Paul Garner on Long Covid and ME/CFS - BMJ articles and other media.

Jonathan Edwards said:
the medics I know with LongCovid are given huge sympathy and concern by fellow medics.
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It's not just getting Long Covid though, it's attacking the current treatment of post-viral conditions, attacking and complaining about CBT and GET, saying health services are prejudiced against people with ME and doctors dismiss Long Covid, going around telling everyone he had a condition caused by damaged mitochondria, and having and saying he had symptoms consistent with ME/CFS.

Even I as a patient with ME/CFS thought the way he came across in some of his initial articles sounded a bit naive.

And I'm sure doctors generally openly show sympathy for fellow medics with long covid, but given the attitudes we know are present towards long covid and ME/CFS, I struggle to believe there wouldn't be some silent judgement or mutterings going on. Or, at least, he would look back at what he wrote and feel embarrassed about it, because he would anticipate how it would be perceived.
 
TiredSam said:
This forum was set up so that we could have factual discussions without the distraction of finger-wagging about feelings. If I absolutely must empathise with PG, am I then allowed to remind myself that he is a conscious agent capable of making decisions and reflecting upon how his decisions affect others? That he bears the same responsibility as the rest of us for the effects of his words and actions? And that someone who chooses to abuse their position by spreading harmful misinformation with maximum publicity and maximum disregard for other views or the harm he is causing can expect to be reminded of their responsibility, face criticism, and be called to account?
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Trish said:
However, he is now, in his own words, fully recovered and able to live a full and very active life. Moreover he is now acting in a way towards others still suffering with ME and/or long Covid that is no less than gaslighting, and using his status to do so. Why would anyone expect me to go on feeling empathy for s
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As someone whose primary instinct is to understand and empathize with any fellow human, I find myself much persuaded by @TiredSam and @Trish. Paul Garner is a medical doctor, a supposed scientist, and has chosen to use his exalted position to actively and persistently do harm to us and to others with ME. He has, in effect, chosen to make himself our enemy and to go at it without restraint.

I haven't been able to keep up with @dave30th's activities, but this seems a perfect opportunity for some hard-nosed reporting, and strong pushback by S4ME. These people know what they are doing.
 
petrichor said:
It's not just getting Long Covid though, it's attacking the current treatment of post-viral conditions, attacking and complaining about CBT and GET,
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Ah, yes, that would be a different issue and a reason for people to whisper behind his back.

But attacking the system and others' treasured dogmas is called standing up for what you believe in. Anyone with any backbone does that with pride and takes the backlash on the chin - I have been at it for decades!

And I agree with you that right at the start Garner seemed naîve. I cautioned on here that Garner did not seem to understand the background to ME and was unlikely to be a useful friend.
 
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He is also naive. A few months of illness and he feels ready to dismiss the patient community and give lessons on how to recover.

Does it ever occur to such people that maybe others have tried the trivial solutions they propose are the cure, like "just stop being afraid", or "gradually do more" or "eat more vegetables"?
 
strategist said:
He is also naive. A few months of illness and he feels ready to dismiss the patient community and give lessons on how to recover.
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This.

He reminds me of those celebrity chefs who go on tours abroad, exploring the dishes of the region and being treated with generosity & courtesy by their hosts. By way of thanks said chef then serves up their own twist (improvement) of a local traditional dish. Arrogant.
 
Invisible Woman said:
This.

He reminds me of those celebrity chefs who go on tours abroad, exploring the dishes of the region and being treated with generosity & courtesy by their hosts. By way of thanks said chef then serves up their own twist (improvement) of a local traditional dish. Arrogant.
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It’s worse than that! If he were a chef, he’d now be telling all the traditional chefs they have been completely wrong all these years, and they must now cook all their foods in the way McDonalds do it!
 
Helene said:
"I talk to my sister. Her personal experience of ME really helps, and she coaches with practical management of chronic fatigue."

What? His sister has personal experience with ME and he still doesn't get it?
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Yeah, that was a real WTF? moment for me too. Like when I found out that pre-LC he had been in the psychogenic camp. o_O

Do I have empathy for Garner? Some.

Do I have any sympathy or respect for him now? None whatsoever.

He and the system that fails to reign him in are an utter disgrace. :mad:
 
Damn it I can't escape the man. I just turned on the BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news and the second headline read out was 'A professor of medicine who suffered from long Covid tells us how thinking positive helped him tackle the disease'. It can only be the man himself. I can't bear to listen. :banghead:
 
Trish said:
Damn it I can't escape the man. I just turned on the BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news and the second headline read out was 'A professor of medicine who suffered from long Covid tells us how thinking positive helped him tackle the disease'. It can only be the man himself. I can't bear to listen. :banghead:
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Yeah, I listened, it was quite infuriating. Hard to tell what other listeners without our insight might have made of it. To me, it sounded very much like just another anecdotal story and the absence of any evidence to support his claims was obvious. The interviewer did suggest that people who are really sick in bed literally unable to lift their head might not like his words. He glossed over that.

It definitely seems that he suffered a lot mentally with the post-viral fatigue he experienced and did a lot of worrying and panicking. I think this was obvious to many of us watching. I remember thinking, 'he's 1 month in, why is he spending so much time on twitter etc., why doesn't he just take a bit of time off and rest'?! He seemed to be (understandably I guess) in a spiral of anxious catastrophizing and depression. Thinking positively helped to solve this for him. Apparently, he's unable to see how his experience might be different to other people's. But, nothing that we didn't already know.
 
Trouble is, when a healthy person goes down with a virus, be it lightweight or hard hitting, in most of those instances the person will not be harmed by pushing themselves pretty hard, and will be able to work their way through it. I and plenty of others I know have done that and got away with it many times; I don't have ME/CFS, and am much more cautious these days. My wife, who does have ME/CFS, used to do exactly that and always pushed really hard through any illnesses, and she always got away with it ... until the time when she didn't! I suspect that many people here also did the same thing and got away with it plenty of times ... until the time it went badly wrong instead of OK.

For all the times that it works for people, the positive thinking pushing through mindset is half the battle. The belief becomes entrenched that it is the pushing through mindset that helped you win through, that it was actually part of the remedy. My wife always believed that until she got ME/CFS. I always believed that until my wife got ME/CFS. Until something like ME/CFS bursts into your life, the positive thinking pushing through mindset is part of a person's survival instinct. It still is for us both, but not quite the same. Most people here are very positive I find, within sane limits.

So thinking how many times my wife must have had viruses in the past, and how this approach seemingly "worked" for her all those time, compared to the one - but disastrous - time it didn't, that presumably means the population is loaded with mostly healthy people who are convinced this strategy is "right" and "works", just the same as my wife and I once believed.

So it only takes one high profile professor, for whom the strategy was not disastrous, to push his n=1 experience as if it must be right and safe for all, and the majority of people - for whom the strategy still works so far - will be totally convinced.
 
Barry said:
So it only takes one high profile professor, for whom the strategy was not disastrous, to push his n=1 experience as if it must be right and safe for all, and the majority of people - for whom the strategy still works so far - will be totally convinced.
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You're right. Plus it's probably an opinion a lot of people WANT to believe because it gives them a feeling of safety - 'it wouldn't happen to me because I'd think positively and be okay'. It's a seductive story.
 
LSTM contributes to India specific guidelines for the treatment and management of COVID-19
With few guidelines having used formal evidence synthesis and GRADE approaches, particularly with relevance to low- and middle-income countries, the multidisciplinary expert group and clinicians working directly with COVID-19 patients collaborated to develop nationally relevant guidelines, such as the Indian one.

LSTM’s Professor Paul Garner, Co-ordinating Editor of Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group, has acted as a methodological expert and been part of the team advising on how the systematic reviews of evidence should be used.

He said: “These guidelines represent an important step in India’s ongoing work to manage the pandemic in the country. This group of dedicated young clinicians preparing the evidence summaries, and some of the most senior and experienced clinicians in the country drawing out the recommendations, have all seen first-hand the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the ground. They have worked together to develop these guidelines, providing the very best, most up-to-date information on treatment and management options relevant to India. As time goes on, these guidelines will develop and increase, and I am glad that we have been able to be part of that process.”
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https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/news-event...uidelines-for-the-treatment-and-management-of
 
I assume that guideline is about managing the acute illness, not long Covid. Garner is an infectious disease specialist, so presumbably he and his department know what they are doing on acute infectious diseases, even if he's taken leave of his senses on Long covid.
 
.... he ought to go on the stage as he is so fond of the limelight!


https://www.history.com/news/where-did-the-phrase-in-the-limelight-come-from
Wow, this is SO interesting and 'scientifique'!
Something strangely lacking in PG deliberations and murmurings..........

My husband's great Grandfather Eli Ward, was one of the first to use this with his traveling vaudeville show in the North. He was also a phrenologist and a publican and optician and an inventor....... You can learn a lot from history!!! He also published two books called "Women's problems'... and one called 'Men's problems'....
We have copies here. PG could learn a lot from Eli Ward;s CV...! But I digress... sorry mods!
 
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