Trisha Greenhalgh on ME/CFS and Long Covid

interesting that he acknowledges structural changes. They keep using the software/hardware metaphor even though their own research shows structural changes as well. But they then suggest the structural changes could be downstream of the "software" problem. But here he seems to be making a clearer statement that structural changes can play a role.

 

It seems to me that they are making it up as they go along, which only makes me have less trust in the medical profession than I already had.

 

Perhaps it's a bit more nuanced - you might get more challenges when medical colleagues have long COVID .

 

Not for the first time I’m reminded of F. Scot Fitzgerald’s line: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

Were they to observe themselves from the outside I wonder if they would consider themselves to have a software or a hardware problem.

Does anyone know what Carson means when he refers to a “functional cause”? And what is “clinical and scientific evidence of a functional cause”? I thought they diagnosed FND by an absence of evidence of cause.

 

Am I the only one who has no idea what this means?

Or this!

 

what about firmware?

 

I’ve done the same to no apparent avail:

Not for the first time, I’ve noticed that TG has responded to lots of replies and suggestions but not to anyone who mentions ME/CFS. Is anyone taking bets on whether ME/CFS gets a mention in her paper?

 

If the Marks paper was published in a respectable journal, TG might feel more obliged to respond to replies which foreground it. It’s unfortunate all round that citing the paper is the equivalent of linking to a blog.

 

But what do the lyrics mean? They are completely opaque to me. Or is that the point?

I’m guessing the reason for writing the clowns in Italian was an allusion to the narrative of the opera (which I’m not familiar with). But maybe I’m giving Jo too much credit!

 

Or it’s a deliberate reference to The Thomas Crown Affair, for which the song was written. Edwards places Greenhalgh in the Steve McQueen role, suggesting that she has pulled off the perfect public health policy heist by ensuring deniable distance from her collaborators.

 

None of you would be any good on Round Britain Quiz, but then I never know how the teams get anything on that.

I Pagliacci is an opera by Leoncavallo in which the clowns end up sticking knives into each other. Which seemed apt.

 

I thought the opaque lyrics of Windmills of the Mind added some fun embellishment to the Buddhist Prayer Wheel allusion to Greenhalgh's ability to rotate her position every few tweets.

 

Where is the mounting scientific evidence of functional causation? Is it based on rule in signs? Where is the evidence that any rule in signs mean a condition is functional?

Can someone explain how Carson became an august voice in the Long Covid space? It’s unnerving

 

Leadership/power vacuum

 

He's not that I can see. Just the same psychosomatic charlatans doing their usual thing, like Ariel said, abusing the power vacuum. There is still no one actually responsible for any of this, while the quacks are demanding it. That's how it usually went to the quacks, it's a playbook that works by default of there being no leadership or accountability for any of this.

 

Indeed. But this is what she supports.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1609988840109785092


Obviously the BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid thread is the best source for early published material, but it features herself and some figures she respects. Few papers, though. Initially it was op-eds and opinion threads. Greenhalgh is asking for papers, but the claims began before any such paper. Including by the likes of Carson. Because they are made without evidence for the same reasons they're made about us.

 

Lots of good answers that should prompt self-reflection. Not holding my breath.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1609903706320797699