other week when I was out. I wasn’t sure as it looked like him but much older. It was in fact him (it’s a small place, the only surprising thing was that I was out) Paul, if you read this, no need to worry, I’m mainly housebound and wouldn’t bother with you - even if you were collecting cash for Ukrainian orphans.

 

He was seen running and exercising a lot three months after his Covid, so I guess he felt great sometimes.

 

No I think even when I was more well then I remember I used to say that I had a few days a year where I woke up and felt what I sssumed normal people felt when they woke in the morning (never like a ‘lark’ does but just not like a ‘owl’ and like I was supposed to /ready to wake when I actually woke vs my alarm or something else hadn’t been what woke me then it was a set another alarm and get forcing yourself through just to ‘waie’ )

my words might have been over later years of having it along the lines of ‘hiw fantastic it is when that happens’

the closest I’d get [to feeling fabtastic] would be the adrenaline and ‘flow’ (marketing term like involvement fir when you get really into something) doing a task or having a hectic day thinking I was juggling lots etc and was probably pushing through and not realising I felt really great because it was all macho and adrenaline

although I sort of knew it. And knew it get or be slightly hyper on it. And even tho PEM wasn’t known back then after a few years I knew it was something to do with going through the wall into a hyper mode that was fun but not clever

then I’d ’feel Fantastic’ but NEVER in the mornings only once I’d drunk a lot of caffeine and used music and excitement of the challenge to get going.

And yes u could do it with social or fun stuff too

didn’t mean it wasn’t damaging me and serious PEM later even though that wasn’t acknowledged then so I was told I was mad if I described that. Plus the relief you add in for feeling normal and able as a holiday for a while of lying to yourself you can do all you want (and care about it later so make the most of it now).

it’s why I think eg the pacing up stuff you hear from eg certain old hands is so dangerous . Because its exactly the wrong thing and it’s doing that and getting routines of more and more adrenaline and caffeine thinking you’re cheating it etc