On September 1st,
The Atlantic published another
excellent piece by Ed Yong—“Long-haulers are fighting for their future.” In exploring how this population has confronted widespread misunderstanding in the medical community, the article highlighted the links between the experiences of Long Covid and ME/CFS patients by focusing on the crucial symptom of post-exertional malaise. That led to discussion of the PACE trial, which investigated both graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavior therapy as ME/CFS treatments but was marred by methodological and ethical flaws. (The main results appeared in
The Lancet in 2011.)
Here’s what Yong wrote:
“For year, such patients [with ME/CFS] were told to exercise (or get psychological therapy), in large part because of a now-discredited study called the PACE trial. The damaging influence of that trial has taken years to undo—the CDC [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]
has removed recommendations for exercise therapy for ME/CFS, and other countries are updating their guidance—but several long-COVID clinics, seemingly unaware of this ongoing controversy, are now repeating the same mistake.”
