UK Dr Anna Chellamuthu, GP and Lightning Process practitioner, and her article in a GP journal

This post and the following discussion have been moved from the NICE guidelines thread

BJGP Life: Opinion Piece: Reflections on NICE, CFS/ME, and the Lightning Process

"Anna Chellamuthu is a GP Specialty Doctor in Oncology at Royal Cornwall Hospital, a GP Locum and Lightning Process Practitioner.

Ihave never (not knowingly anyway) disregarded a NICE recommendation before now.

I have been a GP for 16 years, working in a range of environments from suburbia to deprived inner city and in a specialised practice for the homeless and vulnerably housed.

8 years ago our 7 ½-year-old daughter was diagnosed with ME/CFS. I knew all too well how little the NHS had to offer. However, we followed the advice of the local CFS service, practised ‘energy management’, ‘pacing’ and watched our previously full of life daughter become essentially bed/sofa bound. She struggled on like this for 2 1/2 years. ME is a devastating disease.
Then we heard about The Lightning Process (LP). A mind-brain-body approach in which people from all ages were getting their health back. We looked into it, spoke to several people who had taken the training course, and took the plunge. Yes, it cost us financially and we knew it might not work – no one was promising us 100% success. But I could see that it had helped literally 1000s of others over the years, so why not our daughter?"

https://bjgplife.com/reflections-on-nice-cfs-me-and-the-lightning-process/

 

Her website is a typical LP practitioner site with slick marketing https://www.dr-anna.co.uk

 

It's so weird how these types of articles keeping popping up since the new NICE Guidelines, I wonder if they're orchestrated by the SMC or other organisation with similar agenda? And she's a 'Specialty Doctor in Oncology'? That's very worrying. I sincerely hope she doesn't think LP will cure cancer as well?

Some good comments appearing under that article at the moment, I wonder how long before the author deletes them?

 

It is worrying though that she is a P/T GP, which will give her view more weight to some.

 

Just as there are sanctions against doctors spreading misinformation about covid and treatments there should be sanctions of doctors shilling this marketing propaganda.

Every time I read a story like this one thing stands out.

How is it that the person was 'essentially bed-bound' yet able to attend a therapy where they are forced to stand for quite a lot?

These two things are mutually exclusive. Either she could get around already and was not bed-bound or she somehow became unbed-bound in order to do the treatment.

There are of course always scant details to judge what happened. Here on S4ME we have a lot of specific details of how things went for many.

And how is it that 8 years ago in Cornwall the (cfs) ME service was recommending pacing and energy management which would have been against the guideline of the time?

 

"This may not have been helped by the panel’s membership, which lacked any ME/CFS researchers or anyone who had recovered from the illness, and included lay members who were recruited from organisations with documented anti-recovery and anti-Lightning Process bias."

Ouch.

 

Interesting piece.

I couldn't find those quotes, though there were related comments in NICE like:

What about this claim?:

There were people who have published research on ME/CFS included in the panel. Who is anti-recovery?

 

The reference supporting that statement (11) leads to this page on NICE's website which contains links to 75 multi-page documents. I think a statement that inflammatory requires a little more precision in its supporting evidence.

 

I wrote to the editor of BJGP:

Dear Dr Lawson,


The piece by Chellamuthu on NICE and ME is, as you should realise, unacceptable in a medical professional journal. Your comment below it does not excuse the publication. It looks naïve.


This is straightforward advertising by misinformation masquerading as professional comment. It makes no difference that the author may feel a righteous desire to misinform people.


I have no personal interest in ME but got involved eight years ago having been asked to advise on research quality, based on my experience with clinical studies in immunology. I don’t see clear evidence of immunological change in ME but I realised that people with ME have had a poor deal and that almost all the research supporting therapies is too poor quality to be usable. Notably that includes work from establishment psychiatry.


The piece refers to NICE by insinuation without evidence. It is an insult to Peter Barry and Ilora Finlay who worked very hard to maintain quality analysis. As far as I know not a single person on the committee favoured use of Lightning Process despite the fact that half the committee consisted of professionals with vested interests in research and delivery of non-pharmacological therapies (which the committee decided were not justified either).


The inuendo directed at patients is totally unprofessional. Material like this should not be permitted any more than anti-vaxx propaganda for Covid. The Lightning Process involves brainwashing and, as I indicted in my witness statement for NICE, use of such methods is unethical in the absence of meaningful evidence of efficacy. A few people miraculously recover* (often becoming LP coaches) but so do people given ineffective drugs like rituximab. For those who do not recover, being told by LP practitioners that the illness is all their own fault is inhumane.


I have been very disappointed to see people like Clare Gerada and Helen Stokes-Lampard weighing in with spurious arguments supporting therapies in ME. I was even more disappointed to see Andrew Goddard do the same. You have written a piece about being political in medicine. I rarely get involved but if there is something worth tackling it is the recent trend to allow personal promotion to take precedence over evidence in a way that will harm people. Being righteous is not enough, whether in ecopolitics or medicine. You actually have to make sure you are not doing harm. I think BJGP has allowed itself to be involved in potential harm. You would do well to think hard about it.


Yours sincerely,


Jonathan Edwards

Professor Emeritus

UCL


*I think a medical professional giving information about their child’s health in a journal may be a breach of confidentiality. It seems to indicate a complete lack of understanding of others’ interests.

 

Sad to see the BJGP published this article. I agree that suggesting that patients on the NICE guidelines had an anti-recovery bias is insulting.
It seems that the BJGP editors, however, have responded by shutting down the comment section rather than doing anything about the problematic article itself.

 

Thanks @Jonathan Edwards for another excellent letter. Do you mind if I tweet it.

 

No problem.

 

Thanks here's the tweet.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1499688082064482306

 

Her website recommends crowd funding to pay for LP

https://twitter.com/user/status/1499693771243638786

 

Does anyone wonder whether these testimonials are made up? They don't sound authentic to me because they contain almost no details.

A real patient would have a lot more to say about various aspects of illness and recovery. I could say more but I don't want to help these charlatans appear more authentic.

 

It is interesting to look at the editor's blog on BJGP Life etc.
He likes to make political points - although it was not clear to me exactly what they are.
I see that one of the positive comments (the only one?) comes from a GP with an 'eco' tag. (Nothing wrong with being eco but I sense a sort of do-goodery agenda with this one.)

It looks to me looking at this, like the messages I get from RCPhysicians, that medicine has been taken over by chummy chat more suited to Facebook. Fashion trumps professionalism.