• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

MEA announces details of annual medical student grants for 2016

charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
Messages
13,774
Is there a danger that a fair amount of this money can go to rubbish PhD students happily lapping up quackery from Crawley and co? I know it's not a lot of cash, but I just remember looking through the twitter feed of someone who'd been involved in a rubbish paper and seeing them thank MEA for the grant. It was a little annoying to think that money had gone to her. To me it seems that a lot of the students with an interest in ME tend to get rapidly drawn into quackery.
 

charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
Is there a danger that a fair amount of this money can go to rubbish PhD students happily lapping up quackery from Crawley and co? I know it's not a lot of cash, but I just remember looking through the twitter feed of someone who'd been involved in a rubbish paper and seeing them thank MEA for the grant. It was a little annoying to think that money had gone to her. To me it seems that a lot of the students with an interest in ME tend to get rapidly drawn into quackery.

Clearly, there is a very careful selection process in place

Last year we had some very good applicants (and a few that were rejected) and some of these students remain in contact

Amit, for example, who came over from Stanford in America to also work at the ME/CFS Biobank at UCL for a while, set up a virology research study at the Biobank while he was in London

So, we are very happy with the way this award scheme is working and feel that the pros far outweigh the possible cons