Trial By Error: The View From Norway
12 DECEMBER 2018
By David Tuller, DrPH
I spent the last week of November in Oslo. The Norwegian ME Association invited me to give a couple of talks and have some meetings with public health officials. The city was charming, even if dark and overcast at this time of year.
Not surprisingly, the same tussle taking place over this illness everywhere–between the biopsychosocial forces and the proponents of biomedical approaches–is also occurring in Norway. The country has its own branch of the GET/CBT ideological brigades and a small but vocal group of Lighting Process proponents. Yet Norwegian scientists have also been on the forefront of efforts to seek biomedical answers, with the prime example being the research into rituximab as a possible treatment.
In my talks and meetings I made sure to issue sharp criticism of the Cochrane review of exercise therapies for what it has called chronic fatigue syndrome. The lead author of that review is Norwegian and works for a key health institute, so the document’s ultimate fate was of particular interest to everyone.
