Psychological Medicine paper: behaviours that perpetuate ME: Chalder and Ross-Morris

[trishrhymes]

I am ashamed that a researcher at a London medical school should behave in this way treating patients like laboratory rats in effect. The thread with the request from Hughes is totally disingenuous. The purpose of the study was clearly not what was advertised. This is a serious breach of trust on the part of a healthcare professional and I think a formal complaint would be justified.

How can these people be so stupid that they do not realise that patients are sometimes intelligent human beings who can see through the 'researchers' ' irrational beliefs. And if your theory is about damaging false beliefs it might be a good idea to remove the beam from your own eye....

If I was the Dean of King's I think I would consider this a disciplinary matter.

Who should make that complaint? Can any of us do so, or does it have to be someone who participated in the study complaining that they personally were misled. Is it enough to be one of the eligible population who were asked to participate?

Can you make a complaint, @Jonathan Edwards ?

 

[Sean]

Studies have shown that specific cognitions and behaviours play a role in maintaining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Marginal p-hacked correlations, based upon vague criteria, uncontrolled subjective outcome measures, and arbitrary statistical thresholds, soaked through with highly selective and untested assumptions and causal assertions, does not a proof make, no matter how many times you assert that it does.

But then this is exactly what SW et al wanted when they claimed that belonging to support groups will prolong/worsen the condition. Divide & conquer & keep 'em ignorant.

Yep, that is exactly the tactic, and it can work a treat when played right.

 

[Large Donner]

Studies have shown that specific cognitions and behaviours play a role in maintaining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Source please. Please show a single study that proves this.

This is what is so wrong with studies like this, the opening sentence is a magick trick (yes magick not magic) designed to take the reader away from examining the basic premise.

Its not worth reading beyond this.

Studies have shown that Santa flies east to west rather than west to east on Christmas Eve to deliver presents all around the world. Santas existence is therefore real.

 

[A.B.]

Rather satisfying that the PR populous was generally found to be having none of it.

They are predictable. My thoughts on this study back then were:

So you're fishing for data to support your hypothesis that ME/CFS is caused by negative thoughts and beliefs.

 

[Shakota]

Sounds like too much emphasis on meaningless research (publish or perish--I say perish). In PhD programs you have to come up with a research topic, however silly. There's an IQ problem here on the part of whoever funded or approved this. Sound like psychiatry doesn't have much relevance anymore, although there are certainly enough mental illness to do around, but perhaps these MDs are not good clinicians.

As with other illnesses for which the etiology is uncertain, leave it to the shrinks to fabricate the useless. Until someone in the psych's family gets CFS/ME, etc., he or she won't believe it's real. I say in the wrong profession!

 

[Large Donner]

I wonder what the results would be for other fatigue causing illnesses such as MS?

The same if Ross Morris wrote the paper, that's evident by her previous work on MS.

 

[Snowdrop]

Another cautionary tale. Beware of BPSers bearing questionnaire's. It always ends badly.

And it is reflective of exactly what will happen with MEGA and why Esther Crawley is needed as part of a biomedical study. We have yet to find the level to which they will sink to get the narrative they need.

 

[alex3619]

They have never ruled out that patients have an illness that makes them believe that they are ill.

Yes, this is a big issue. Consistently not considering this does rule out them being good scientists, definitively.

 

[Valentijn]

They are predictable. My thoughts on this study back then were:

My own contribution:

Please do something relevant in the field for a change, or go get a real job. Either way, stop lying to and about ME/CFS patients - enough is enough.

Gosh, I sounded cranky!

 

[alex3619]

Custard and Bananas (to invoke repressed childhood desires)

Where can I sign up for custard and bananas therapy?

 

[alex3619]

Either way, stop lying to and about ME/CFS patients

I think its egregious enough that only two rational interpretations exist, and they are not mutually exclusive. Either they are deliberately misrepresenting the facts, or they are so stuck in their own explanations that rational alternatives, facts, explanations etc., are beyond their ken. This work should be corrected, which would gut it, or retracted. How can the reviewers and editors get it wrong so consistently? This is in part a rhetorical question. We know why. Theory allegiance, monetary bias, review circles, etc. This is not even bad science, its not science at all. Academic, yes; scientific, no.

 

[alex3619]

Studies have shown that Santa flies east to west rather than west to east on Christmas Eve to deliver presents all around the world. Santas existence is therefore real.

Don't knock Santa! I would believe in Santa before psychobabble. And the Easter Bunny. I am still undecided on Tinker-Bell-like fairies. [Satire]

 

[Keith Geraghty]

for anyone who doesnt know how UK academia tends to work - professors working in higher up positions can run programmes eg MSc psychology and PhD programmes, and have a whole line of junior researchers working on things they are interested in; so as each student finishes, the lead can draft papers if they deem them publishable - like some of the recent publications - and the conveyor belt just keeps rolling on

what you end up with could be something like this - for this years Kings MSc programme

no 4, 7, 12 - and so on show a certain trend I'd say

 

[alex3619]

for anyone who doesnt know how UK academia tends to work

Its not dissimilar in Australia, or at least it used to be in the 90s when I was the equivalent of a junior researcher.

 

[Grigor]

These people keep coming up with more fairytales. It's cute.
They should take a box stand on it at a corner of a street. With the book of PACE and spread the word of CBT /GET. He's coming. Oh mighty proof that it works.

 

[ash0787]

Very clever ... to anyone remotely versed in science its obvious what they are trying to say,
but a lot of people are not which is why theres a lot of scams like The Hyperloop and Solar Roadways that become popular, when you put it on the news it can end up sounding a lot like postmodernism generator www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

 

[Solstice]

My own contribution:

Gosh, I sounded cranky!

I see she didn't reply anymore after all the vexatiousness . Maybe we could hire you and A.B. to vexate them away from any future research?

 

[user9876]

for anyone who doesnt know how UK academia tends to work - professors working in higher up positions can run programmes eg MSc psychology and PhD programmes, and have a whole line of junior researchers working on things they are interested in; so as each student finishes, the lead can draft papers if they deem them publishable - like some of the recent publications - and the conveyor belt just keeps rolling on

what you end up with could be something like this - for this years Kings MSc programme

no 4, 7, 12 - and so on show a certain trend I'd say

These days I come across people doing PhDs who basically write 3 or 4 papers and wrap them up as a thesis. I think it may be more of a European approach but it seems to loose something in understanding the depth of a subject and the writing of a thesis helps in understanding the methodological errors that were made on the way. Whereas writing papers doesn't,

 

[snowathlete]

Just read the original threads and I think the way it was described to patients now looks manipulative and dishonest. How is this sort of thing allowed to happen, it's really quite disgusting to me.

 

[Snow Leopard]

I wonder what the results would be for other fatigue causing illnesses such as MS?

I guess we'll soon find out.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...or_people_with_progressive_multiple_sclerosis