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    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.

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barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
If Morris and Maes are cited there's no way I will contribute to this.. They're still thinking this a retrovirus! @JaimeS Do you know the history behind Morris?

I'm having a hard enough time with Myhill and De Meirleir being cited!

If people want to go to them, fine. But having them seen as credible scientist is another story!

This is being built on a house of cards.

Good luck!
 
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barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Please understand this is not personal. I highly admire the reasoning behind doing something like this. I have misgivings about the content so will look for other ways to contribute to advocacy.

I simply don't have the energy to engage in wiki wars.

To each there own.
 

olliec

Senior Member
Messages
111
Location
London, UK
@barbc56 We have a page on Simon Wessely. There is also a page on the UK Breakspear Hospital which contains information about complaints and rulings against them. Inclusion is certainly not a recommendation, and the goal is to provide as good a range of factual, encyclopedic information as we are able (based on suitable evidence) that helps patients make better decisions by giving them easy access to sources - ie the original document. If we include a link to a study and that study has flaws we should be explicit about the flaws, rather than exclude the study entirely. If we excluded all studies with flaws we'd not include much at all. Also including the flawed studies and explaining what is bad about them is educationally useful for patients.

If you know of information that patients should know about Maes et al, then please edit the pages, or provide sources so others can add and they can be shared. If there is good reason to be cautious around the Maes work we've included then please help us qualify it for the benefit of other patients.
 
Messages
15,786
If Morris and Maes are cited there's no way I will contribute to this.. They're still thinking this a retrovirus!

I'm having a hard enough time with Myhill and De Meirleir being cited!
I don't think it's fair to object to a source due to the name of the researcher. Rather it should be the quality of the piece of research which counts. People can have bizarre theories, but still produce proper research on that or other topics.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
I feel it would be unprofessional to comment on them, at least at this point, as it would end of being quite provoking. If you look at the history of Morris he is a highly dubious person. I will try and find some sources that can say it better than I can. But I may need some time as I don't want to go off half cocked.

In the meantime I would suggest finding his history of what he did to this forum. I'm not sure I know where to look but will try. This guy has serious problems and there are few people I would feel comfortable saying that.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
@Valentijn

Fair point. I will try and post more information.

As I alluded to above, I would not ordinarily judge someone based on personality but he's the perfect example of the Dunning Kruger effect. AFAIK, his research is of poor quality and usually only opinion pieces. But I do indeed need to back this up.

Thanks.
 

olliec

Senior Member
Messages
111
Location
London, UK
If a study is poor then I wouldn't want to exclude it, but rather include it under a section "Flawed studies" or specifically detail why it is poor - was it cohort size, lack of blinding, the definition used, dubious funding, etc. If we start excluding sources that means private decisions behind closed doors and the project is an open one so that is not in line with the goals. I know that for me as a patient it is very important to me to learn WHY certain studies are flawed so I literally cannot wait to see more of that qualification added to the content, but I know I have to be patient. Many patients labour under the view there's very little research into the disease, and I like that MEpedia can help patients see that actually there is a lot, in these many areas, but nearly all of it is flawed in some way and here is how.

@barbc56 If you can find sources to demonstrate facts along those lines then I think it is important they are included, probably on Morris' own page. If you can edit pages that's great, if you need any help getting them in let us know.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
So now we are providing a source on how to analyze studies? That might be expanding the scope to a point that is almost impossible to attain and harder to make it user friendly..

Are we including every possible theory such as how parasites might affect mitochondria when first you really need to start with studies on the very merit of the theory. Then if important talk about the parasites. There's a hierarchy of which studies to cite to get more bang for your buck.

Maybe it would be better to include several well done studies that meet certain standards, not behind closed doors, but decided beforehand to assure that this happens.

Easy.enough to be an armchair quarterback and not really fair to criticize if you aren't going to do the work. So I will leave that to others to decide and not detract even more from this thread. Apologies for doing that.

Again good luck.
 

Skippa

Anti-BS
Messages
841
I feel it would be unprofessional to comment on them, at least at this point, as it would end of being quite provoking. If you look at the history of Morris he is a highly dubious person. I will try and find some sources that can say it better than I can. But I may need some time as I don't want to go off half cocked.

In the meantime I would suggest finding his history of what he did to this forum. I'm not sure I know where to look but will try. This guy has serious problems and there are few people I would feel comfortable saying that.

Hi devil's advocate here, wouldn't this be good content to put on the "Morris page" - include the study, point out the flaws, and then go into detail at length about these flawed methodologies on his wiki page?
 

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
....or it might be a good start to look at the study in question! Morris often does review articles of others' work, as does Maes, as I commented earlier. Their review articles tend to be of very high quality.

Some issues with ditching any articles by Morris and Maes:

1) As @Valentijn said, throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- researchers can have a bad attitude or produce an article you disagree with and still produce other useful articles
2) Morris and Maes both often write review articles of others' work. They are information compilers, which makes them very useful sources, so long as people do as I suggested earlier in the thread and hunt down the original sources they list. The stuff I cited are review articles, so quality is judged by the narrative they create with the sources they compile. It is not original research.
3) Frankly I'm not sure what original research Maes or Morris did that was so terrible. Maes tends to focus on ROS and immunity in research.

....wait, are you thinking of Moss-Morris? He's part of the biopsychosocial crowd. You wouldn't be the first:

I've confused Morris and Moss-Morris before too.

But perhaps you have some reason you don't like Morris or Maes in particular and you have correctly identified them both. [Edit: Here is a thread about Morris's history on PR and (perhaps?) his first big paper. I only went through the first two pages, but everyone's comments seem to be positive so far. We all know how the patient community can sour on someone, however.]

Here are papers published by Maes and Morris, who often work together:

Nitrosative Stress, Hypernitrosylation, and Autoimmune Responses to Nitrosylated Proteins: New Pathways in Neuroprogressive Disorders Including Depression and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Gerwyn Morris, Michael Berk, Hans Klein, Ken Walder, Piotr Galecki, Michael Maes

Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress and Immune-Inflammatory Pathways in Patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
Morris G, Maes M. Curr Neuropharmacol. 2014 Mar;12(2):168-85. doi: 10.2174/1570159X11666131120224653.
Free PMC Article

In myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, increased autoimmune activity against 5-HT is associated with immuno-inflammatory pathways and bacterial translocation
Sep 2013 - Maes

Increased IgA responses to the LPS of commensal bacteria is associated with inflammation and activation of cell-mediated immunity in chronic fatigue syndrome
Feb 2012 - Maes

Normalization of leaky gut in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is accompanied by a clinical improvement: Effects of age, duration of illness and the translocation of LPS from gram-negative bacteria
Dec 2008 - Maes

Increased serum IgA and IgM against LPS of enterobacteria in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS): Indication for the involvement of gram-negative enterobacteria in the etiology of CFS and for the presence of an increased gut–intestinal permeability
Apr 2007 - Maes


(Thanks to @M Paine who collected some of these articles in a thread here on PR)

Morris and Maes appear to be well-respected researchers who have contributed a great deal of biological research to ME. Researchers perhaps better-known on Phoenix Rising cite their papers.

-J
 
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Messages
13,774
....wait, are you thinking of Moss-Morris? He's part of the biopsychosocial crowd. You wouldn't be the first:

Rona Moss-Morris is a woman, and I think that the Prof Morris I was referring to was a Richard Morris... it can get confusing!
 

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
Phew. I've been following this thread and trying to work out who the heck Morris was (conclusion: a Bee Gee. Oh, hang on, that's Maurice ....)

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I find their research into ME disappointing.