[mods feel free to move to where most applicable]
"Lauren Stiles of Dysautonomia International on Her Story and What's Exciting Her Now'
"...NIH actually wrote back to us and said we're worried about calling it POTS because people might think it references marijuana.."
"They ignored most of our recommendations and really intentionally kept the patients in the dark. They would finalize the trial protocol, without even showing it to us, and then send it to us afterwards and tell everyone they got patient input on it."
"It was very clear that the patient engagement was for public relations purposes and it was not meant to be really meaningful. Now there are some researchers within RECOVER who were genuine in trying to get patient input included, but I would say at the highest levels of leadership that that was not really a priority."
"From the very beginning, we and other groups advocated for people who had decades of experience in studying post viral syndromes like POTS, like ME/CFS to be at the leadership level in RECOVER - not just to be on some side committee that had no real authority, but to actually be helping make the decisions on the study design and that was largely ignored. So when you give nearly two billion dollars to people who have no experience in post-viral syndromes don't be surprised if what you get is something that's disconnected from what the patients actually need."
Cort: "Adjusting, do you see any signs of that?"
Lauren: "Absolutely not. I see a defensive posture, I see defensiveness. I've been in meetings with Senator Sanders & the NIH Directors - all the Institute Directors involved in RECOVER, and it's just been excuses and defensiveness...not actually listening...even the researchers involved in RECOVER have raised concerns internally...it's also pretty awkward when you are on the study committees, to have to be the one criticizing it.."
"I don't see RECOVER changing the dynamic in any way. If anything, they're closing rank and putting out the defensive ranks..."
"I'll tell you what. They are more than 3 years into the study & autonomic testing has been recommending since the very first week of RECOVER..there was a committee..I was the only patient rep on the committee..we got the committee to vote in favor...they still haven't done any.."
"So now we're going to get data that doesn't mention anything about Autonomic Dysfunction."
"...why is NIH not empowering people who have any clue about post-viral syndromes to be part of the research teams, you know? so we were basically playing defensive editing..."
"we've asked the RECOVER autopsy study to capture the autonomic ganglia - that was my major contribution to RECOVER, that was demanding that they take autonomic ganglia and sensory ganglia samples from the autopsy study - and I did get that approved."
The organisation that this lady represents has a bad track record in terms of ME/CFS more broadly and in particular in terms of PEM. They ignored the issue entirely for many years. A broader coalition with such groups can make sense, but we better be careful. Her inputs in terms of autonomic ganglia are very appreciated, that might turn out to be useful.
Last edited by a moderator: