Sometimes I just like to post about a few things that have caught my interest, for whatever reason. I keep meaning to do this more regularly.
Science For ME calls on Cochrane to retract flawed exercise review
The Science for ME (S4ME) forum has
posted a petition on change.org requesting that Cochrane withdraw its “harmful” 2019 review of exercise therapies for “chronic fatigue syndrome,” as the review called the clinical entity of interest. The petition is based on
an open letter sent last week by S4ME to Cochrane. (I’m a member of the forum but was not involved in this initiative, although I agree that the review is a piece of crap.)
(Caroline Struthers, who
blogs and tweets (or “X-es”? as
@healthy_control, has been dogged in pursuing the matter of the 2019 review and the ways in which the organization buckled under pressure from those on the wrong side of the scientific argument. I have
blogged about Cochrane multiple times, including
this March update on the exercise review situation.)
Below is the text from change.org
:
People with ME/CFS are being harmed by inaccurate clinical advice resulting from a flawed Cochrane Review
Cochrane is an international organisation that publishes reviews of research evidence for treatments of diseases; it has a lot of influence over clinical guidelines used around the world. Four years ago, in October 2019, Cochrane published ‘Exercise therapy for CFS‘, supporting the use of exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (more correctly known as ME/CFS).
Cochrane’s editor-in-chief admitted the review was not fit for purpose on publication, but it continues to be hosted in the Cochrane Library and cited in scientific journals and clinical guidelines. This is despite government organisations such as the UK’s NICE (NG206: 1.11.14) and the USA’s CDC having found, following unbiased evaluations, that there is no evidence that exercise therapy is effective for ME/CFS. This is also despite virtually all ME/CFS patient organisations rejecting exercise therapy as a valid treatment of the disease and many people with ME/CFS reporting becoming much sicker after graded exercise therapy.
