A nanoelectronics-blood-based diagnostic biomarker for ME/CFS (2019) Esfandyarpour, Davis et al

Not to take the thread off track, but I came across this interesting 2016 article in Science about a doctor who's involved in research into the poorly understood, often deadly illness known as Castleman disease. He has a very personal reason for doing so, as he has it himself.

Although he's not conducting research, he has instead turned his attention to raising money (he left medicine and got an MBA) and has organized experts in the field to meet at conferences in the hope of advancing the science. He even got Ian Lipkin involved to investigate viral associations with the disease [one form of the disease is associated with HHV-8].

Though he is not conducting experiments, he is taking treatments based on the work of others.

I thought there were certain interesting similarities between what he has had to do to try to stimulate research into Castleman's and what is being done in MECFS.

 

One would have thought that having a "personal interest" of the sort that RD does would make him quicker to discount false positive leads which could result in waste of time. His interest is in obtaining an outcome that works.

One really does have to wonder about the capacities of some people who seem able to hold down jobs affecting others.

 

I found this Youtube video of Ron Davis life fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPenvHEHjBc

I don't think a lot of his current critics are fully aware of his previous achievements.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1125667704604643328

 

Hmmm ...

 

Based on the little I know of a couple of the panel it seems they would probably class all science that isn't their 'science' as fake news, preferring to consider the stuff they are associated with as 'science', and as our stuff isn't their stuff it must be 'fake'.

They do have a certain amount of precedent for this position, namely the US President.

 

Interesting that the location for this is Oxford.

 

Pass me the sick bucket please! Puke!

 

It is a great comfort to me to come to this website and read serious discussions by smart people.

 

Article in InStyle which was unknown to me, but they have over 4 million followers on Facebook, so are reaching many readers. A personal story from an ME patient about the importance of the validation that comes with a diagnosis and the prospect of a biomarker.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1125784881353461760

 

Cort Johnson has written an article on the OMF website.

https://www.omf.ngo/2019/05/07/health-rising-threading-the-needle-nanoneedle/

 

This interview makes one thing clear: the paper was published early strictly because the NIH is arbitrarily rejecting quality proposals and they have to force their hands. It sucks but it had to be done.

Really looking like there is still active obstruction impeding funding, selected reviewers giving bad faith rejections simply because they personally see researching this disease as a waste of time, not bothering with the substance of the proposal. As is tradition. Ethically bankrupt.

I expect the funding for expanding nanoneedle to be rejected once more, likely again with implausible justifications like "Stanford? That backwater university?". We will have to raise hell to shame the NIH to either stop pretending they give a damn or actually deliver on their commitments.

 

Emile Keuter is a BPS proponent and obviously still tries to psychologize the whole thing.

So we know something is in the blood but how do we know that something is not a result of our psyche. Even though it's in a lab, could it have survived in our blood? Some sort of stress reaction that inhibits the energy production or that stresses out the cells? I want to make sure I make some valid points if I decide to answer him.

https://translate.googleusercontent...700259&usg=ALkJrhjxtkE6vAtr4K0gBkB-3JbTtg1t_w

 

Keuter's mistake is to assume that there is something called a psyche over and above the physiology. He himself admits that there is nothing more than physiology. There is no extra 'mind' with 'free will' in our brain that can cause things in a way other than biological. You might be able to construct 'psychological' stories about some of the events in our brains but there is precious little reason to think that helps understand illness. Maybe he is a psychologist whose livelihood depends on the belief that he can understand disordered thoughts in illness. My understanding of competent psychiatrists is that they know full well that they have no real understanding of how disordered thoughts work.

 

There is is simply no good reason to believe that ME/CFS has any sort of psychological cause. Refer to the recent paper on the cognitive behavioural modle by Geragthy. The evidence is rather weak and contradictory.

I am not 100% sure but I think the biological molecules that are typically mentioned in psychoneuroimmunology (hormones and cytokines) are small, and Ron said this thing in the blood is not a small molecule (he specifically excluded cytokines and metabolites). I don't have a good understanding of the sizes of things involved here so I could be wrong.

Cytokines also tend to decay fairly quickly I believe, while in Fluge and Mella, and Morten's experiments the abnormalities persisted for several days.

 

Also, I think history shows that once the biology of an illness is understood, psychosomatic models for that illness are abandoned because they were never more than a comforting and convenient narrative.

One psychosomatic model of for example rheumatoid arthritis was patients tensing their muscles because of emotional conflicts, and doing it so much it damaged their joints. I'm sure nobody is telling these patients nowadays they need to see a psychologist to stop the progression of RA.

 

The simple fact that the psychosomatic model of ME is nearly identical to the discredited psychosomatic model of peptic ulcers says it all, complete with the loopy cycle of thoughts and interaction with "symptoms". But this time it's not out of ignorance and a refusal to learn from past mistakes needs to be made an example of to end this disastrous nonsense once and for all.

Extraordinary claims without a single piece of reliable evidence. This is peak anti-science.

 

Thank you for your answers. In a crash but very helpful!!! Brainstorming ❤️