New York Magazine - Intelligencer: Has Long Covid Always Existed, by Jeff Wise, November 2022

Poor Jeff.. must be hard for him. https://twitter.com/user/status/1589247379248943104

 

I've been watching a few of his interactions over the last few days and it's almost like this dude is running PR and marketing for the BPS model, talking exactly like them, the same arguments and excuses. Something's fishy here. He is very pushy, arguing over a position that it's irrefutable that CBT & GET work very effectively, and absolutely not behaving like a journalist.

Anyway, there are bad journalists out there so that's an explanation but his behavior is plain bizarre for something he knew nothing about a few weeks ago, and still doesn't even know much.

 

Thread

 

That was a good thread. And she took the Wise guy to task about his awful article with solid points.

Tufekci was dismissive of Long Covid at first, mocked it with a few other still-minimizers. So it annoys some people but it's so rare for someone to misunderstand at first and actually correct themselves.

It's so damn rare. Even after all this stuff has been effectively debunked, the discussion is still over the same debunked stuff. It's all happening as if we don't exist at all and evidence is completely irrelevant, at least when it comes to beliefs and traditions. Absurd.

 

True. I experienced PEM for three years before I heard the term "post-exertional malaise."

 

for me it was nearly 13 years......and I was a member of a main UK ME charity.

 

Zeynep taking on NY Mag article author

https://twitter.com/user/status/1589610237144989696

 

Thread

 

I hope that there are more credible rejoinders like this. Does anyone have a sense of the social media response to Wise’s missive? I’m guessing, based on decades of experience, that he will retreat into the militant activist trope

 

I've read numerous Twitter threads by journalists and scientists re Jeff Wise's article, and judging from his responses he has indeed retreated into the militant activist trope. Many patients, scientists and journalists have given him links to studies with evidence re CBT/GET having no use in ME and potentially harmful, and to current biomedical research showing all sorts of medical anomalies warranting investigation, but instead of listening he's doubled-down on the BPS stuff. For example:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1589305254574952450


He just sounds so utterly ignorant while also self-righteous and unable to accept he's wrong. It all comes across like someone like the SMC spoonfed him BPS-centric out-of-touch and just plain wrong views. He clearly didn't do his homework in learning about the subject he reported on. Maybe he will finally grow some curiosity and do some reading and educate himself, but it doesn't seem like it.

 

Obviously, it's 100% intentional. The time to mince words has ended long ago. This negligence will continue until it is made to stop, it will not end on its own. Even with LC too many have staked everything on doing the wrong thing yet again, it's too embarrassing to admit.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1589583881682178050

 

This is unbelievable hubris. I can’t fathom how someone like Wise believes we haven’t tried pushing through symptoms and just capitulated instead. The certitude with which he speaks is startling.

I’m glad he’s been so persistent in entrenching his views. I hope people will see how these intransigent ideologues function.

 

Are you aware that Jeff Wise wrote a book about the mechanisms of fear in the mind, and how different parts of our brains react? He looked into the neurology and the psychology of fear situation. Not surprising that his views on fear of exercise and PEM are part of his narrative.

He said he spoke to ME/CFS specialists for his article. Who were they? Ashok Gupta? The guy who started the Amygdala Retraining Recovery Programme?

Jeff Wise Book:
Extreme Fear, The Science of Your Mind in Danger.

 

This is all so patently absurd. It would be like playing a game of FIFA (soccer based video game in case anyone didn’t know) and then thinking you could manage England to a World Cup victory. Also, you would have to condescendingly ask Harry Kane if he knows what a “header” is.