Trial By Error: Stupid Studies

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
With that title I thought it was going to be some kind of mega, meta-post by @dave30th on all BPS studies but apparently not.. ;)
And thanks Dave for the links to the forum again.
Boy, it’s hard to keep up with all the stupid studies coming out! But that’s no reason not to take a look at a couple of them.

(In both cases, I’m just making a few comments. Much more could be said about each of these studies. You can read more about them on the Science for ME forum here and here.)
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In December, Frontiers in Psychology published a paper about a four-day “mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention program for CFS/ME” being offered in Norway. The authors of the study, two mental health professionals from Bergen, have tested what seems to be a ratatouille of group therapy, exercise, life-coaching, meditation, stress management, writing exercises and positive thinking—something similar, perhaps, to the Lightning Process, although I don’t know if participants are required to stand inside circles on the ground.
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Someone keeps funding research by Trudie Chalder. This is hard to understand. Her most recent nonsense is a study called “Perfectionism and beliefs about emotions in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome and their parents: a preliminary investigation in a case control study nested within a cohort.” It was just published in the journal Psychological Health.
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One of the things that I have been doing as part of due diligence to provide context for evaluation of evidence in trials of therapist-delivered treatments in ME/CFS is to look at other papers coming from the same authors.

One always has to question whether an evaluation of a piece of science is flawed because of lack of understanding of the context, or lack of relevant mitigating information about the research programs involved. One of the nice things about S4ME is that a lot of the work gets done for one by others!

I have to agree with David that looking at the output from researchers in this field of ME psychology makes it pretty easy to be reassured that ones evaluation is on track - the other research is very poor as well.
 
Peter said:
It is possible that a program of many hours of playing Monopoly in an elevator while listening to Adele singing “Rolling in the Deep” over and over could have produced the same effect.

Dont give them these ideas @dave30th. They may be funded in Norway.
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This is something i have thought about, if they believe their lies so deeply they will eventually do the most absurd things, ridiculous enough that their colleagues will start realizing just from the sheer stupidity of the paper that these researchers are writing trash.
That bar is apparently very low but if a paper said listen to Adele and cure disease their credibility will not soar. Then i suggest targeted shaming and ask for funding to do a complimentary study comparing Adele to Metallica in treating disease. Then a third consensus study comparing Adele, Metallica and religious chanting. From there we will argue that religion and faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster cures ME and watch the sparks fly. :D
 
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Someone keeps funding research by Trudie Chalder. This is hard to understand. Her most recent nonsense is a study called “Perfectionism and beliefs about emotions in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome and their parents: a preliminary investigation in a case control study nested within a cohort.” It was just published in the journal Psychological Health.


Sorry if this is naive or if the point has been made elsewhere on here.

In issue 1490 of Private Eye there was a piece on private companies growing interest in clinical services. Many of the Trusts mentioned are the same old familiar names. I read it just after reading about the young lad who's started the very professional blog detailing his recovery.

If this comes to pass, the amounts of money involved in farming out services, would be a reason for continued and sustained funding of studies.

Some might see funding Trudie Chandlers' as an investment.
 
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Well the straightforward answer to who funded Chalder et al for this paper is
Funding

ML receives salary support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Doctoral Research Fellowship Scheme. TC acknowledges the financial support of the Department of Health via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Specialist Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health award to the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) and the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. This paper represents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
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Page 15 of https://sci-hub.se/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08870446.2019.1579331
 
Reminder to anyone who may be able to attend that Prof Chalder is giving a talk on “Medically unexplained symptoms: my clinical and research journey over 30 years” on Wed next week (13th March)

Visiting speaker: Prof Trudie Chalder (King’s College London)

Chair: Prof Patrick Luyten

Location: G12, 1-19 Torrington Place

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/clin...ogy-201819-lecture-series-tickets-48551754605

S4ME thread: https://www.s4me.info/threads/13-march-2019-chalder-‘medically-unexplained-symptoms’-my-clinical-and-research-journey-over-30-years.5576/page-2#post-119314

I am still hoping that @Jonathan Edwards may be persuaded to attend, particularly as it is being hosted by UCL. It would be unfortunate if nobody were to ask Prof Chalder any challenging questions.

[Edit – date corrected]
 
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Robert 1973 said:
Reminder to anyone who may be able to attend that Prof Chalder is giving a talk on “Medically unexplained symptoms: my clinical and research journey over 30 years” on Wed next week (13th March)

Visiting speaker: Prof Trudie Chalder (King’s College London)

Chair: Prof Patrick Luyten

Location: G12, 1-19 Torrington Place

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/clin...ogy-201819-lecture-series-tickets-48551754605

S4ME thread: https://www.s4me.info/threads/13-march-2019-chalder-‘medically-unexplained-symptoms’-my-clinical-and-research-journey-over-30-years.5576/page-2#post-119314

I am still hoping that @Jonathan Edwards may be persuaded to attend, particularly as it is being hosted by UCL. It would be unfortunate if nobody were to ask Prof Chalder any challenging questions.

[Edit – date corrected]
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So she'll be talking about a Medically Unexplained Career then, for which the MUC acronym is very appropriate.
 
Was MUS even a thing until a few years ago? If not what was she doing for at least the first 20 years of her career? What did she, incorrectly according to her now, think she was actually researching? Is she prepared to repay any of the grant money she was, presumably, awarded?
 
Wonko said:
Was MUS even a thing until a few years ago? If not what was she doing for at least the first 20 years of her career? What did she, incorrectly according to her now, think she was actually researching? Is she prepared to repay any of the grant money she was, presumably, awarded?
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MUS is just rebranded old ideas, some mix-and-match of hypochondria, health anxiety, mood disorders, conversion disorders, whatever. These ideas have been around for well over a century, reformulated but never actually contributing or concluding anything.

The field lost most of its patients from the golden days of psychosomatic medicine. Instead of changing the ideas, they kept them as is and just targeted a different patient population. It's probably the longest fishing expedition in history aside from religious prophecies. A fake solution in search of real problems.

Psychosomatic medicine is the God of the gaps, who, after retiring from natural sciences, put on a stethoscope. It will keep getting smaller and smaller, at least in number of patients, but the supply will probably keep growing for some time while medicine goes through its New Age renewal over the mind-over-disease that has crept all over the place.

Point is: there is literally no expectation from anyone in the field. Mediocre researchers and clinicians can find lifetime employment literally contributing nothing and still have an endless supply of funding. Having contributed nothing is exactly what is expected, because it's always been pretend.
 
Peter said:
It is possible that a program of many hours of playing Monopoly in an elevator while listening to Adele singing “Rolling in the Deep” over and over could have produced the same effect.

Dont give them these ideas @dave30th. They may be funded in Norway.
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That actually sounds like a fun outing, I'd be willing to try - in the name of science :-P


But I worry 'true belivers' could try and frame it as:

'Extra intensified mindfullness - making use of an inclosed space to help minimize outside stressors, to maximize the effect of music theraphy in combination with getting into the flow of the game to open yourself to deep mindfullness'.

Yeah, I'm a bit grumpy... :-/
 
Was having a look at one of the trial funders; S London/Maudsley NHS trust.

Here is the list of types of illnesses they 'serve':

Mental Health services for children and adolescents aged 2- 18 years are provided including;
  • Autism spectrum disorders, learning difficulties

  • Attention deficit disorders, tic disorders

  • Mood disorders: depression, mania and bipolar affective disorders

  • Anxiety and stress related disorders: obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias, generalized anxiety, post traumatic stress disorders, reaction to severe stress and attachment disorders

  • Eating disorders

  • Conduct disorders, personality disorders

  • Organic conditions, including psychosis

  • Medical conditions with associated psychological difficulties
I'm very tempted to think that they believe our illness falls under conduct disorders but it's probably the last point. Which should make it an adjunct therapy only I would think. Which to me means that it does not at all remedy the illness just the adjusting to it. Perhaps I misunderstand this.

At any rate if anyone wants to do some more sleuthing for anything useful the link to SLaM NHS is here:

https://www.slam.nhs.uk/media/478878/final_da_designed_slam_annual_report_2016-17.pdf

There seem to be many procedures/rules in place to ensure quality delivery of services. None of the rules extends out to cover research being funded. I presume that means that there is a separate set of rules/procedures for quality by a research oversight body (forgive me if this is all well known it's all new to me so thought it might be to others).

Anyway, I thought having a closer look at funders of crap research might be worth a moment.
 
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