Articles by David F Marks

Kalliope

Kalliope

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
"Treatment harms to patients with ME/CFS"

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- Despite evidence of physiological and cellular abnormalities in myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), the dominant therapeutic approach has been cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET). Patients report distress and dissatisfaction following healthcare encounters based on GET and CBT. A significant body of research suggests that CBT and GET are harmful for many patients with ME/CFS. These findings raise ethical concerns and suggest that more collaborative working between scientists, therapists and patients would be helpful in making scientific progress in this difficult field.

https://davidfmarks.com/2021/03/10/treatment-harms-to-patients-with-me-cfs/
 
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"Unhelpful beliefs do not cause ME/CFS and MUS symptoms"

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The Wessely School approach to ME/CFS and MUS hypothesizes a causative role for unhelpful beliefs (H1), deconditioning (H2), and biased attention (H3).

The evidence related to these three hypotheses is reviewed in turn. Here I consider H1: that unhelpful beliefs cause, or exacerbate, the symptoms of ME/CFS and MUS.

Future posts will review the evidence for H2 and H3.

https://davidfmarks.com/2021/03/11/unhelpful-beliefs-do-not-cause-me-cfs-and-mus-symptoms/
 
ME/CFS and biased attention

https://davidfmarks.com/2021/03/13/me-cfs-and-biased-attention/
Here I consider the third strand of the theory:

H3: Biased attention causes, or exacerbates, the symptoms of ME/CFS and MUS.

According to this hypothesis, biased attention focusing towards symptoms, health-threats and related cues cause or maintain ME/CFS symptoms. I briefly review relevant studies.
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Sean said:
It's projection all the way down with these clowns.
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I do not believe that they necessarily believe in their ideas. They do believe they can get away with their claims if they take certain strategies however. They have repeatedly persuaded the medical community for decades, and with no objective evidence of their mechanisms or improvements, while ignoring objective evidence of harms.
 
alex3619 said:
I do not believe that they necessarily believe in their ideas.
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Whether they do or don't believe their own ideas, this is the important - and damaging - bit:
alex3619 said:
They have repeatedly persuaded the medical community for decades
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The medical community - and a substantive portion of the general population (mind over matter, you're in control of your own destiny, etc) plus politicians and government departments, basically everybody who can make our life a misery. Worse, many of them haven't just swallowed those ideas raw, they've become acolytes.
 
Next article: ME/CFS and the Lightning Process
Here I review research by the Wessely School on the Lightning Process (LP). LP is a pseudoscientific cult founded by Phil Parker, a Tarot reader, specialist in auras and spiritual guides, and an osteopath. It has triggered a spate of shoddy evidence and false claims that brings a new low level to the checkered history of ME/CFS research and care, and the Wessely School now at rock bottom.

https://davidfmarks.com/2021/03/15/me-cfs-and-the-lightning-process/
 
New article: ME/CFS and the SMILE trial

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Implications
  1. The SMILE trial contained one of the major methodological problems that occurred in the PACE trial – outcome swapping.
  2. The original outcome measure, school attendance at six months, yielded a null result.
  3. Repeating the errors of the PACE trial, the SMILE trial used self-reported physical function, a subjective outcome measure rather than an objective one.
  4. Media coverage reported the positive outcome (improved self-reported physical function) but tended to not mention the null result concerning school attendance.
  5. In seeing a distorted view of the findings, authorities in other countries such as Norway have been persuaded to run further trials on the Lightning Process and to recommend its use for pwME/CFS.
 
Kalliope said:
New article: ME/CFS and the SMILE trial
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"After reviewing results from the feasibility trial, the researchers swapped these outcome measures for the full trial"

I guess we have come to understand what feasibility trials mean to BPS investigators ... assess the feasibility of reporting the most impressive looking outcomes, rather than reporting the most meaningful ones. You just peek halfway through your experiment (by some sleight of methodology or other) to make a "mid-course correction", diverting your results to where you want them to go, rather than to where the evidence takes you.
 
Kalliope said:
New article:
ME/CFS and CBT - a basic error

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In facing the mountain of invalidation that the Wessely School is having to endure, it has made the most basic error for any scientist: converting an inconclusive association into a conclusion of causation.
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In a well-argued paper, Brian Hughes and David Tuller (2021) demonstrate that Adamson et al.’s (2020) conclusions are “misplaced and unwarranted.” They had submitted their critique to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine but the Editor did not accept it. Hughes and Tuller made a preprint available online and submitted it to the Journal of Health Psychology where it was reviewed and accepted and will shortly appear online.
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eta:
The flight of Adamson et al. into the illegitimate correlation-equals-causation error is possibly a sign of desperation. When nothing is working, there is little option but to make it up as you go along.
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Seems like Mr Aylward has a habit of getting things wrong:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/coronavirus-doctor-wales-merthyr-health-19970227

"One of Wales's most eminent doctors says the impact of Covid 19 was "completely underestimated" at the outset of the pandemic.

Professor Sir Mansel Aylward, an ex-chairman of Public Health Wales who is still recovering after testing positive for coronavirus himself, said he was as much to blame as anyone else."
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I do wonder how far this new found reflection and remorse extends. Is Long Covid also covered by this acknowledgment? Or is he going to shove that into the BPS basket?
 
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