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Depression/Anxiety was based on prior diagnoses or use of antidepressant medication. The real problem is that caseness was based on the aforementioned crap questionnaire. Notably, 86.6% of "Fatigued" participants did not have any prior depression/anxiety diagnoses, so this a weak predictor at...

I don't know anyone ('in real life') who claims their illness was caused by the flu either. There was the Norwegian study that found excess CFS cases, but it was rare, with 227 reported cases for 113,979 influenza diagnoses (though only 13054 cases were laboratory-confirmed - side note, it shows...

Perhaps some sort of cake/icecream crossover trial?

Just a note, direct links can be tracked right back here and SW has shown particular interest into such forums before...

This might reflect some sort of diagnostic bias in Turkey? Perhaps doctors are reluctant to give CFS diagnoses.

By the way, some authors refer to the Chalder Fatigue Scale as the Wessely Fatigue Scale, who was the initial developer. Maybe they preferred Chalder Fatigue Scale as it provides a confusing acronym (CFS).

Hmm. I just found this: "New type of corona virus induced acute otitis media in adult" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7161479/ Could be a coincidence? While I'm at it, "Incidental lowering of otitis-media complaints in otitis-prone children during COVID-19 pandemic: not all evil...

The key point with the NHS "yourcovidrecovery" is that they want to be seen to be doing something, rather than simply ignoring the problem. This illusion of care is important as far as the perception of the NHS by the (unaffected) public and as an answer to politicians when they ask "what are...

I avoided visiting the doctor to get an antibiotic during the initial COVID peak and was rewarded with persistent otitis media in both ears, labyrinthitis and later leading to an infection of my gums. Unless someone actually measured the unmet health needs, it is extremely ignorant to conclude...

I haven't noticed any relationship between vitamin D3 levels and symptoms (and summer vs winter, or during supplementation), and I see from replies that I'm not the only one...

Can we take this literally and do an ice-cream flavour and "soothing" bias on fatigue questionnaires study? We could publish in the BMJ Christmas edition and might even be in the running for a Ig-nobel prize!

Just a note, I'm not on Facebook and would prefer that no profile is written about me for personal reasons.

Shows how out-of-touch she really is. Tweets about shopping and travel while everyone else is sheltering at home...

It's notable that in the exerpts, particularly the one that @Trish posted, Richard Smith seems to be arguing that medical journals are not purveyors of truth, but rather should simply reflect the standards of medical science orthodoxy at the time. This perspective arises as one looks back at...

Am I the only one who thinks these crap unblinded studies are used as a marketing strategy for supplements (or other dubious therapies) to people who don't really care about the quality of the evidence?

Wow, those doctors are so out of touch with the actual problems facing patients. They are simply assuming that these patients only have mild complaints and that it is the perception of their symptoms that is preventing them from usual activities. Do they not realise that many longcovid patients...

Indeed. The claim that we have contempt for mental illness is deliberately misleading and continued mentions of "mental illness is real and serious" is just whataboutism. If they'd actually listen to our point of view, instead of attacking us they'd have a very different impression. I'd feel...

I disagree that they're ignoring them. A 40% test positivity rate is still very high, given people presenting with mild non-specific respiratory infection symptoms. An examination of the sensitivity/specificity of their test is not the basis of this current study (was covered in previous...

The monoclonal antibodies are typically manufactured using novel cell culture techniques. (though in-vivo in mice is also possible, though less desirable) Engineered antibodies can also be produced in a recombinant manner in bacterial cell culture. As far as the actual engineering goes...