Good studies are desirable, simultaneous or otherwise. Assessing studies - particularly those whose direct relevance is debatable - through rose-colored glasses is not.
We need clarity and purpose and realism. We need a window into what is happening with ME/CFS research, not the window dressing of a study that may not even tie back to us.
There is no more reason to think this "exercise" study will directly benefit the ME/CFS community, than the broad brain research initiative announced a few years back would directly help us with our "cognitive" deficits. Lest we forget, the NIH has a history of forgetting the ME/CFS community.
And what's with the emphasis on exercise? Exercise? Isn't this just feeding a problem? Exercise is just a manifestation of the exertion problem, and yes, we better well be able to distinguish the one from the other.
Reducing the ME/CFS symptom cluster to problems with exercising does little to help. Our problem is not so much with exercising; that is just another downstream effect, and a specific and socially damning one at that. If the effort were drilled down, and parsed specifically to ME/CFS like the 2-day CPET efforts, cool - but shot gun approaches, I fear, once again will leave us out looking in.