“A small Dunedin-based team of researchers are critical to
understanding fatigue disease in New Zealand, but they might not be
around in another year.”
“Emeritus Professor Warren Tate says it took two decades for #chronicfatiguesyndrome research to be taken seriously, yet after a decade of good work it is still a mission to secure funding.
As of this week, they still didn’t have the funding to continue in 2023”
“Tate thought it [difficulty getting funding for their research] was due to ongoing misinformation. In some circles, he said, people still thought fatigue diseases like #ME/#CFS were in patients’ heads”
“A eureka moment for Tate was finding a [#MEcfs] molecular signature. More
recently, unpublished data still being crunched by researcher Katie
Peppercorn indicated this signature “very closely overlapped” with
people suffering from #longCovid”
[Thread]
It's 3rd anniversary of our paper
"Monitoring treatment harm in #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis / #CFS: A freedom-of-information study of NHS specialist centres in England"
I searched but couldn't find a legal copy online of "Monitoring treatment harm in #MyalgicE/#ChronicFatigueSyndrome ..." that others can access so I uploaded here researchgate.net/publication/33… what we submitted to the journal which is something we own the copyright on.
2/ “#ME/#CFS is a chronic, complex, multi-system biological illness with often devastating consequences. It affects all age groups including children, and all social classes. About 75% of sufferers are female”
3/ ME/CFS “has a worse quality of life score than many other serious illnesses including cancer, stroke, rheumatoid arthritis and MS. 25% of patients are housebound or bedbound.”
"21 clinicians specializing in ME/CFS convened to discuss best clinical practices for adults affected by #MECFS"
1/
2/ "the United States and other governments as well as major health care organizations have recently withdrawn graded exercise and cognitive-behavioral therapy as the treatment of choice for patients with ME/#CFS
3/ "There are many steps that clinicians can take to improve the health, function, & quality of life of those with ME/#CFS, including those in whom #MECFS develops after COVID-19"
An incisive blog that covers the NICE ME/#CFS guidelines, issues regarding trials of nonpharmacological interventions in general, appeals to authority, etc.
"The new [NICE] guidelines not only repudiate a heretofore favoured treatment approach for a particular illness, they also threaten to discredit an entire (albeit quirky) branch of medicine — and, for good measure, to cast clouds over significant swathes of psychology too"
3/n "Here is an extract from expert testimony provided by Jonathan Edwards, professor emeritus of clinical medicine at University College London" [on the #PACETrial authors trying to justify their use of post-hoc criteria rather than their original criteria]
[Thread]
PD White has just co-authored a #MECFS paper which has a dubious, wishy-washy recovery definition: not a complete remission of symptoms & a return to premorbid functioning" but where basically people who are not recovered are seen as recovered journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10…
1/n
2/n From a former patient of White's
'To me if I'm recovered, I'm able to come off benefits, work full time, do my house work & have a life. But when I said this he asked me: 'Do you want to go back to the life that gave you ME?' That's a cop out"
See more s4me.info/threads/sick-o…
3/n These bizarre & infuriating comments in 2006 on the draft NICE guidelines show again Peter White's odd views about #MECFS in general & recovery in particular
2/n Draft NICE guidance “recognizes that #MECFS is a complex, multi-system, chronic medical condition where there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to managing symptoms,particularly where there is the potential for an intervention to benefit some people but cause harm in others”
3/n “Because of harms reported by people with #MECFS + the committee’s own experience of the effects when people exceed their energy limits...any programme based on fixed incremental increases in physical activity or exercise eg GET should not be offered for treatment of ME/#CFS”