Further reading from @TommyShakes | Blaming the victim, all over again: Waddell and Aylward's biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
Problems in the assessment of psychosomatic conditions in Social Security benefits and related commercial schemes | J Psychosom Res 1995 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8568732/
"Some diagnoses are purely subjective by definition..."
Part of the problem is the assumption that such a "medical model" actually exists.
When actually this seems to be a description of one of a number of different scenarios, where the ideal "model" is at the top.
Another big assumption about the "medical model" is that it makes assumptions.
From my own experience, application of BPS in healthcare, rather than addressing complex issues in a multifactorial way, essentially reduces it to "guided self-help", and further exacerbates the problem.
Dog whistle medicine and disability denial - Unum, Aylward and the "Wessely School"
Aylward also contributed a section to the Trends in Health and Disability 2002 report (Unum) - it's quite dry though. The section by a certain Dr Sharpe is more interesting... web.archive.org/web/2003012615…
"Both State and private insurers pay people to remain ill."
Nice dig at patient support groups and charities there too. 😠
No mate, biggest obstacle to recovery is lack of effective treatments.
Sharpe mentions the 2002 CMO report, which I linked to here:
This was a very good phone-in show, and well worth a listen in full.
#GreatestMEdicalScandal
It was particularly interesting to hear what Wessely had to say, and I'll come on to that below, because he has said many, many things about this over the years.
First of all, his complaints about the torrent of people seeking diagnoses for autism and ADHD.
This is what he said about a very similar thing in 2002:
What's more interesting is that Wessely issued a statement to the show to say that he had "never suggested that ME or chronic fatigue syndrome were non-diseases".
Oh... but what's this...?
And, yes, of course every disease (condition) has a psychological component, because they all tend to occur in conscious human beings with brains! 🙄
The whole point of Engel's thesis (as far as I see it) was to ensure that the patient wasn't left out of the treatment of their disease.
Practical things, like not referring a patient who can't drive to an appointment 2 hours' drive away.
If it helps, I'm going to try to put together a thread of tweets from #MaeveInquest, so that those there/online can concentrate on what's said and don't have to worry about threading.
The #PACEtrial is a prime example of how the current medical publishing model doesn't work.
😲that a study so flawed can remain in print and in prominence for so long, without any correction or even investigation.
Everyone @TheLancet involved should be ashamed of themselves.
Dozens of letters were sent to @TheLancet after publication to point out serious methodological errors.
Some were published (start here: )
but not a single correction has been made.thelancet.com/journals/lance…
@TheLancet In their response, the authors simply reiterate what they did, and fail to address the queries posed by the correspondents.
As a former Correspondence copyeditor for The Lancet, this sort of thing used to annoy me all the time.
Many folks are retweeting this - but have you actually read as far as the section on "Psychological disorders and long COVID" which seems to be completely at odds with the rest of the review. 🤔
"...psychological and psychosomatic factors exert an indispensable role in the progression of long COVID..."
🤔
It also seems to (somewhat?) misquote current NICE guidance on ME/CFS, as recommending:
"energy management, personalized exercise or physical activity, personalized sleep management, and dietary management"
Or is this OK? 🤷♀️
Note that both the experts on "Long Covid" in this morning's session are probably going to be looking at post-ICU Long Covid as they are respiratory physicians from the PHOSP Covid study.
#UKCovidInquiry
One of the main issues with this inquiry is that it only looks at what was done, and not what *should* have been done.
And only asking those who "did" what should have been done is going to give a quite distorted picture.
#UKCovidInquiry
Module 2 deals with "Core UK decision-making and political governance"
Long Covid was a major blindspot. It didn't feature in any decision-making or political governance, at least not until too late.
The @covidinquiryuk is not asking the right questions about that.