Simon McGrath launches ME/CFS Research Review science blog

Glad to see our @Simon M launching his new blog!

If I want to know what to make of the latest big science claim in ME/CFS research, I always look to Simon and, incredibly for a non-bioscientist such as myself, can understand what he says because he writes so clearly.

I also like that he takes a hard line on weak research and calls it out, whether it's the sort of stuff we'd like to be true or not. We need that! Hard truths are better than no truths and will get us to treatments faster in the end.

Here's the blog: https://mecfsresearchreview.me/2018/03/21/welcome-to-me-cfs-research-review/

 

Thanks, Sasha!

I hope people will enjoy the blogs and will sign up to follow it.

Here's the full text of my first blog (make the most of this one, I will probably never write one this short again )

Welcome to ME/CFS Research Review

Welcome to the ME/CFS Research Review blog, which aims to explain the most promising biomedical findings — and ignore pretty much everything else. While my blogs aren’t short, I like to think I do a decent job of explaining the science in the studies, and what the findings mean.

My name is Simon McGrath and I’m a bit of a science nerd. A long time ago, I did a biochemistry degree at Oxford University, fully intending to become a boffin. I even had the opportunity to do a PhD there, but decided to do something else with my life. That something was rudely interrupted by ME/CFS over 20 years ago.

At the time, I thought that science would soon provide the answers to my illness. Instead, I discovered that the standard of research was often very poor and some studies were seemingly driven more by ideology than by a search for the truth. This situation probably explains the spectacular lack of progress in developing effective treatments, or even in understanding the basis of the disease.

I started to blog about the few diamonds I found amongst the research coal. In the last two years there has been an upsurge in good-quality biomedical research, and it looks like there is plenty more to come. For that reason I have decided to create my own blog: I am hoping that these will be exciting times for research and that I will be recording and exploring the progress towards understanding and treatments.

If you like the sound of this then please follow my ME/CFS Research Review blog. You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook, where I make shorter but more frequent posts about research.

I hope to see you here again before too long.

Simon McGrath

 

I look forward to reading your blogs, @Simon M, on those occasional days when my brain is not mush! This will meet a serious need for us non-scientuific types. Thanks in advance.