Re-analysis of genetic risks for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome from 23andMe data finds few remain, Bedford et al, 2020 [Preprint]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.27.20220939v1

Threads on genetic risks listed here:
https://www.s4me.info/threads/evide...n-me-cfs-discussion-thread.16117/#post-277072

 

Good to see corrections of bad research - @wigglethemouse already noted many issues with the paper on the S4ME thread: https://www.s4me.info/threads/genet...erez-nathanson-klimas-et-al.9415/#post-171044

 

This is a response to the study by Nancy Klimas which utilized 23andME data to try and identify genes associated with ME/CFS. 23andME is a commercial genetic testing company.

According to Bedford et al, the 23andME data is highly unreliable for the purpose of identifying genes associated with ME/CFS. I don't find this surprising because they only charge $200 for a report.

 

Plain talking!

note that this new analysis has not yet been peer reviewed, but I am delighted to see healthy scrutiny of any ME/CFS research. It is all too rare. Note that the recent genetics review from Dibble, McGrath and Ponting also raised concerns about the Pérez study.

 

Thanks for the mention. I did email one of the authors and never received a response. I tried to inform Solve ME/CFS about the issues before one of the authors presented a talk on their platform and again no response. Same with messages on Twitter and Facebook. Very disappointing as the errors were blatant and easy to find (also found by multiple users on PR). Because of this I no longer look at the NSU INIM teams papers in the positive light I once did.

Unfortunately it seems not acknowledging and not correcting bad Science papers is the norm in Science publishing from what I gather by following Elizabeth Bik on Twittter.

 

I know I've been critical of the Klimas/Perez study but here are a few good things about it.

1. They published the data in an Excel file in the supplementary section which allowed others to look at the work and check it. I wish more people did that.

2. It's allowed several other papers to cite it when looking at the quality of genetic studies in ME/CFS (3 of the top of my head). We now better understand the pitfalls with genetic data and this will help future genetic studies to be better quality.

3. Others looking to use 23andMe data have clear guidance on what to look out for with the paper of this thread title.

The real issue here is lack of funding in ME/CFS leading to shortcuts to make the best of the situation. Thankfully DecodeME seems to be reasonably funded and leverage well controlled quality practices already established at the UK Biobank team.

 

One of the authors of the paper shared in this thread here! Thanks so much for the feedback. Indeed, the pointer at not being peer-reviewed yet is important. We submitted our own manuscript to Frontiers in Pediatrics (the same journal as the original Pérez study) end of July. Since then we haven't even been assigned any potential reviewers as Frontiers doesn't seem to have the fastest turn around ;-)

 

Thanks @Trish! It's indeed very frustrating to wait that long to even get reviewers assigned and not even knowing when that might happen! As my expertise isn't really on ME/CFS as such but more on navigating 23andMe data I don't have any further work planned at this stage, but it's never say never.