Withdrawal from publication of 'Traditional Chinese medicinal herbs for the treatment of idiopathic chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome'

Paper: Traditional Chinese medicinal herbs for the treatment of idiopathic chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome

Authors: Denise Adams, Taixiang Wu, Xunzhe Yang, Shusheng Tai, Sunita Vohra

Date: October 15, 2018

URL: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006348.pub3/full

Reason for withdrawal from publication
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Supporting better health for those receiving care is central to Cochrane's mission to promote evidence‐informed health decision‐making by producing high quality, relevant, accessible systematic reviews and other synthesized research evidence.

The Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group is currently undertaking a strategic portfolio assessment of all existing and planned reviews and protocols, including those relating to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

During the course of our portfolio assessment, we are aiming to ensure that the most up to date evidence is available in the Cochrane Library to inform decision‐making. This latest version of the review was published in 2009. The Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group are therefore temporarily withdrawing this review, with the full support of the author team, to allow time to determine whether the evidence is up‐to‐date.

The editorial group responsible for this previously published document have withdrawn it from publication.

 

Could this mean that some quality control is actually happening now at Cochrane regarding ME?

 

This seems a bit odd. Reviews are always going out of date but it's news to me that any get withdrawn. They've got a date on, so people can see how out of date they are and take that into account.

If the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group want to update anything about CFS, they ought to acknowledge that they have no business dealing with reviews of something that isn't a mental disorder, common or otherwise.

 

Here's Cochrane's policy on withdrawing reviews:

https://community.cochrane.org/edit...ublished-cochrane-reviews-including-protocols

Apparently a review can be withdrawn because of quality issues.

 

I don't know how much confidence I have that a Mental Disorders Group to know much about assessing research and evidence quality, more likely they are just kicking the competition off their turf, perhaps we could ask them to comment on the recent re-analysis.

 

Is this being used as a guise to remove anything except CBT/GET or is it actually progress where they realize we have a real condition. I would be shocked if its because they realize we have an immune related condition.
Also just because research is old does not man its bad, there is a human bias to dismiss something old and presumably "outdated". I had read an article about this phenomenon some years ago that i wish i had bookmarked. Yet we still accept discoveries made centuries ago, from existence of elements to properties of materials to discovery of radioactive molecules and their toxicity.

All that said i know nothing about the original paper so can't comment on whether it should be thought of as good or garbage.

 

Maybe that's something to be pushing for a change on(?)
The overall Cochrane Group is brain nerves and mind group.
Multiple sclerosis and rare Diseases of the CNS have their own group.

https://brainmind.cochrane.org/cochrane-brain-nerves-and-mind-groups

As there are estimated twice as many pwME as pwMS shouldn't we have our own group too?

 

This seems to indicate something is going on beneath the surface.

 

My first thought was that Big Pharma might be getting Cochrane (using funding as the lever) to withdraw reviews of treatments that are not sold by Big Pharma, whether the reviews are positive or negative.

 

Translation from 'buisness speak':
We fucked up and we know it. Trying to correct our mess now, but no way we're going to admit to anything.


And there really shouldn't be a strategy behind a porfolio assesment - by Cochrane - it should be about evidence and established knowledge.

 

Remain to be convinced.

And as I think I said before, if we are to get effective treatments in ME/CFS, we most likely will need to get "Big Pharma" involved funding trials. Most trials of drugs, especially big trials, are paid for by big pharma. Small Pharma couldn't afford to run sufficient trials of Ampligen, for example.

I don't believe "Big Pharma" have been the cause of our problems in ME/CFS; it has been the promotion of nonpharmacological approaches that have caused the biggest problems.

 

Something smells fishy . . . . oh wait, a red herring?

And for heavens sake drop the portfolio terminology. To me it's a terminal symptom of what's wrong. Cochrane has become a financial institution. They may as well be peddaling widgets at this point.

One thing is certain to me. Evidence isn't as important as other considerations whatever they might review.

But I'm being unkind . . .

Again.

I don't have the wherewithal to dig deep enough to give any of these institutions any credit.

 

Something is going on beneath the surface. It is not entirely clear what. It seems peculiar that Chinese herbs should get the first chop, so to say. Although it may not actually be the first chop. More transparent would certainly help.

 

In which case this group should be having nothing to do with CFS, not part of their remit.

[My bold]

 

I would agree with this point. It's an odd step but perhaps a potentially significant one. I guess we'll have to see if it is followed by other and more important steps.

 

This. Thank you @Dolphin

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19821361

Hmm!

 

Regarding Traditional Chinese Medicine - the WHO has now endorsed it.

Edit : @Sly Saint has already created a thread about this :

https://www.s4me.info/threads/who-endorses-traditional-chinese-medicine-expect-deaths-to-rise.6213/