When will false claims about CBT restoring function be retracted?
Here is a comparison to consider.
CFS is diagnosed subjectively but we know according to objective actigraphical measurements the levels of activity are substantially reduced. CBT psychobabblers have claimed CBT recovers the health of a significant proportion of CFS patients both in terms of symptoms and functional impairments, based on subjective measures. However, improvements reported on subjective measures may be "contaminated" by reactivity bias, a possibility accepted by researchers when studying other diseases but ignored when studying CFS. Even then the reported benefits are small and short term.
No one has found objective evidence that CBT is leading to restoration of previous activity levels as presumed for CFS. Objective measurements using actigraphy have instead shown no such recoveries or any improvement whatsoever on average. This data was omitted from the original publications of these studies. Will the claims about full recoveries in terms of function now be retracted?
Suspiciously coinciding with this data, the PACE Trial designed by hardcore CBT proponents with their reputations on the line, dropped the use of actigraphy as an outcome measurement and dropped its original (subjective) primary outcome measurements for dubious post-hoc analyses with weaker goalposts for "improvement" and getting back to "normal", which contradicted what is usually considered an improvement and normal even by some of the same authors and/or colleagues in previous publications. The best example, what was defined as "normal" physical function allowed entry into the trial for having "significant disability", and was also labeled "severe disability" in a previous paper co-authored by one of the PACE editorial authors who is now calling it "healthy".
Despite demonstrating previous competence with all the figures involved, the PACE authors and editorial authors somehow "accidentally" mislabeled the physical function normative dataset (used to derived "normal" physical function) as a "working age population" and "healthy" when it was actually a general population which included elderly and diseased. Labeling 60/100 points on the physical function subscale of the SF-36 health survey as "normal" or "healthy" for the patients studied is scandalous when about 84% of healthy people of similar age are scoring at least 80/100 or more.
Allowing a participant to make no improvement during the trial and then be classified at the end of the trial as "normal" is also extremely questionable under these circumstances. The closest to an objective outcome, the 6 minute walking test distance does not back up these claims of getting back to normal, for CBT there was no improvement at all on average compared to the de facto control group and remains similar to dozens of serious diseases. There are several more such problems in the PACE Trial and CBT research in general, and claims of recoveries are still being bandied around in medical journals and newspapers as a result. At what point does spin doctoring became scientific fraud?
ERV et al's treatment for pointing out discrepancies in XMRV and other biological research: News coverage, groupie praise for fighting the good fight against bad science and quackery.
Our treatment for pointing out discrepancies in CBT and other psychological research: Hand waving dismissal, contemptuous laughter, branded as irrational extremists amongst criminals, and "f*ck off you stupid angry c*nts, just accept the obvious truth about your (fake) psycho>somatic illness!"