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In the case of ME/CFS patient Sophia Mirza, the autopsy found that 80% of the dorsal root ganglia along her spine were damaged due to ganglionitis (inflammation of the ganglion). However, the cause of that damage was not established (they did not link it to herpesvirus infections), but it is...

Yes, Dr William Pridgen has adopted this idea of a herpesvirus infection in the dorsal root ganglia (and possibly in other nerve ganglia) as the basis of his theory for the cause of fibromyalgia. He believes his theory might apply to ME/CFS also. Though he thinks it is more HSV-1 infection than...

I like to see research like this; it provides evidence that mental health conditions may be due to physical disease, rather than psychogenic factors. Even these days, too many researchers in psychology and psychiatry search for psychogenic causes of mental health (which has never really led to...

It is Dr Faustman at the Massachusetts General Hospital who plans to test the BCG vaccine to treat fibromyalgia. She has already conducted a phase I clinical trial using BCG vaccination to treat type 1 diabetes.

It would be interesting to know whether these Lyme patients in the study, confirmed to have a chronic Borrelia infection by multiple detection methods, tested positive on the standard CDC-recommended two-tier Lyme test. If they did test positive on the CDC test, then it would provide some...

Thanks very much, @Esther12.

Anyone know if the whole parliamentary debate can be viewed via the BBC iPlayer, or via some other video archive?

From a Psychology Today article: "There is 'little or no empirical support' for the concept of repressed or dissociated memories of sexual abuse."

Of course, it's just a bit of black humour.

Sounds cataclysmic; but at least with 38% of the human race wiped out, by the laws of supply and demand, property prices will fall to a more sensible level!

Yes, these anedotal stories don't say much in statistical terms, but it again might suggest that your own ME/CFS involves CVB4. Type 1 diabetes is linked to CVB1, CVB4 and EV4 (in the studies I have seen). Dr Chia finds, in decreasing order of prevalence, the following enteroviruses in ME/CFS...

The common denominator of ME/CFS and T1D is coxsackievirus B4, a virus linked to both diseases. This was the virus that appeared to cause my ME/CFS, and one young nephew who caught my virus from me later developed T1D.

I can't say that I've really looked into what p values are used in studies; but isn't the point of a large scale study to try to ensure that the positive results from previous smaller studies were not due to random chance? So large scale studies would need to use lower p values, otherwise there...

Isn't it because a lower p value means that you will have to have larger cohorts in your study, which then will cost more and require more work. Given how funding is limited, a lower p value will mean there will be less studies performed. With a p value of 0.05, the positive results in one in...

I suppose the answer would be to develop a rigor mortis-free cadaver for students to do pelvic exams...

It may be true that the HPV vaccine does not trigger or increase the risk of ME/CFS; however, that does not rule out the possibility the vaccine may trigger some other illness that is similar to ME/CFS. Dr Osamu Hotta found that an ME/CFS-like illness appearing after HPV vaccination was...

You'd have to write to the Guardian journalist in question (Robin McKie) and ask him. Or write the police themselves, and see what they can tell you, if they are allowed to provide details. I personally believe Wessely and McClure when they say they received email abuse and death threats; but...

Without seeing the details it's hard to judge. But in any case, given that the police were involved, and given it was the police who requested Wessely install panic buttons, I think we cab assume that the police must have assessed the threats as credible.

I just use the phase "all in the mind" as a substitute for the term "psychogenic". Perhaps it is not the most precise of substitutes. Wessely's thesis is that ME/CFS patients hold a belief in their mind that they are ill, and this mere belief that maintains their illness. So in Wessely's view...

I agree, they have milked the abuse story for quite a few years now, when as far as we know, this abuse only happened for a period back in around 2011. And it never materialized into any action, it was just email and social media abuse (except in the case of Micheal Sharpe, who was stalked by a...