News from Scandinavia

[rvallee]

sciencenorway.no Researchers: Not testing for Covid-19 is creating problems

I'm trying to come up with anything that makes this different from what the tobacco industry did and aside from the fact that it's far worse coming from experts in a position of authority... and I can't. This is what the tobacco industry did. They're even pretty much promoting the idea that regular infections are good. They go smoothly down the throat.

Maybe not so much a great filter but rather a bunch of small filters. Same outcome. At this point I'm pretty sure the odds of us surviving ourselves without AI essentially taking the reins from us seem almost laughable.

 

[Ravn]

Opinion piece in Sundhedspolitisk Tidsskrift:

ME-foreningen: Sundhedsstyrelsens direktør vildleder Folketinget
ME Association: The Director of the Danish Health Authority Misleads Parliament

Norway, Sweden and NICE all get dragged into this Danish nightmare

In this opinion piece, sharp criticism is directed at the Danish Health Authority's presentation on ME/CFS, which was presented at a thematic meeting in the Ministry of Health for Parliament's health spokespersons. According to Erica N. Church, chair of the ME Association, and Vibeke Vind, M.Sc. in biochemistry and member of the ME Association's ME Advisory Board, the presentation provides a distorted and professionally inadequate basis for decision-making, which risks having serious consequences for patient safety.

Examples taken from the presentation of stigmatizing and loaded language, as well as tactics such as strawman arguments, cherry-picking, and sensationalism:
Quote: "History of personal harassment and public shaming on social media" (understood to mean that ME patients and their relatives harass employees who work with ME, ed.).”

This sentence was shown during the knowledge review, which is completely irrelevant. It is an unnecessarily stigmatizing piece of information that shifts focus and sympathy from a vulnerable patient group to the Danish Health Authority's employees. This feeds directly into Brian Heron's opinion piece in the Health Policy Journal about power and responsibility in healthcare communication.

Quotes:
- "Two meetings with former NICE employees, who report about a very difficult guideline to execute"
- "Working group members emigrated"
- "Death threats from the English ME association"
- "Methodologically, GRADE has not been applied in the classical sense, but more weight has been placed on qualitative knowledge and the English ME association's opinions about the disease."

These four points together are deeply problematic. Speculation and sensationalism are used as tools to sow doubt about NICE's credibility on false grounds. Furthermore, the English ME association is portrayed as threatening and opinion-based.

 

[Sean]

Denmark. That would be the home of the unrepentant Per Fink. Yes?

––––––––––

Danish patients, and the ME Association, should demand full transparency and evidence for these outrageous defamatory claims, and full right of reply.

Quotes:
- "Two meetings with former NICE employees, who report about a very difficult guideline to execute"
- "Working group members emigrated"
- "Death threats from the English ME association"
- "Methodologically, GRADE has not been applied in the classical sense, but more weight has been placed on qualitative knowledge and the English ME association's opinions about the disease."

 

[Kalliope]

Comment in Sundhedspolitisk Tidsskrift: When Criticism Is Made Suspicious – About Power and Responsibility in Healthcare Communication

The author explains why he formally complained to the Aarhus Functional Disorders Centre

Per Fink has written a response presenting his centre as rational, respectful and up to date on knowledge and competence:

Om debatklima, faglighed og behandling af funktionelle lidelser

Sundhedspolitisk Tidsskrift giver dig nyheder om sundhedspolitik, nye behandlinger, sundhedsøkonomi samt debat om sundhedsproblemer og -politik

sundhedspolitisktidsskrift.dk