Other observations on the presentations;
SC was more or less given credit for the Missing Millions protests.
Although SC mentioned that most research funding in the UK had gone to two particular researchers, she didn't name them (we know who they are but did they, her audience?).
Prof. Davey Smith openly admitted that at the last conference he knew nothing about CFS, and then admitted that he still knew nothing; this doesn't exactly inspire you with confidence of his commitment, and although epidemiology sounds impressive I'm really not sure how it fits into the ME scenario(?) Based on this
General Dichotomies in Epidemiological Studies
When designing epidemiologic studies, choices must be made about the role of the investigator, the purpose of the study, the hypothesis regarding exposure and the unit of analysis. Here are some examples:
Role of investigator:
- Observational – The investigator does not manipulate exposure of participants to risk factors. Most epidemiological studiesare observational OR
- Experimental - According to the study design, the investigator manipulates the exposure of participants to some factor. Clinical trials and intervention studies are examples of such experiments. If the study participants themselves act to change their exposure to an influence, a natural experiment may occur. For example, a study of persone who have migrated from one environment to another could constitute a natural experiment.
Purpose of the study:
- Descriptive - describes distribution of disease by time, place, person; used to generate hypotheses of disease causation or for health planning OR
- Analytic - measures and tests the association between a hypothesized risk factor and a disease
Hypothesized Effect of Exposure
- Harmful - exposure increases risk or presence of disease OR
- Beneficial - exposure reduces risk or presence of disease
Unit of Analysis
- Individual - the individual (e.g., person, animal) is the unit of analysis; potential to ignore the impact of the community or group effect on individual risk OR
- Community - the community (e.g., county, hospital) is unit of analysis. There is potential for ecological fallacy in such studies. Lacking individual data, assuming that individuals perform similar to the average of the group may not be true.
The only scientist who really talked sense was the Canadian early on (can't remember his name), who made a point of saying that for research to be succesful you had to 'Back the Winning horses' (ie bits of research that show the most promise). He mentioned Naviaux's and other biological studies. But it appeared to fall on deaf ears.
EDIT: there is also this '
Dr Esther Crawley, a consultant paediatrician at Bristol University and AYME's lead medical advisor, is one of the
country's leading experts on the epidemiology and treatment of CFS/ME.'
I would like to see what Prof Davey Smith makes of the PACE trials and MAGENTA