17 SEPTEMBER 2020
By David Tuller, DrPH
This morning (Wednesday) I gave an informal online talk about the piece of crap known as the PACE trial to a small group of UK doctors, researchers and others. The group had been pulled together by Paul Garner, a physician and professor of infectious diseases at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Garner has written
several widely read blog posts for BMJ about his struggles with profound exhaustion and other long-Covid symptoms.
In those posts, Garner has expressed sympathy for the plight of people with ME and their challenges in finding adequate medical treatment. Those experiences triggered his interest in the PACE saga–about which I know a little bit.
As sometimes happens, I got a bit, uh, energized while I discussed the PACE trial. It’s possible I dropped a four-letter word as I explained how the outcome thresholds were weakened so much that people could get worse on key measures and still be considered “recovered.” (Or “back to normal,” as one of the PACE investigators falsely declared at the 2011 press conference presenting the first results.)............................................
