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The uncritical acceptance by BACME and others of "HPA axis" dysregulation bothers me. This is based on small-scale studies with minor findings such as mild hypocortisolaemia and blunted responses to (synthetic) ACTH relative to a control group - but cortisol secretion is pulsatile and the...

Very interesting that the vice-chair of the NICE committee, Baroness Finlay, spoke up; her question was most instructive. Firstly, the phrase "through consensus agreement in the committee" suggests that these matters were decided purely on a consensus basis and did not come down to voting...

It's from Alvarez' 1935 paper "What is wrong with the patient who feels tired, weak and toxic?". I don't think anyone has posted the full, in-context quote from SW's chapter in Psychological Disorders in General Medical Settings before, so I've attached it to this post.

Abstract Objectives: This study aimed to explore the experience of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) aimed at better management of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), rather than increasing activity. Design: This was a qualitative study using grounded theory...

a now-discredited study called the PACE trial. It warms my heart to see that in the pages of a major publication.

This is an utterly egregious misrepresentation. The evidence was never supportive; a cogent assessment of that evidence showed that its quality was sufficiently low to be unworthy of inclusion in treatment recommendations. I see the author uncritically regurgitates Busse's line. We really need...

Disappointing, of course, but I'm not worried overmuch about this; the guidance is surely done & will probably be sent to stakeholders for error review within the next few days. Additionally, as per the minutes of 15/03, CS had already been forced to "withdraw from all further meetings" owing to...

Patterson also seems to have been involved in a group called FLCCC, which produced this "treatment protocol" - he is listed as one of the co-authors - which is full of unevidenced claims about MCAS and ivermectin.

The stakeholder responses should be very interesting. In order to respond to the draft, the BPSers will have to seriously engage with the criticisms of CBT and GET, etc, on their own merits for the first time; for decades they've seen engaging as infra dig at best and reinforcing false illness...

There's a copy of an older version on archive.org. Comparing the two, the following entries have been deleted: and these have been added:

This just came up in my news feed: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9775925/Can-long-Covid-cured-monthly-dose-vaccine.html Dr David Strain (AfME's new medical adviser) is planning a trial to determine if repeated vaccination alleviates the symptoms of long COVID.

The Linbury Trust is one of the trusts established by Lord Sainsbury, and they've had an interest in funding ME research for a very long time. As far back as 1998 they produced a short booklet ("A Research Portfolio on Chronic Fatigue") which contained contributions from many of their grantees...

The suggestion of a unified comms & PR strategy seems a very sound one to me. The ME patient community is constantly being blindsided, while the very slick strategy with the SMC as its lynchpin has effectively shaped public & medical opinion and obviously discouraged clinicians and researchers...

As it happens, I was just reading another story from another of the many victims of this reprehensible process. The mendacity and malevolence of Parker and his LP quacktitioners are simply obscene. Encouraging participants to lie to themselves, lie to others, and to disconnect from...

From my brief skim, the study seems to be to have been well-conducted, although there is no clinical detail; nothing as to how the patients were selected & diagnosed, so who knows whether these patients meet any diagnostic criteria or whether they are indeed representative of fibromyalgia...

Definitely - and not just Libby. My local council's library service also offers access - remotely, just with a library number - to Borrowbox (e-books), PressReader (newspapers & other publications) as well as Infoweb Newsbank (an archive of tens of millions of news articles dating back decades).

Abstract Aims: Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is poorly understood in Gulf War Illness (GWI). Exercise challenges have emerged as stimuli to study PEM; however, little attention has been paid to unique cardiorespiratory and perceptual responses during exercise. This study tested whether select...

A minor historical point, but if they say it was first used in Fukuda, then they're wrong. This is from Komaroff's contribution to the Jenkins-Mowbray Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome book (1991); there may be even earlier references still...

A little off-topic, but given that there is topical interest in Newton's opinions re. ME, here are two pages from "Postural Tachycardia Syndrome: A Concise and Practical Guide to Management and Associated Conditions" (published in 2021), where she contributed the chapter about the "associated...

Attached. Not quite as bad as, say, HADS, but some questions are problematic in the context of ME, particularly those that involve the "I am less motivated" construction, e.g. q21 ("I am less motivated to do anything that requires thinking"). I'm certainly motivated to; my body just won't allow...