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New Montoya Radio Interview

Messages
40
I listened to the entire interview. I enjoyed hearing Dr. Montoya discuss his work with cfs patients, but it was annoying to have the host push his ideas over and over that CFS is a variation of AIDS, that both are caused by HHV-6, that CFS is contagious, etc. As Montoya said, these ideas are not supported by the evidence nor by his many years of working with cfs patients and the suggestion that CFS is contagious is a dangerous idea.
 

Neunistiva

Senior Member
Messages
442
I found it disappoint that interviewer was looking for a controversy that is clearly on the conspiracy-tin-foil-hat level when we have a very large, very real controversy which is proven, documented and has rendered 20 million horribly sick people with no treatment and almost no funding for medical research.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Hey @Marky90, @Jonathan Edwards, @A.B.

In this interview, Montoya says that some of his patients recover to the point where they are almost normal after undergoing treatment (which I am sure you would say is being prescribed without evidence as to its efficacy). I would just like to get your collective take on that, in light of what you have said in other threads about KDM making similar claims. Feel free to use any terms you wish, since there are no moderators at the moment.
 

HowToEscape?

Senior Member
Messages
626
Hey @Marky90, @Jonathan Edwards, @A.B.

In this interview, Montoya says that some of his patients recover to the point where they are almost normal after undergoing treatment (which I am sure you would say is being prescribed without evidence as to its efficacy). I would just like to get your collective take on that, in light of what you have said in other threads about KDM making similar claims. Feel free to use any terms you wish, since there are no moderators at the moment.

Well this wasn't addressed to me but I'll take a bite: there are no approved treatment at the moment so everything is experimental.

Something that appears to work even though it may have been used only on a small patient sample set and therefore is proved is about the best that we can get at the moment.

There's probably no one treatment that's going to work for all of us; we're not even sure we all have the same mechanism of disease although we have a certain set of common symptoms and an overlapping constellation of added maladies.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Hey @Marky90, @Jonathan Edwards, @A.B.

In this interview, Montoya says that some of his patients recover to the point where they are almost normal after undergoing treatment. I would just like to get your collective take on that. Feel free to use any terms you wish, since there are no moderators at the moment.

I view this as attempt to defend K. de Meirleir's practices. Your argument appears to be that if we are critical of KDM then we should also be critical of Montoya, presumably because they have a similar approach. It is important that my position is clear: there is something seriously wrong when a doctor diagnoses one or more infections in nearly every ME/CFS patient he sees. There are several more red flags, but I want to keep it short.

I don't know how Montoya operates, but from what I heard he prescribes antivirals in some cases and it's not done secretly. I am skeptical about this approach but it's not alarming either.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
So you think there is evidence to support the clinical use of the antivirals he is prescribing, and to support the claim he makes about the efficacy of his treatment regimen?

Edit: just tagging you, @A.B., in case you haven´t seen my reply.
 
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Marky90

Science breeds knowledge, opinion breeds ignorance
Messages
1,253
Hey @Marky90, @Jonathan Edwards, @A.B.

In this interview, Montoya says that some of his patients recover to the point where they are almost normal after undergoing treatment (which I am sure you would say is being prescribed without evidence as to its efficacy). I would just like to get your collective take on that, in light of what you have said in other threads about KDM making similar claims. Feel free to use any terms you wish, since there are no moderators at the moment.

Well.. I`m not convinced by Montoya either. Meaning, I would not travel to get treatment there myself. After trying another treatment privately i saw a lot anecdotal reports from the doctor proven to be incorrect, due to me being in the FB-group for the people taking it. I have nothing against experimental treatment as long as its not hyped beyond foundation, not saying that it is, but that`s where the uncertainty is anyway. At least without studies
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Hmm, you seem be less critical of Montoya. Can you please explain why?
 
Messages
40
Let me try to keep the thread focused on Montoya to keep it from veering off into a discussion of KDM. I haven't had the time to investigate Montoya, so I don't know much about what he does. I get the sense that he believes in the idea of an active viral infection for at least a subset of CFS patients, even though other researchers like Ron Davis have not found signs of active viruses in the bloodstream. But judging from the interview, it seemed to me that he was careful about what he said (exactly what you would expect of a Stanford researcher). The only strong claim that he made was about cytokine differences and how they predicted symptom severity. I assume this was peer-reviewed for publication.

He is a clinician and he has his own ideas for what he thinks is going on. Each of us has to decide which of these theories to pay attention to and which clinicians to seek out. He said that he has seen some heartwarming success stories. He didn't claim that he knows for sure. He mentioned several times that they are searching for an agent, but that they hadn't found it yet. I appreciated how open he was in the discussion and I don't think he said anything that was misleading.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Yes, I thought he was very straightforward too. I was just curious to see how others would see what was surely the strongest claim he made, that some of those he has treated are now almost normal.
 

JES

Senior Member
Messages
1,320
The interviewer was arrogant, but Montoya dealt with him well, and actually it gave answers to several questions that I see posted online regularly, like whether CFS is sexually transmittable, etc. All in all I found it very interesting to listen to, let aside the conspiracies and the interruptions by the host.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Perhaps Prof. Edwards is busy, but I do find it a bit odd that he doesn´t offer his opinion on Montoya, or any of the other American physicians (at least, I haven´t seen him do so). Perhaps, like Marky90, it is just because he doesn´t know much about them.

I do not know the answer to your question, perrier, but I do know that Montoya collaborated with the other Davis (Mark, that is) on his latest study.
 
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Kenshin

Senior Member
Messages
161
I don't mind the interviewers opinion that CFS is Aids or a variation of, he did push it a bit, but Montoya clarified his position.
He seemed genuine at the end when he said it was the most interesting interview he had done.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Well, I think it probably was the most interesting interview he had done in a very scientific sense. I thought I heard him change his tone rather sharply in the middle though when he realised that the guy had his own agenda, and I admire the way he wasn´t going to allow the guy to put words in his mouth.