By David Tuller, DrPH A survey of more than 1500 patients in the Netherlands with a diagnosis of ME, CFS or ME/CFS rated graded exercise therapy as “the worst” interventions, according to an article on the site of the ME and Disability Support Group, while “explanation and advice about the importance of lying down to … Trial By Error: Dutch Survey Respondents Rate GET/CBT as “the Worst” Approach, Per New Report Read More ..read more

By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier this month, Betsy Ladyzhets and Miles Griffis, two smart, young American journalists, announced the launch The Sick Times, an online publication focused on long Covid and related post-acute infection syndromes, including ME/CFS. I have met both of them in the last couple of years and have been impressed with their … Trial By Error: Interview with Founders of The Sick Times, a New Online Publication Read More ..read more

By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for the November campaign. Time magazine recently published an opinion piece that calls for an end to biomedical research for long Covid—based, it seems, … Trial By Error: Column in Time Magazine Calls for Halt to Biomedical Long Covid Research Read More ..read more

By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for this November’s campaign. I recently posted about Cochrane’s unsatisfactory responses to a request from the Science for ME forum that the organization withdraw … Trial By Error: Cochrane Ends Silence on ME/CFS Exercise Review Developments Read More ..read more

By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for this November’s campaign. As I pointed out last month when I reviewed a ridiculous study of “psychosomatic therapy” for “persistent somatic symptoms,” the … Trial By Error: Yet More Stupidity from the Dutch CBT Fan Club Read More ..read more

*This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for this November’s campaign. By David Tuller, DrPH Lisa McCorkell is a co-founder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, a group of people with Long COVID and … Trial By Error: A Conversation with Lisa McCorkell of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative Read More ..read more

By David Tuller, DrPH As I have regularly noted, patients with diagnoses of functional neurological disorder (FND) experience tremendous suffering. A patient who goes by the moniker @FnDPortal has written a compelling and sometimes harrowing essay, Cadenza for Fractured Consciousness: A Personal History of the World’s Most Misunderstood Illness, that is well worth a read in … Trial By Error: Letter on Inflated FND Prevalence Rates Accepted for Publication Read More ..read more

by Gertrud U. Rey On October 2nd, 2023, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the award of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. The decision was based on a series of fundamental discoveries that led to the development of the COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. Katalin … A Nobel Discovery Read More ..read more

By David Tuller On September 4th, the Science for ME (S4ME) forum sent an open letter to Cochrane’s editor-in-chief, Karla Soares-Weiser, requesting the “immediate withdrawal or retraction” of “Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome,” a 2019 review. The review over-stated the evidence in favor of exercise therapies and has been widely and appropriately criticized for … Trial By Error: What’s Going On with Cochrane’s Exercise Review Mess? Read More ..read more

By David Tuller, DrPH Dutch investigators appear to be on a roll—they are producing so much crap that it is hard to keep track. (I have recently written multiple posts about a Dutch study of CBT for fatigue associated with long Covid.) The latest to come to my attention is a real mess called “Effectiveness … Trial By Error: A Crap Study on “Psychosomatic Therapy” for “Persistent Somatic Symptoms” Read More ..read more