MUS

Trial By Error: Neurology Journal Fixes False Claim in MUS Paper–But Fails to Publish a Correction Notice (Ironically, I Have Added a Correction to the Post!)

31 July 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

UPDATE: August 4, 2021

Dr Villemarette-Pittman, the managing editor of Journal of the Neurological Sciences, has informed me that she has learned from Elsevier that a corrigendum has in fact been written and will be published in the near future. She also informed me that she plays no role in deciding on or setting policy about corrections and corregendi, and when or how they are published. I am very glad to hear about the corrigendum. Had I been informed earlier in the cycle of e-mail exchanges that the lack of a corrigendum did not mean that none was forthcoming and that a response from Elsevier was being sought, I would have written the blog post differently and/or updated it sooner. Dr Villemarette-Pittman had responded on behalf of the journal to my initial e-mail about the error, so I assumed she understood the practices and policies around corrections and corregendi. I apologize to Dr Villemarette-Pittman for having made that mistaken assumption.

Trial By Error: CBT Model of Medically Unexplained Symptoms, Explained; CBT Trial for Q-Fever Fatigue

22 July 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

As I have recently written, four major clinical trials of CBT for so-called MUS have documented the opposite of what the investigators hoped to prove. In fact, the evidence from this research suggests that CBT is not an effective treatment for these conditions. That hasnâ€™t stopped these investigators from claiming otherwise, of course. As my earlier post indicated, they have deployed a range of methodological, statistical and rhetorical strategies to obfuscate or downplay their poor results. Three of these studies were based at Kingâ€™s College London, and oneâ€”the now-discredited PACE trialâ€”at Queen Mary University of London.

Trial By Error: Null Outcomes Presented as Success in Yet Another CBT Trial from Prof Trudie Chalder

19 June 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

Trudie Chalder, a professor of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) at Kingâ€™s College London, has recently published yet another high-profile paper: the main results for â€œefficacyâ€ from a trial of CBT for patients with so-called â€œpersistent physical symptomsâ€ (PPS) in secondary care. As usual with this group of investigators, things havenâ€™t turned out well. But despite null results for the primary outcome, Professor Chalder and her like-minded colleagues have cast the findings in a positive light in their article, published in Psychological Medicine.

Trial By Error: More Letters about Professor Anthony David’s Mis-Citations of Key Study on Costs of MUS

11 May 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

I have been in correspondence with the journal Psychological Medicine in my efforts to get it to correct an undisputed factual era related to the cost of so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS). After three weeks, the journal’s co-editor-in-chief, Professor Robin Murray, finally alerted me on May 4th that the authors “have agreed” to a correction–as if they were making a concession to me rather than ensuring the accuracy of the medical literature.

Trial By Error: Professor David’s Third Mis-Citation of Seminal Study of “Medically Unexplained Symptoms”

26 April 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

*April is crowdfunding month at Berkeley. I conduct this project as a senior fellow in public health and journalism at the universityâ€™s Center for Global Public Health. If you would like to support the project with a donation to Berkeley (tax-deductible for US taxpayers), hereâ€™s the place: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/25504

I have recently blogged about the multiple mis-citations of a seminal study involving so-called â€œmedically unexplained symptomsâ€ (MUS). The 2010 study, Bermingham et al, found that the amount spent by the National Health Service on working-age people who were assessed as â€œsomatisingâ€ accounted for around 10% of what was spent on that population. Since the study was published more than a decade ago, experts in MUS have routinely misrepresented it by asserting that these costs accounted for 10% of total NHS expendituresâ€”in effect more than tripling their apparent financial impact.

Trial By Error: A Letter to Psychological Medicine about Error in MUS Paper from Sir Simon and Colleagues

13 April 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

I have previously documented that some of the leading experts in â€œmedically unexplained symptomsâ€ (MUS) have regularly misstated a core finding from a seminal study in their field. The studyâ€””The cost of somatisation among the working-age population in England for the year 2008â€“2009â€â€”was published in 2010 in the journal Mental Health in Family Practice.

The same mistake has been repeated in journal after journal, and at least a couple of these instances have been corrected. It has recently been brought to my attention by a shrewd observer that the venerable journal Psychological Medicine published one such study two years ago, with Professor Sir Simon Wessely as a co-author.