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Wessely seems to realise he went a bit too far:
Wessely let the truth slip in - and is now trying to explain it away - when in fact its the crux of the whole thing
...they realised no-one would recover so they changed things lol
Because reframing and misdirection is this show pony's one trick, and he is extraordinarily good at it. Got him to where he is now, one of the most powerful and influential people alive.Why can't he just say "It's been pointed out that my answer was disgraceful nonsense" instead of trying to reframe the story as usual?
I'm deeply embarrassed that - despite my many years experience in the art of obfuscation - on this occasion I spoke a little too candidly. I will try not to let it happen again.
It's been pointed out that for once my answer wasn't sufficiently ambiguous.
...because it was blindingly obvious to us that CBT and GET weren't having the desired effects long before we started analysis. But hopefully by offering a 'clarification' on the *timing* of the change I can create the impression that I mispoke when I blurted out the *reason* for the change.
I'm deeply embarrassed that - despite my many years experience in the art of obfuscation - on this occasion I spoke a little too candidly. I will try not to let it happen again.
Why can't he just say "It's been pointed out that my answer was disgraceful nonsense" instead of trying to reframe the story as usual?
. So we can be happy that although the authors realised from what the therapists were saying that nobody was going to be recovered and so changed the endpoint, they were not silly enough to actually do the calculations based on the old endpoint.
Presumably because that would be a direct lie; it was not nonsense was it? The ambiguity was that it might have given the impression that the decision was made after formal analysis had been made and we are now assured that was not intended to be implied. So we can be happy that although the authors realised from what the therapists were saying that nobody was going to be recovered and so changed the endpoint, they were not silly enough to actually do the calculations based on the old endpoint.
Only to a minor extent. To equate "recovery" with the average SF36-PF scores of an 80 year old is far from reasonable.Reasonable people differ as to the interpretation of recovery.
Presumably because that would be a direct lie; it was not nonsense was it? The ambiguity was that it might have given the impression that the decision was made after formal analysis had been made and we are now assured that was not intended to be implied. So we can be happy that although the authors realised from what the therapists were saying that nobody was going to be recovered and so changed the endpoint, they were not silly enough to actually do the calculations based on the old endpoint.
PACE Stats analysis plan said:Blinding of the statistical analysis This document has been developed without reference to the PACE trial database. No analyses of outcomes relating to this strategy have been, or will be, conducted prior to final written approval of the analysis strategy by the TSC. Reports have been prepared with data presented descriptively by intervention (coded to maintain blinding) for the closed sessions of the Data Monitoring Committee. Consequently, both DMC and TSC were blind to intervention group, as were the trial statisticians. Data cleaning will be performed as blind to intervention allocation as possible. Decisions made during analysis concerning data or additional analyses will be documented.
If SW keeps spieling they way he currently is, he will make it abundantly clear.In most crimes, intent is obvious in that someone carried out a physical act which requires intentional actions. It's less clear when the inappropriate action could be due to gross incompetence instead of only intent.
Yes, but what analysis? The formal analysis? Or the informal "how is it shaping up" analysis I bet was done, to check if things needed tweaking before doing the formal analysis?To be clear the change was before the analysis
It all makes sense now - the PACE investigators were simply grading their students - oops, er, subjects rather, on the curve - you know, like they do in high school when a test is deemed too hard and almost no one passes. This is how you can be sicker post-study than when you entered, and yet still “pass” (recover). Someone just needs to explain to them the difference between high school and rigorous scientific study.I don’t mind people disagreeing on measures of recovery. They changed the recovery measure because they realized they had gone too extreme and they would have the problem that nobody would recover.
The laughter is because they "know" that CFS/ME patients aren't really sick, and thus will never recover.Except they dropped all the objective measures and the subjective measures provided a null result once the data was released after they changed the recovery definition because "they realised no one would have recovered otherwise", and people could be defined as recovered yet still ill enough to enter the trial at the same time.
Laughter from the scientific community worldwide.
Real objective laughter.
Except Wessely is still living in the subjective wherby he can just ignore the rest of the scientific community worldwide because, well, "thats what we do in the world of psychiatry".
It's happened. There was a "last minute" change to the Olympic torch route here in SF before the Beijing Olympics, because the planners were worried about pro-Tibet protesters. It was worked out well ahead of time.If the route doesn't turn out to be too popular, they can always change it half-way along.
I don’t mind people disagreeing on measures of recovery. They changed the recovery measure because they realized they had gone too extreme and they would have the problem that nobody would recover.
Some elements of Wessely's talk: