Telegraph Tomorrow - Exercise and positivity can overcome ME

[Denise]

This is the REAL STORY! Enjoy !

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2015/10/criticism-mounts-long-controversial-chronic-fatigue-study

Agreed! This is good!

 

[Kyla]

Double posting in two threads, but thought this might be a bit of welcome good news in the midst of our media drubbing:

https://twitter.com/coyneoftherealm/status/659176151458390016


James Coyne is on the case!

 

[sillysocks84]

Do they truly not understand or are they plain evil?!

 

[Kyla]

Do they truly not understand or are they plain evil?!

Do we have to choose?

It's possible to be both dim-witted and a sociopath

 

[alex3619]

It is however possible that DT knew that this Lancet paper was about to be published

Tuller asked many of them to comment last year I think, and again more recently. They would have known he was about to publish.

 

[TiredSam]

Do they truly not understand or are they plain evil?!

There is definitely a portion of evil in there somewhere. I was thinking all last week that the forces of good and evil were gathering for a final confrontation - must have been all that star wars hype.

My family in England, which includes therapists and alternative health practitioners, are going to wake up to that article on their breakfast table this morning.

 

[Snow Leopard]

My family in England, which includes therapists and alternative health practitioners, are going to wake up to that article on their breakfast table this morning.

It's doubly strange when the followup in the lancet found no differences between the groups.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(15)00317-X/fulltext

Null results yet loads of spin. Sigh.

 

[alex3619]

Null results yet loads of spin. Sigh.

Its almost like they want to say: see, we could not be proved wrong, na na nanana.

 

[sarah darwins]

Apart from expressing open-mouthed astonishment, it's hard to know what to say.

I have already written to the Telegraph, asking why on earth they have reported this as though it were fact, as though a follow-up to the widely discredited PACE trial could be taken to prove anything, though I doubt it will do any good.

It's especially disappointing given that the same newspaper has recently been reporting with a much more open mind on lyme.

It's a very strange feeling this morning in the UK, knowing that many of you in other parts of the world are looking at us with a mixture of sympathy (thank you) and disbelief.

I don't know how on earth my country came to be this dumb.

 

[charles shepherd]

I won't be able to comment on this any further on PR today as I will shortly be on a train and involved with research matters for the rest of the day

BBC Radio 5 Live are wanting to cover the story this morning around 11am but don't want to try and do an interview with me at Reading Station mid morning

Dr Charles Shepherd
Hon Medical Adviser, MEA

 

[sarah darwins]

as a postscript, I will say that I walked away from journalism in the late 80s with ethical concerns, and a feeling that the British media was becoming utterly uninterested in truth, at the forefront of my mind. There were, and are, good journalists around, but their influence is marginal. UK newspapers, and increasingly broadcasters, too, regard it as a badge of honour to make a splash (which these days means getting a lot of web clicks) any way they can, truth be damned. We have probably the most toxic media in the world, and it is a big part of the answer to my question above - how did my country ever become so dumb?

 

[Sidereal]

Double posting in two threads, but thought this might be a bit of welcome good news in the midst of our media drubbing:

https://twitter.com/coyneoftherealm/status/659176151458390016


James Coyne is on the case!

Coyne is awesome. #slay

 

[green_monster]

Telegraph article saved in Internet Archive/Wayback Machine for posterity-

https://web.archive.org/web/2015102...f-ME-with-positive-thinking-and-exercise.html

As it appeared on October 28, 2015 8:32:13 AM UTC

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/hea...f-ME-with-positive-thinking-and-exercise.html

 

[sarah darwins]

postscript to my postscript .... the more I think about it, the more certain I am that the Telegraph knew exactly how contentious this was and put it top of the front page, with such a provocatively unequivocal headline, for exactly that reason.

Click bait, published in the full knowledge that what they were publishing was highly debatable and probably bullshit. And by protesting, we just drive more traffic to them.

Aren't they clever? Aren't they despicable?

 

[worldbackwards]

postscript to my postscript .... the more I think about it, the more certain I am that the Telegraph knew exactly how contentious this was and put it top of the front page, with such a provocatively unequivocal headline, for exactly that reason.

Click bait, published in the full knowledge that what they were publishing was highly debatable and probably bullshit. And by protesting, we just drive more traffic to them.

Aren't they clever? Aren't they despicable?

What I don't get is why it was so malicious when the Telegraph have a good track record on ME. The headline, whatever the nuance, was clearly meant to read "not sick" to the casual observer. Frederick Barclay apparently has CFS. It strikes me that his paper isn't doing him any favours.

 

[Chrisb]

One can only agree that in some cases living within your limits becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. Now if only Sharpe, White et al could see their way to extending their limits a little.....help could be made available-but has always been rejected in the past.

 

[snowathlete]

Ethically this is indefensible.

 

[worldbackwards]

Ethically this is indefensible.

I know. I've tried to have a charitable explanation for a lot of stuff that's gone down and don't like conspiracy theories. But this is frankly jaw dropping.

 

[sarah darwins]

What I don't get is why it was so malicious when the Telegraph have a good track record on ME. The headline, whatever the nuance, was clearly meant to read "not sick" to the casual observer. Frederick Barclay apparently has CFS. It strikes me that his paper isn't doing him any favours.

Honestly, WB, I think it's just "This'll stir things up!" It's as cynical as that. Make waves, provoke argument, get talked about. The bottom line is the bottom line.

I have to say, the Telegraph's science editor, Sarah Knapton, has come in for a ton of criticism from readers for many articles under her byline on a whole range of issues. I've yet to read anything by her that I would regard as creditable or displaying much regard for objectivity.

 

[eafw]

Click bait, published in the full knowledge that what they were publishing was highly debatable and probably bullshit. And by protesting, we just drive more traffic to them.

I don't think it is clickbait so much as going along with a very deliberately planned attack. They will have been given that story by the same people who gave it to the Daily Mail, Radio 5 (apparently doing a piece on it today) and all the other media outlets.

We saw this with O'Sullivan's book (It's all in Your head). A whole raft of articles in the broadsheets, the tabloids, R4, book tour. They pushed and pushed it. And the response of the ME community ? A letter writen by Charles Shepherd - in response to the particularly nasty Aaronovich piece - which **never got published**, and a load of tweets sent and read by other pwME.

We have it again here. Tuller's article not picked up by any media outlets, ME community tweets to itself. Nothing in the mainstream press or radio.

Three days later, Lancet Psych on PACE - coordinated media onslaught. ME community response ? Internal discussions and a statement that again will get very little attention.

We can but hope that any ethical and interested journos out there (Coyne, Tuller, Monbiot, that bloke in Bristol ?), or anyone in a position to make thier voice heard, will recognise that something stinks here in terms of the orchestration of the pro-PACE propaganda and use their platform to really draw attention to that, along with the flaws in PACE itself