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BMJ: Updated 'clinical evidence' on treatment of ME/CFS (25 Sep 2015)

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Who is the author?

Authors:
Ly'ng B'stard (M.D., Member in Good Standing of the Funny Handshake Secret Society)
Korporate Mouthpiece (M.D, BSc, BOOTFTG)
Odious Toad (M.D., Order of the Inbred Magnificence of Nepotism)
Whank Staine (BSc, PhD in Advanced Snakeoil Bullshit, and 5 years in H.M.P. Barlinnie for "crimes so unnatural even the Welsh had never thought of them")
Pig Bonker (My Daddy went to Eton so I get all the letters I want after my name!)

(BOOTGTG = British Order of the Fornicating Twat Goblins)

:p
 

Scarecrow

Revolting Peasant
Messages
1,904
Location
Scotland
They are trying to differentiate and bargain: 'Give us a few CF / CFS patients to terrorise play with therapeuticise, and we will cede ME / SEID to the biomedical guys.'
Which is ironic as Wessely's interest in 'CFS' began in 1987 before the term CFS existed. He preferred to use 'post viral fatigue syndrome' rather than 'myalgic encephalomyelitis' but they were accepted synonyms, rightly or wrongly. He drew no distinctions between CFS and PVFS/ME when CDC CFS was born.
Which does rather beg the question about how these (allegedly) different groups of patients are distinguished retrospectively for existing studies? Who gets to cite what?
It won't wash. They pretty much screwed themselves with PACE by using the Fukuda and the London ME criteria as well as Oxford.
 

Chrisb

Senior Member
Messages
1,051
I suspect that there is a danger that we will get distracted and drawn into a rebuttal of this paper, which is likely to be nonsense on stilts. Set up a few straw men, knock them down and claim a substantive victory.

Presumably papers like this do not just happen. Some important questions that might be asked are: why was it produced and why now? What tactical imperative does it serve? What would be the process behind the commissioning of such a work and when would it have been initiated? Is it a response to some published work or are they merely trying to get their retaliation in first? Presumably it is not done on the initiative of the BMJ. The authors were presumably funded to do this. Will there be any public record of the source of the funding? Will the answers lie within the Department of Health or elsewhere? It just looks so very odd.

It is reassuring to know that the threats, of which we would all strongly disapprove should they be shown to have existed, to one of the authors have subsided sufficiently to enable him to reengage with his life's work. It is to be hoped that a prominent article in the Times will announce the fact.
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
Which is ironic as Wessely's interest in 'CFS' began in 1987 before the term CFS existed. He preferred to use 'post viral fatigue syndrome' rather than 'myalgic encephalomyelitis' but they were accepted synonyms, rightly or wrongly. He drew no distinctions between CFS and PVFS/ME when CDC CFS was born.

He was one of the fathers (rapists?) of the definition. He has been part of the CDC/NIH distraction machine at least since 1991 when an NIAID & NIMH conference featured Sir Simon. Sharpe and Sir Simon were both involved with the Fukuda definition.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Presumably papers like this do not just happen. Some important questions that might be asked are: why was it produced and why now? What tactical imperative does it serve? What would be the process behind the commissioning of such a work and when would it have been initiated? Is it a response to some published work or are they merely trying to get their retaliation in first? Presumably it is not done on the initiative of the BMJ. The authors were presumably funded to do this. Will there be any public record of the source of the funding? Will the answers lie within the Department of Health or elsewhere? It just looks so very odd.
.

Because that is how the "system" works here
they are all inbred, nepotistic ratpukes who run the UK, they are in secret societies like the Masons etc which they use to pervert the courts, tax laws, etc
those associated with the system are thus protected and encouraged even if they are not part of the "conspiracy"
it's not some dark club of super secret evil, just umpteen cliques and individuals vying for power

one part of it for example is how the politicians AND bureaucrats lust for a bigger "department"
more things they oversee, more money for their budget, more people in their office etc, more they like it, whether it does any good or not *doesn't matter!*

See, if the System is shown for the bullshit it is...Rome falls, which they will not allow
this is why they have been so desperate to cling to power, twist elections (exactly HOW did the Tories "win" that election, or the Scottish referendum fail, hm?) etc

if it's shown they are wrong on ME/CFS, and thus huge lawsuits, and criminal investigations, it also threatens the...how can one put it, the psychology that keeps the Elite in power....which they won't allow

and of course, the Elite, being corrupt scum, are also in bed with the insurance companies, who don't' want ot pay out for ME/CFS

and again, you have the grotesque inhumanity of a section of the medical profession who view patients as rodents to experiment and pontificate on, their lust and route for power is not the same as the corporate, the banker or politician, but lies through the "acceptance and kudos of their authority and publications within the health system"


so it's all wrapped up together into a big ball of used toilet paper

oh and to show how crap it's all getting, today dealing with the DWP, their automated telephone system calls all claimants; CUSTOMERS
I am NOT a f'ing CUSTOMER, I am a CITIZEN in this respect, their is a vast terrible difference, and it IS terrible, that's' why they have changed citizen and patient, to "customer"
 

Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
The two most widely used definitions of CFS are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Oxford criteria.

Masters of deceptive language indeed!!

what this really means is....

"We used the two most widely defined definitions of CFS from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and our Oxford criteria".
 

Scarecrow

Revolting Peasant
Messages
1,904
Location
Scotland
Sharpe and Sir Simon were both involved with the Fukuda definition
I doubt that Wessely was involved directly. He isn't credited.

I don't think that the course of history would be much different if the 1988 Holmes definition had stood. Wessely, White and Chalder were all active at the time and the name, in particular, was a gift for them to do their worst with. Your guys teed it up and our guys really smacked it hard. Sorry, rest of the world.
 
Messages
15,786
Psychobabblers said:
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is characterised by severe, disabling fatigue and other symptoms, including musculoskeletal pain, sleep disturbance, impaired concentration, and headaches.
No, it's characterized by Post-Exertional Malaise. A symptom which has been objectively observed by several independent groups of researchers using the two-day CPET. Hopefully the reviewer points out that little mistake for them :rolleyes:

Fatigue, on the other hand, is a vague symptom present in a multitude of illnesses. As such, it's hard to imagine how it could define any single disease.
The two most widely used definitions of CFS are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Oxford criteria.
:rofl: ... Oh wait, they're being serious? No one uses Oxford, except this small group of British psychobabblers. It might feature frequently in CFS research, simply because that small group vomits up so much trash on a regular basis. But even the Dutch and other non-English psychobabblers don't use it, primarily because their funders wouldn't tolerate it. Oxford is a bad joke, and the OMI and P2P reports have verified that it is a bad joke.
For this update, the focus was on treatments that had the best evidential support in previous editions, that are in widespread clinical use, and/or have recent trial data.
Recent trial data ... somehow I doubt that will include Rituximab :nerd:

There is good-quality evidence that both cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy are effective treatments for reducing fatigue and increasing functional capacity in people with CFS.
No, there is poor-quality evidence that patients alter their behavior in answering questionnaires after CBT/GET. There has never been any objective evidence of improved "functional capacity", and I dare say we care fuck-all about fatigue when we can't leave the house, feed ourselves, and/or sit up in bed.
There is less evidence for the drug treatments considered in this overview (antidepressants and corticosteroids); in particular, the evidence for corticosteroid use in people with CFS is limited. Several different instruments were used across studies to measure our outcomes of interest. Some of these involved self-rating by the person with CFS, whereas others report clinician-rated outcomes (in which case the assessor should be blinded).
Hilarious. The corticosteroid research which they are criticizing is largely their own. Basically they found low doses to be effective, but stridently insisted that corticosteroids should not be used on patients.
We have not reported school attendance as a main outcome in this overview, however, if available, we have added this data to the relevant Further information on studies section. Most studies were quite short-term; we only found one study with follow-up beyond 12 months.
Good move. School attendance is way too objective for these clowns! :thumbsup:
The update literature search for this overview was carried out from the date of the last search, March 2010, to November 2013.
Why 2013? Are there numerous contradictions to their psychobabble which have been published in the past 2 years? They certainly wouldn't want biomedical contradictions of their research to be acknowledged!
Appraisal of titles and abstracts led to the exclusion of 71 studies and the further review of 15 full publications.
Ah, so they really do believe that everything of value is in the abstract! Or perhaps they just needed to skim the abstract to make sure it had the "right" results and/or the "right" authors :p
The largest RCT to date found that CBT and graded exercise therapy are more effective than adaptive pacing therapy or specialised medical care.
More effective at what? Convincing patients to report less fatigue, apparently. And since "adaptive pacing therapy" is a fictitious treatment created by the authors for the sole purpose of a study, I'm not sure what the relevance is.
INTRODUCTION: Chronic fatigue syndrome affects between 0.006% and 3% of the population depending on the criteria of definition used, with women being at higher risk than men.
I'm pretty sure I have the one on the lower end of that range. I'd like research and treatment relevant to that, instead of the chronic fatigue which 3% of the population experiences.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
More effective at what? Convincing patients to report less fatigue, apparently. And since "adaptive pacing therapy" is a fictitious treatment created by the authors for the sole purpose of a study, I'm not sure what the relevance is.
We have to keep stressing this. Adaptive pacing was a novel comparison arm of the PACE trial, not used in ANY other study or by patients. It cannot be generalized to anything.

This however demonstrates something I have regularly noted. What they say is often accurate but misleading. Its up to the reader to disambiguate adaptive pacing from what pacing usually means.
 
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Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
Careful what you wish for. If it was a proper hounding, they're would be yet more articles in the papers about him being 'threatened'.

Yeah, I can just see the headline in the Times,

"Motion passed in the House of Lords to ban ME terrorists on horse back hunting down psychiatrists with hounds".

This suddenly springs to mind for some reason...... warning, there's a few F words in the video..