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Research at Kings College Hospital, London

Spinney Lainey

Senior Member
Messages
148
Location
London
Just wanted to let you know, I'm taking part in some research at King's and I was really impressed with the research staff. I was also very happy to find out they have nothing to do with Dr Charles Wessely! They are a separate organisation, who got funding for CFS research. I've attached a list of the current research projects and I'm taking part in the immune system one.

@Persimmon - you may be interested in this.
 

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A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
After looking at the current research projects of the CFS unit, it looks like more of the same to me. Trying to find fault in patients, treating them with CBT.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Thanks for sharing the info, Spinney.

I was also very happy to find out they have nothing to do with Dr Charles Wessely! They are a separate organisation, who got funding for CFS research.
Edited. (please see my posts, below for reason.)
The specific research team that you are involved with may not have direct contact with Simon Wessely, but the Kings College fatigue team are heavily influenced by Simon Wessely and his colleagues.

Kings College is heavily influenced by Simon Wessely and his colleagues. Professor Trudie Chalder is the head of the fatigue service. The fatigue unit is a partnership between King's College and the Maudsley Hospital.

King's College London said:
The CFS Research and Treatment Unit is a partnership between King's College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

Our routine treatment is cognitive behaviour therapy, which has been shown in several randomised controlled trials to be an effective intervention for CFS/ME. Some individuals receive CBT over the telephone if they live a long way from the unit or find travelling difficult.

We also provide GET (Graded Exercise Therapy) and APT (Adaptive Pacing Therapy).

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/projects/cfs/about/index.aspx

King's College London said:
Who's who

We have a multidisciplinary team who can provide appropriate assessment and treatment to suit patients’ individual needs.

The team are experienced and committed to providing evidence-based treatment and are at the forefront of research in terms of understanding and developing appropriate treatments for CFS/ME.

Staff in the Chronic Fatigue Research and Treatment Unit, London

Head of Service
Professor Trudie Chalder

Unit Administrators
Andrea Bardsley-Ball
Morufat Raji

Consultant Psychiatrists
Professor Simon Wessely
Dr. Alastair Santhouse

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/projects/cfs/staff.aspx
 
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Messages
15,786
Just wanted to let you know, I'm taking part in some research at King's and I was really impressed with the research staff. I was also very happy to find out they have nothing to do with Dr Charles Wessely! They are a separate organisation, who got funding for CFS research. I've attached a list of the current research projects and I'm taking part in the immune system one.

@Persimmon - you may be interested in this.
Study 1 looks okay. Dr Gerome Breen does a lot of research into genetics and mental illness. Doesn't look like he's ever looked at ME/CFS before, so probably not much of a vested interest in making it psychological. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if he parrots the pro-CBT/GET beliefs of his colleagues in describing the disease or in the discussion, simply due to not being aware of how bad their research is.

Study 2 looks like it will be a quack fest. One of Lauren L Bryan's previous studies (not published yet) was looking at correlations between personality and CFS. The current one is looking for abnormal physical reactions to emotional and psychological stimuli, probably 100% in line with the belief that CFS patients problem is that we over-react to everything and that we imagine our symptoms.

Study 3 is likely to have a heavy bias in the direction of psychosocial causation of illness. It looks like Alice Russell is investigating immune activation as a possible cause of ME/CFS, but probably in the context of psychosocial stress causing the immune activation. Another reservation about this study is that there isn't a proper "normal" control group. Just CFS patients (referred to as having "chronic fatigue" at one point :rolleyes:) and patients with fatigue following treatment with interferon-alpha. Other publications by the co-author, Alessandra Borsini, seem to equate depression and fatigue with CFS, and heavily push the theory of psychosocial stress being an important part of causing both the reaction to the drug and in CFS.

The author of Study 4, Andres Herane Vives, is unknown regarding CFS, and has only published in Spanish previously. His supervisors for the project are Dr Anthony Cleare and Andrew Papadopoulus, who have worked with Wessely in many publications. They seem more focused on cortisol theories, but are quite happy with the stress/mood causation conclusions, as well as always advocating CBT/GET as the cure. Lot of stuff about how the problem is illness attributions, deconditioning, etc, with cortisol possibly explaining why some patients don't respond to CBT.

So Study 1 doesn't sound objectionable and even potentially useful, but I'd avoid the other three like the plague.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
@Valentijn: there are more research projects listed here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/projects/cfs/research.aspx


I also looked briefly at the patient information. They do a good job sugar coating their misanthropic ideology to make it appealing to patients, but it's still the same as always. For example, from the "Physiological aspects of CFS" page

Over time, reduced or irregular activity and increased periods of rest cause physical changes in the body. These changes cause unpleasant sensations and symptoms that can be very distressing. It is important to point out that these changes are reversible with physical rehabilitation and/or exercise.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Just wanted to let you know, I'm taking part in some research at King's and I was really impressed with the research staff. I was also very happy to find out they have nothing to do with Dr Charles Wessely! They are a separate organisation, who got funding for CFS research. I've attached a list of the current research projects and I'm taking part in the immune system one.

@Persimmon - you may be interested in this.

So that's Study 3? It's a rather primitive pdf - seems to be a low-quality scan which isn't searchable.

Note some of the things in the document:

"Institute of Psychiatry"
"Department of Psychological Medicine"
Clumsy conflation of 'chronic fatigue syndrome' with 'chronic fatigue'
questions regarding mood
"Interview with a psychology/psychiatry trained researcher"
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
@Spinney Lainey

If you are involved in study 3, then it looks like it's being carried out by the 'Institute of Psychiatry' which is based at King's College (and it's also associated with the Maudsley.)

Prof Simon Wessely is the Institutes Vice Dean for 'Academic Psychiatry' and is head of department for 'Psychological Medicine', which happens to be over-seeing Study 3 *:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/about/mgmtteam/index.aspx

* The two contacts for study 3 are within the department for 'Psychological Medicine', which Wessely happens to lead:
Borsini, Alessandra
Research Student
Psychological Medicine
Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Laboratory & Section of Perinatal Psychiatry
...
Russell, Alice
Research Student
Psychological Medicine
Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Laboratory & Section of Perinatal Psychiatry

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en...ersons.html?filter=&affiliationStatus=current

This is the Institute's website:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/about/index.aspx

I would hazard a guess that Wessely is central to moving fatigue research into the Institute of Psychiatry.
 
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Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
For the King's College fatigue department, the only vaguely biomedical study on their list of ongoing fatigue research seems to be this one:
King's College London said:
4) A psycho-physiological study examining cortisol levels in adults with CFS before and after a course of CBT.

So that should sort out the biomedical cause of CFS/ME :rolleyes:
 
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Messages
15,786
I'm not sure study 1 is worthwhile. The study only seems to involve measuring the patient's physiological reaction to watching a video. They're probably aiming to record an abnormal stress response.
Isn't that Study 2 (from the PDF in the 1st post)? Study 1 is just taking lots of samples.
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
Make sure you will be able to get hold of it, before you go ahead then.
I wouldn't put it past them to loose it, especially if they don't like the results.
Or to just want to keep it all secret, anyway. :devil:
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Don't blame yourself - they're the ones who are the unethical lying scumbags. I bet we've all been sucked in at one time or another.

Don't let them CBT you. In the CBT-GET combo they favour, the CBT, rather than being therapeutic, is a form of brainwashing, aimed at convincing patients that exercise will not harm them and that they are causing their own disability by avoiding it.