Yeah, exactly. The problems with PACE have to do with basic 'errors' in RCT design and conduct. She keeps going on about GET being based on operant conditioning on twitter as though it were some sort of clincher argument against PACE. It's so daft. She also keeps tweeting at people like Neuroskeptic about alleged flaws she has spotted that no one else has but then mysteriously never lists her alleged insights. She also doesn't know anything about statistics and clearly didn't understand the Matthees paper which dealt with her concerns about missing stratification variables more than adequately. It's unusual for someone with a PhD in psychology to know so very little about data analysis. I don't know what kind of department awarded her a PhD but the analyses that are in that paper are taught to psychology students nowadays.
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Alem Matthees analyses on released PACE data blast "recovery" claims - huge damage to PACE
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Yeah, exactly. The problems with PACE have to do with basic 'errors' in RCT design and conduct. She keeps going on about GET being based on operant conditioning on twitter as though it were some sort of clincher argument against PACE. It's so daft. She also keeps tweeting at people like Neuroskeptic about alleged flaws she has spotted that no one else has but then mysteriously never lists her alleged insights. She also doesn't know anything about statistics and clearly didn't understand the Matthees paper which dealt with her concerns about missing stratification variables more than adequately. It's unusual for someone with a PhD in psychology to know so very little about data analysis. I don't know what kind of department awarded her a PhD but the analyses that are in that paper are taught to psychology students nowadays.
AndyPR
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I thought, if we have ME, we were all honorary women around here.
adreno
PR activist
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Fixed.
Wow after 2057 tweets she's only picked up 71 followers
worldbackwards
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I've tweeted about a dozen times in a year and a half. I've got 78. Them bots got taste, apparently.
Mrs Sowester
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I can't open any content from Twitter, FB or the Guardian today, I'm missing the EG party!
What does she say in her tweets today?
What does she say in her tweets today?
CFS_for_19_years
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I wonder which statisticians she's talking about. Let's hear some names.
And next......turns out she's feeling snubbed. Seems no one wanted to reference her "paper on Pace." Can't imagine why not.
And next......turns out she's feeling snubbed. Seems no one wanted to reference her "paper on Pace." Can't imagine why not.
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CFS_for_19_years
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See Sidereal's post one page back:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...huge-damage-to-pace.46942/page-11#post-770770
trishrhymes
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Hi folks, I'm concerned about this making fun of an individual. By all means disagree with what she says, or her approach to these issues, or her tendency to pick arguements, but it's spilling over into nastiness. She is a human being too, and I understand is an ME sufferer.
worldbackwards
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In ordinary circumstances, I might agree. But it is fair to say that we have what Phil Mitchell might call previous with Ellen, who in the past has come on this forum, thrown all sorts of accusations around, generally made herself very unpopular and marched off in a huff when somebody criticised her. She is, in short, impossible to get along with (at least on social media, I understand that she is a bit less batshit in person).
Are we being mean? Maybe. But those of us who've gone into battle before might at least feel that we've earned it.
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Mrs Sowester
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They won't load, stuck at 'loading tweet' and nothing happens. I can't open twitter directly either.
Yes, she's had much history, and imagines herself an eminent authority. Indeed she has been eminent in the past, sniping in PrivateMessagess on a number of ME/cfs forums about our very long standing advocates.
Best LOL, was her trying to draw out the obviously stupid, desperate men, that were on the forums, with her womanly whiles! It was hysterically funny, made all the funnier by her username which was 'Nympho', the obvious lack of that 'type of guy' being around our forums, and her somewhat 1940's misogynistic representation of 'womanly whiles!
pmsl just remembering it!
Best LOL, was her trying to draw out the obviously stupid, desperate men, that were on the forums, with her womanly whiles! It was hysterically funny, made all the funnier by her username which was 'Nympho', the obvious lack of that 'type of guy' being around our forums, and her somewhat 1940's misogynistic representation of 'womanly whiles!
pmsl just remembering it!
I appreciate the sentiment and it does you credit, but you really don't need to worry about EG, any and all criticism just runs off her like water off a duck's back - in fact she thrives on it. Last time she was on this forum she ended up getting banned for appalling behaviour, including sending me an insulting pm in which she listed all my personal failings.
Don't remember the Nympho thing though, that must have been before my time. She certainly didn't waste any of her womanly wiles on me.
trishrhymes
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Thanks for the explanation folks, I had seen some of her less than rational posts in the past, but hadn't realised it was this bad. However, I am still concerned because of the impression it gives to newcomers to these forums that people who behave oddly are fair game for ridicule. Having said that, I'm more than willing to join in the vilification of White, Chalder, Crawley, Wessley etc, so maybe I'm just as bad.
She doesn't just behave oddly; she behaves vindictively: "If anyone still thinks there was no harassment. Loads of evidence on one site. Current ME specialists. Beware!"..."Website with evidence of nasty, personal attacks against researchers, even pro-ME ones".
When you're prepared to go to the extreme of discouraging research into an illness you yourself are suffering from just to get back at certain fellow sufferers because they didn't provide an absolutely smooth bed for your intellectual vanity to lie down in, you should not be surprised if you become a persona non grata in certain quarters.
I feel I should at least put the other side re EG whilst not denying anything that has been said above. She once gave a massively generous donation to help a fellow sufferer who I was raising money for (her housing). I don't want to go into any more details re the person or anything about it, as she certainly didn't blow her trumpet over it at the time.
worldbackwards
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I've read other people saying that she can be really very nice in person. I wonder if it's something about computer screens that makes her take leave of her senses.
anciendaze
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Leaving aside flame wars on Twitter, I wonder how many of you have re-calibrated your numbers based on Alem Mathees' results.
They started with 3158 patients referred for treatment by NHS doctors. They tried to get 800-900 to participate, but only succeeded with 640 who completed the trial. These were randomly assigned to 4 different arms of the trial, about 160 per arm.
According to the revised criteria there were something like 60% who benefited. Their own reanalysis indicated 22% benefited. Reanalysis by Mathees and Kindlon reduced this number to 6.8% for CBT, 4.4% for GET versus 3.1% for controls. (Recall that the criteria used were the ones proposed by the authors at the time they got funding, minus the activity measures that were simply dropped.)
Forget percentages. We are now talking about 11 patients benefiting from CBT, 7 from GET and 5 controls who improved without significant treatment. This tells us the favored interventions may have helped 6 patients in the CBT arm and 2 patients in the GET arm. Note that the CBT arm showed no difference in objective measures vis-a-vis controls. Even the questionable improvement in the GET arm was discordant in the objective results: no change in the step test, and marginal improvements in the walk test.
The end result is that a 5 million pound (8 million dollar) study intended to set national policy turned out to be based on improvements in 8 patients. This works out to around a million dollars per patient with only the weakest objective backing.
Any argument with the assertion that public statements about the study by the authors amounted to gross misrepresentation?
They started with 3158 patients referred for treatment by NHS doctors. They tried to get 800-900 to participate, but only succeeded with 640 who completed the trial. These were randomly assigned to 4 different arms of the trial, about 160 per arm.
According to the revised criteria there were something like 60% who benefited. Their own reanalysis indicated 22% benefited. Reanalysis by Mathees and Kindlon reduced this number to 6.8% for CBT, 4.4% for GET versus 3.1% for controls. (Recall that the criteria used were the ones proposed by the authors at the time they got funding, minus the activity measures that were simply dropped.)
Forget percentages. We are now talking about 11 patients benefiting from CBT, 7 from GET and 5 controls who improved without significant treatment. This tells us the favored interventions may have helped 6 patients in the CBT arm and 2 patients in the GET arm. Note that the CBT arm showed no difference in objective measures vis-a-vis controls. Even the questionable improvement in the GET arm was discordant in the objective results: no change in the step test, and marginal improvements in the walk test.
The end result is that a 5 million pound (8 million dollar) study intended to set national policy turned out to be based on improvements in 8 patients. This works out to around a million dollars per patient with only the weakest objective backing.
Any argument with the assertion that public statements about the study by the authors amounted to gross misrepresentation?