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Trial by Error: The Dutch Studies +

Jan

Senior Member
Messages
458
Location
Devon UK
I do love a good David Tuller story time. I imagine us all sitting around, like we used to in infant school, listening to someone like Joanna Lumley or Robin Williams (RIP) reading it to us. He never fails to catch the baddies in the stories, but I'm still waiting for the bit where he says 'and they all lived happily ever after' One can but dream.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
Let’s take a quick look at yet another Dutch study of CBT for adolescents, a 2004 trial published in the BMJ. This one offers a superb example of over-interpretation. The small trial, with 71 participants, had two arms. One group received ten sessions of CBT over five months. The other received…a place on a waiting list for treatment. That’s right–they got nothing. Guess what? Those who got something did better on subjective measures at five months than those who got nothing. The investigators’ definitive conclusion: CBT is an effective treatment for sick teens.

I mean, WTF? It’s not hard to figure out that, you know, offering people some treatment is more likely to produce positive responses to subjective questions than offering them a place on a waiting list. That banal insight must be right in the first chapter of Psychological Research for Dummies. Aren’t these investigators presenting themselves as authorities on human behavior? Have they heard of something called the placebo effect?

Here’s what this BMJ study proved: Ten sessions of something lead to more reports of short-term benefits than no sessions of anything. But ten sessions of what? Maybe ten sessions of poker-playing or ten sessions of watching Seinfeld reruns while holding hands with the therapist and singing “The Girl from Ipanema” in falsetto would have produced the same results. Who knows? To flatly declare that their findings prove that CBT is an effective treatment—without caveats or an iota of caution—is a huge and unacceptable interpretive leap. The paper should never have been published in this form. It’s ridiculous to take this study as some kind of solid “evidence” for CBT.

Thank you for the entertainment! Pigeons coming home to roost at last I think. Prof Holgate would be wise to distance himself from his close friend Esther before his scientific credibility is ripped to shreds.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Yes, the entire evidence base for CBT/GET is a pile of shit. The reality is that CBT/GET doesn't work and that the cognitive behavioral model of CFS is nonsense. If they worked and the model was correct, this constant distortion of reality present in every single study in some form or another wouldn't be necessary.
 

Snowdrop

Rebel without a biscuit
Messages
2,933
I was a bit sure about some of that, and wonder if his (justified) frustration could mean he writes in a way that is less likely to convert people not already on-side.


I was a bit sure about some of that, and wonder if his (justified) frustration could mean he writes in a way that is less likely to convert people not already on-side.

I've noticed in life that there is selective bias in hearing among people. It all depends who's saying something not how they're saying it that causes the message to be heard or not.

Just try this as a woman. Tell someone from a society where women's voices are not heard something you know to be true then see what response that gets compared to one of their buddies or your father or any man telling them the same thing.

People who would not listen to people with ME may well listen to someone with a PhD in public health even if he is rather snarky--perhaps even more so since it is provocative.
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Whatever it's effect, it has been interesting to watch his generally measured, though occasionally barbed critique evolve into a Margaret Williams-esque fury over the course of the last year.

One explanation is that he sick of having to make the same arguments over and over again about the same old bullshit that just keeps on coming regardless; a predictable reaction.

Another is that he thinks the wider audience he's talking to is becoming more receptive, to the degree that he no longer needs to pull his punches. Maybe it's both.
 
Messages
2,087
One explanation is that he sick of having to make the same arguments over and over again about the same old bullshit that just keeps on coming regardless; a predictable reaction.

He may have thought that after his original trial by error series, that more people would speak out and the Lancet and PACE trial authors would be at least held accountable.

Id say he might be getting frustrated that despite everything he is saying nothing is happening to the fraudsters.

It's probably more incredulous to him now because he has told the story to the general public yet still nothing has changed.

Anyway, whatever is going through his mind, I'm liking it.
 

CFS_for_19_years

Hoarder of biscuits
Messages
2,396
Location
USA
Whatever it's effect, it has been interesting to watch his generally measured, though occasionally barbed critique evolve into a Margaret Williams-esque fury over the course of the last year.

One explanation is that he sick of having to make the same arguments over and over again about the same old bullshit that just keeps on coming regardless; a predictable reaction.

Another is that he thinks the wider audience he's talking to is becoming more receptive, to the degree that he no longer needs to pull his punches. Maybe it's both.

http://www.theopennotebook.com/2012/01/18/david-tuller-cfs/
What made you interested in writing about chronic fatigue syndrome?

I had a friend who was diagnosed with CFS about 20 years ago. I knew him before he developed CFS and I watched him all these years. He got me interested in XMRV [the virus that for some time appeared to be a possible cause of CFS—a link that has now been discredited]. The more I looked into it, the more interesting and complicated it was as an issue. [.....]

I didn’t want to write a rant. I wanted to write, “This is what happened with the epidemiology, and this is why the situation is so screwed up.” I wanted something that patients felt represented some of the frustration they’d experienced in the past 20 years.
This may have got him started on the road to investigating what was happening and my be a driving force for him today.
 

actup

Senior Member
Messages
162
Location
Pacific NW
"I was a bit unsure about some of that, and wonder if his (justified) frustration could mean he writes in a way that is less likely to convert people not already on-side".

@Esther12, I appreciate your concerns above (sorry don't know how to do 'quote' window). Quiet voices have not worked well for us. We desperately need loud, eloquent, well respected and well informed voices like David Tuller's. We are too sick and vulnerable to be as loud as we need to be. It takes a lot of energy we don't have.

I think I'm way past any concerns with offending tptb.
They( tptb in the UK and the US who lead the way) have a long term agenda which primarily concerns saving large amounts of money by throwing cbt/get at every difficult to diagnose neuro immune illness out there ( guessing me/cfs represents the biggest savings due to the numbers).

In a recessionary economy they double down on this agenda. I see the BPSers as propagandists for the insurance cos and govt rather than real researchers. I'm much more concerned about offending people like David Tuller who consistently stands up for us rather than these pseudo researchers and others committed to this "soft" eugenics agenda.