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The Psychobabblers strike back with COFFI: Crawley, White, Moss-Morris et al

Countrygirl

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UK
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21641846.2018.1426086?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Note the claim that 'lowered fitness' is associated with the failure to recover from the initial infection. Many/most of us were very active before we became ill, so presumably they are referring to the lowered activity levels when sick. Are they inching towards using their amazing discovery that sick people in their beds are less fit than their healthy counterparts to further justify the use of their damaging GET regime? :bang-head:

The international collaborative on fatigue following infection (COFFI)
Ben Z Katz,Simon M Collin,Gabrielle Murphy,Rona Moss-Morris,Vegard Bruun Wyller,Knut-Arne Wensaas,Jeannine L.A. Hautvast,Chantal P Bleeker-Rovers,Ute Vollmer-Conna,Dedra Buchwald,Renée Taylor,Paul Little,Esther Crawley,Peter D White &Andrew Lloyd show less
Pages 1-16 | Received 02 Nov 2016, Accepted 06 Jan 2018, Published online: 19 Jan 2018
ABSTRACT
Background: The purpose of the Collaborative on Fatigue Following Infection (COFFI) is for investigators of post-infection fatigue (PIF) and other syndromes to collaborate on these enigmatic and poorly understood conditions by studying relatively homogeneous populations with known infectious triggers. Utilising COFFI, pooled data and stored biosamples will support both epidemiological and laboratory research to better understand the etiology and risk factors for development and progression of PIF.

Methods: COFFI consists of prospective cohorts from the UK, Netherlands, Norway, USA, New Zealand and Australia, with some cohorts closed and some open to recruitment. The 9 cohorts closed to recruitment total over 3000 participants, including nearly 1000 with infectious mononucleosis (IM), > 500 with Q fever, > 800 with giardiasis, > 600 with campylobacter gastroenteritis (CG), 190 with Legionnaires disease and 60 with Ross River virus. Follow-ups have been at least 6 months and up to 10 years. All studies use the Fukuda criteria for defining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Results: Preliminary analyses indicated that risk factors for non-recovery from PIF included lower physical fitness, female gender, severity of the acute sickness response, and autonomic dysfunction.

Conclusions: COFFI (https://internationalcoffi.wordpress.com/) is an international collaboration which should be able to answer questions based on pooled data that are not answerable in the individual cohorts. Possible questions may include the following: Do different infections trigger different PIF syndromes (e.g. CFS vs. irritable bowel syndrome)?; What are longitudinal predictors of PIF and its severity?

KEYWORDS: Chronic fatigue syndrome, infectious monon
 

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21641846.2018.1426086?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Note the claim that 'lowered fitness' is associated with the failure to recover from the initial infection. Many/most of us were very active before we became ill, so presumably they are referring to the lowered activity levels when sick. Are they inching towards using their amazing discovery that sick people in their beds are less fit than their healthy counterparts to further justify the use of their damaging GET regime? :bang-head:
 

halcyon

Senior Member
Messages
2,482
These people and their stupid acronyms. COFFI, coffee, fatigue, OK we get it. :rolleyes:

Allow me to translate:
Preliminary analyses indicated that risk factors for non-recovery from PIF included lower physical fitness (deconditioning), female gender (hysteria), severity of the acute sickness response (catastrophizing), and autonomic dysfunction (stress).

They've wrapped this up in reasonable language, but don't be fooled. These people are professional turd polishers.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
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13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Let me sum it up ... some sick people are sicker, and if sicker they are less fit, and their nervous systems don't work right either. The issue with female gender goes to the entire immune thing, women are more likely to have issues with immune problems. This is not a weakness, its biology.

All the rest is fancy icing to cover up the taste.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21641846.2018.1426086?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Note the claim that 'lowered fitness' is associated with the failure to recover from the initial infection. Many/most of us were very active before we became ill, so presumably they are referring to the lowered activity levels when sick. Are they inching towards using their amazing discovery that sick people in their beds are less fit than their healthy counterparts to further justify the use of their damaging GET regime? :bang-head:

it's so anti-science, specifically genetics.. I'm adopted and my biological mother and her oldest daughter overlap w my symptoms by 90-95%.. I didn't meet them until well after my CFS kicked in. there's just no argument for psychosomatic illness. Oh, and I was also very active before illness, and as much as is allowed between crashes..
 

Countrygirl

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UK
https://internationalcoffi.files.wo...i-london-meeting-report-june-4th-5th-2015.pdf

Consensus was achieved by attendees over the key next steps for COFFI, including: identifying potential sources of funding for the collaborative; contacting other cohorts which may wish to join COFFI; and formalising the structure and research objectives of the collaborative. Following the meeting, COFFI members voted unanimously to appoint Professor Peter White as the lead collaborator.


 

Countrygirl

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5,429
Location
UK
White and Crawley from the above document:

Predisposing, e.g. previous mood, childhood adversity, and perpetuating (fear avoidance, negative perfectionism, family and spousal beliefs and behaviours, and catastrophizing) psychological factors have been demonstrated to play a role in CFS. Two studies in cancer patients found that catastrophizing predicted post treatment fatigue. Physical and psychological factors can be combined into a single ‘biopsychosocial model’.

it was decided that the prevailing immunological and microbiological hypotheses regarding the causes of post-infection fatigue were no longer viable, and that new and more challenging alternative hypotheses should be considered.20 2

Moss-Morris

Consistent with the CBT model of FSS, several factors emerged as common predictors of three syndromes (IBS, CFS and postconcussion syndrome (PCS)): somatisation, anxiety, negative illness/symptom beliefs (symptoms long lasting, uncontrollable, distressing, serious consequences) and all-or-nothing behaviour. In conclusion, type of infection or acute event may predict the nature of persistent physical symptoms, and psychological variables appear common across conditions.4
 
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Diwi9

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How can they conclude based on a "preliminary analysis" that lowered fitness is a "risk factor" for non-recovery? Is anyone able to see their methodology in a full report? Without more information, it only appears that there is an association between lowered fitness and non-recovery. The abstract does not provide effect sizes and does not state if this was just a correlation; we all know that correlation does not equal causation.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
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5,429
Location
UK
Now 3/4 of the way through the document and reaching for another blood pressure pill.:rolleyes:

These clowns are aiming to get US funding. I hope the OMF keep a close eye on their bitcoin donsation.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The Theoretical Framework writing group (Moss-Morris, Crawley, Vollmer-Conna, Wensaas) reviewed the factors known, or hypothesized, to play a role in chronic fatigue following infection, namely:

Predisposing factors – age, sex, genetic variation, acquired vulnerability (e.g. sensitisation, stress reactivity), family adversity, functional social support, environment, psychology (negative mood), personality (negative perfectionism, introversion, neuroticism, somatosensory amplification). Precipitating factors – severity of acute infection phase, other stressors.

Perpetuating factors – psychological resilience and behaviours (illness behaviour, cognitions, coping skills, fear avoidance, activity, boom-bust, somatic focus, sleep, etc.), psychoneuroimmunological and biological factors (microglia, TGF-ß, cortisol, POTS, etc.). It was acknowledged that interactions between some of these factors were likely, and that the roles and relative contributions of the different factors have yet to be quantified, e.g. ‘other’ stressors as predisposing or precipitating factors.
 
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Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
How can they conclude based on a "preliminary analysis" that lowered fitness is a "risk factor" for non-recovery? Is anyone able to see their methodology in a full report? Without more information, it only appears that there is an association between lowered fitness and non-recovery. The abstract does not provide effect sizes and does not state if this was just a correlation; we all know that correlation does not equal causation.

They can't. They are fruitloops of the highest order.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Consistent with the CBT model of FSS, several factors emerged as common predictors of three syndromes (IBS, CFS and postconcussion syndrome (PCS)): somatisation

Somatisation is an inferred condition. It cannot be directly measured, confirmed, or refuted by any test. This is the fallacy of begging the question, at best. I wonder if they meant patients preferring to attribute the problems as somatic?
 

Seven7

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ebethc

Senior Member
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Until this plp follow legal venues this will continue ( if it is a class law suit better).
Second, I am remitting relapsing so I am going around my business one day and bed ridden the next ! How do they explain that

are there class action lawsuits in the UK? I was talking to a brit about our expensive healthcare here in the u.s. and I told him that I thought part of the high cost was due to doctors having to pay crazy insurance premiums for malpractice (although it varies greatly by specialty and location...) and he said that they don't have all the suing in the UK that we have here... (he jokingly said that it must be b/c doctors are better in the UK... ha! he didn't know about crawley..)..
 

alex3619

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Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
are there class action lawsuits in the UK? I was talking to a brit about our expensive healthcare here in the u.s. and I told him that I thought part of the high cost was due to doctors having to pay crazy insurance premiums for malpractice (although it varies greatly by specialty and location...) and he said that they don't have all the suing in the UK that we have here... (he jokingly said that it must be b/c doctors are better in the UK... ha! he didn't know about crawley..)..
Yes, there are class action lawsuits in the UK. However the laws are different and the success rate is so very low that in practice it rarely happens. Furthermore if you fail you can get the entire legal cost put on you. The issue is a series of laws I looked into some time ago. I have forgotten the details now. You have a much higher standard of proof than in the US, and payouts are capped by law ... tiny, tiny payouts by comparison with the US. You also have to be able to show tangible harm, and I suspect direct harm. Similar laws apply in Australia. I suspect we copied ours on theirs.
 

Diwi9

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are there class action lawsuits in the UK? I was talking to a brit about our expensive healthcare here in the u.s. and I told him that I thought part of the high cost was due to doctors having to pay crazy insurance premiums for malpractice (although it varies greatly by specialty and location...) and he said that they don't have all the suing in the UK that we have here... (he jokingly said that it must be b/c doctors are better in the UK... ha! he didn't know about crawley..)..
Insurance companies that are on the hook for medical malpractice lawsuits, like to spin the idea in the public's mind that malpractice lawsuits are driving the high cost of medical care. In fact, very few cases go to trial, and when one reads about huge judgment awards...the amount awarded is often reduced on appeal. The medical costs attributable to malpractice suits is about 2.4% as cited by Forbes in 2010. Article. If anything, there have been more restrictions placed on malpractice in specific jurisdictions since 2010.
 

HowToEscape?

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626
And yet we have people here in the US bleating endlessly that they want a system just like England’s NHS.
Every democracy in history has destroyed itself. I wonder when it will be our turn.
 

Runner5

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And yet we have people here in the US bleating endlessly that they want a system just like England’s NHS.
Every democracy in history has destroyed itself. I wonder when it will be our turn.

Yes, I would very much like a system like the NHS. It would really help a lot of people.