Stephen Ralph posted this on Co-cure:
"The dogma of the last 20 years has been created by the system that has had control of "CFS/ME".
If Professor Wessely and his colleagues had no fear of finding XMRV in patients with a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome then they would not be frightened of using a selection criteria not used previously ie. the Canadian Consensus Criteria.
If Lombardi et al were able to effectively utilise the Canadian Criteria as they were then why were those at Imperial not allowed to use patients selected the same way?
Surely if one wants to replicate a groundbreaking study with the best possible source material then one would want to do things in accordance with Lombardi?
The only reason I can see for the failure to replicate the Lombardi patient selection protocol is that those behind the patients selected for the Imperial study were actually afraid of the outcome had they used the same methods for selecting patients.
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Wessely, Cleare and Collier claim that their patients were not mental health patients yet time and again Wessely, Cleare, White, Sharpe et al discuss their patients in terms of mental health perpetuation and treat their patients with CBT and Graded Exercise.
Two examples of exactly how the "Wessely School" demonstrate their beliefs surrounding mental health and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are given in my previous e-mail that includes the PLOS One comments.
Why exactly were the same old patients chosen for this study?
Why were no severely affected patients chosen who have never had the luxury
of attending a clinic run by Professor Wessely or one of his colleagues?
The 25% ME Group have a membership list of prime candidates all severely affected patients with G93.3 Myalgic Encephalomyelitis who are too ill to take part in CBT and Graded Exercise.
Why exclude those too ill to be "regulars" at Professor Wessely's clinic and why use patients already "screened" by Professor Wessely and his colleagues.
As there are potential conflicts of interest with the involvement of ANY psychiatrists such as Cleare, Wessely, White, Sharpe et al, why accept a study that has any involvement of any of the usual collaborators?
I found the rebuttal by Wessely and his buddies verrrry interesting.
ReplyDeleteNo mention of "false illness beliefs." No mention of the alleged helpfulness of CBT and GET. Instead they detail the physical symptoms of those in their patient population.
It's a compelling defense if you don't know the researchers' history.
My thoughts here.
look at this ad Dr Speedy:
ReplyDeleteclosing date: 23 NOVEMBER 2009!!
http://www.findaphd.com/search/showproject.asp?projectid=18971
Wasn't their paper submitted on Dec 1st?
if so they managed to find a virologist and do the whole study in just 8 DAYS!!!!
something is rotten in the state of weasels.......