Dave wrote- "I would assume that, behind the scenes, Dr Tovey has been under enormous pressure from the GET/CBT ideological brigades and their enablers in the UK academic and medical establishments."
I have given up trying to predict what will happen next. The BPS cult are obviously now engaged in a full scale rear guard action. Perhaps it is understandable that they are so committed that they can not step back, but why do so many others in the British (and to a lesser extent the international) medical/academic establishment still support them? A lazy deference to eminence might explain an initial knee jerk defence; if Cochrane and NICE agree then these good chaps must be right. However, the longer this goes on, this is not a plausible explanation for the establishment's circling of the wagons to protect this bad science. That it's the patients' fault, if only they would just consume those neat marketable packages of CBT/GET and get better, fits well with our current political zeitgeist, is attractive to post Thatcher post Blaire neoliberal philosophy, but is this enough to explain the hold of this distortion of the scientific method?
I am reminded of these articles which basically say old habits die hard. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/20/18148963/yogurt-dairy-fat-america https://www.vox.com/2015/11/24/9782098/dietary-fat-saturated-fat-good-or-bad Once you build a culture around something tearing it down is a big deal. People resist change and corporations have made business plans around the lie. Or in our case governments deny benefits that they would now have to pay if they acknowledge reality and would have to fund biomedical research. Big reasons to stick with the lies.
Once again follow the money. If BPS is shown to be flawed then DWPs budget will increase, with no ‘treatment’ to push on to claimants - and with the harm of GET which is yet to be acknowledged. This leaves the DWP exposed. If IAPT looks as if it might also be based on the same nonsense, then its medical provision in the uk is of questionable ethics. Of course this neglects the insurance companies involvement, whom reject ill health pensions due to the Pace findings. The loss is too large to countinance here in the uk. Hence the stubborn behaviour of the uk groups.
One of the things that chilled me this week was when Diane O'Leary said that there seems to be a taboo about discussing ME even among the ethics community. It brought to mind a book I read by a retired businessman. He said that he was on a walking holiday when he got friendly with Robert Macnamarra the US politician who was a close colleague of President Kennedy. Curious, he asked what he thought about the controversy about the assassination. To his amazement, Macnamarra said he had made a point of never reading anything about it because he did not want to know in case he found something that challenged the establishment view. Not knowing kept his conscience clear. I think this wilful blindness surrounds ME.
It seems to me the struggle at Cochrane over the PACE reviews (exercise and individual data) and their fate along with moving them from common mental health group is one of trying to keep this trial as viable evidence for some of those at the NICE review to point to. We know they can't defend it there either but that seems to me to be the underlying motivation. I have no doubt that there have been/are ongoing communications regarding how those from the BPS camp can still spin the web of disingenuous PACE data into something beautiful at the NICE review. Edit: fix typo
17 June 2019 Amended Addition of new published note: 'Cochrane’s Editor in Chief has received the revised version of the review from the author team with changes made in response to the complaint by Robert Courtney. The process has taken longer than hoped; the amended review is being finalised and it will be published during the next 2 months'. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub7/information#whatsNew
There is a tacitly within the establishment and governance in this country that means wrongdoing is never exposed until people have died or retired. Unless caught in the very act. Blood, Birmingham 6 and Hillsborourgh at one end of the scale all the way down. What I don't understand is why US organizations in particular, stonewall on their behalf?
Moderator note: A new thread has been started. It is suggested discussion of this Cochrane review and the latest developments continue there to keep it together in one place: Cochrane Review: Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome - recent developments, 2018-19
