has just published
an anguished whine de coeur from supporters of the graded exercise therapy/cognitive behavior therapy/ [GET/CBT] approach to ME/CFS. (Or CFS/ME, as these authors insist on calling the illness in what those familiar with the debate will recognize as a childish fit of pique.) These impassioned members of the GET/CBT ideological brigades, all from northern European countries, are metaphorically stomping their little feet over
the new ME/CFS clinical guideline from the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Per the new guideline, which was published in October, NICE no longer recommends GET and only advises CBT as supportive care—not as a treatment for the illness itself. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a similar decision several years ago and removed from its site multiple references to
the infamous PACE trial—a key plank of support for the GET/CBT approach. During NICE’s own extensive review process, it determined that the quality of the evidence to support the effectiveness of these interventions, including from the PACE trial, was either “very low” or merely “low.”
The five authors of this
Lancet comment are (in order of authorship) Signe Flottorp, Kjetil Brurberg, Per Fink, Hans Knoop, and Vegard Wyller. Flottorp, Brurberg, and Wyller are all Norwegian; Fink is Danish, and Knoop is Dutch. All are well-known players in this field. Like their fellow GET/CBT brigadiers in the UK and elsewhere, they have made some dubious statements when it comes to ME/CFS. They really don’t like me.............
