NICE

Trial By Error: The Times Fact-Checks BMJ on NICE Committee; My Letter to BMJ’s Fiona Godlee

10 August 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

It is not often that a major news organization fact-checks BMJ, a leading medical publisher, in real time. But thatâ€™s what happened last week when The Times pushed back against biased BMJ reporting about the committee charged by the UKâ€™s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) with developing a new clinical guidance for ME/CFS. This isnâ€™t the first time The Times has seen through the propaganda campaign emanating from those with financial and reputational interests in maintaining the GET/CBT approach despite widespread rejection of its theoretical and scientific underpinnings.

Trial By Error: Three CBT/GET Proponents Quit NICE ME/CFS Guidance Panel as Publication Date Nears

7 August 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The new ME/CFS clinical guidance from the UKâ€™s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is finishedâ€”and is to be publicly released on August 18th. In the meantime, this final version has been sent to registered stakeholdersâ€”even as three of the 21 members of the committee responsible for the guidance have stepped down without public explanation, per an â€œexclusiveâ€ report on BMJâ€™s news site. All three quitters represented the wing of the committee that promoted the purported benefits of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) as core treatments.

Trial By Error: Lowenstein’s Guardian Opinion; Eliot Smith’s Post-NICE View; Tack’s Take on Blinding Study

25 June 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The Guardian has published a lot of nonsense about Long COVID and has provided a platform for people who argue that robust manly thoughts are the path to recovery. Of course, it also published George Monbiotâ€™s powerful columns on the topic, including his rebuttal of silly accusations that he was triggering more Long COVID cases by writing about it.

So it can be a mixed bag over there.

Trial By Error: Hughes-Tuller Comment on Wessely-Chalder CBT Study Rejected by Journal, Posted Here

15 February 2021 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

Last fall, Professor Sir Simon Wessely and Professor Trudie Chalder were among several co-authors of a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. The study purported to prove that years of provision of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to patients with “chronic fatigue” and “chronic fatigue syndrome” proved that the intervention was a success. I previously pointed out myriad problem in this post last August.

Trial By Error: A Letter to BMJ From Prof Hughes, Prof Racaniello and Me

21 December 2020 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

I have sent the following letter to Fiona Godlee, editorial director of BMJ and editor-in-chief of The BMJ, on behalf of Professors Brian Hughes and Vincent Racaniello as well as me. We were responding to the recent editorial regarding the new draft of ME/CFS clinical guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence–as others have already done through BMJ’s rapid response function.

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Dear Dr Godlee:

The recent editorial from Professors Turner-Stokes and Wade about the new draft of clinical guidelines for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is problematic on multiple fronts. [1]

Trial By Error: BMJ Pushes Back Against New NICE Draft

21 December 2020 by David Tuller

By David Tuller, DrPH

The BMJ has published an online â€œeditorialâ€ slamming the new draft of clinical guidelines for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The position expressed is an interesting one: Non-pharmacological treatments for â€œcomplex conditionsâ€ cannot be adequately measured by randomized trials, according to the two authors. It is, of course, noteworthy that The BMJ is mounting this argument only after an authoritative review commissioned by NICE found the evidence for CBT and GET was mostly of â€œvery lowâ€ quality– although some was just of â€œlowâ€ quality.