Tag: Telegraph

Time to be Heard

Six weeks on from the infamously unhelpful article by Sarah Knapton in the Daily Telegraph, the online version of the newspaper has published an article on ME by Dr Charles Shepherd of the ME Association with a view to correcting some of the misinformation. This was part of a deal which was struck by way of redress for the Telegraph falling so short of the truth on this occasion, as part of which they also published a ‘clarification’ of their assertion that ME isn’t really a chronic illness. As the clarification stated that the study they had reported actually said no such thing, it might have been more appropriate to call it  a ‘correction’ but I suppose you can’t expect a leading national newspaper to have such a precise grasp of the English language.

As for Dr Shepherd’s article, it doesn’t appear in the print edition, this in marked contrast to Knapton’s article which was linked from the front page. We have elderly relatives who read the original article but will only receive Shepherd’s piece because we’ll print it out and send them it. Many other Telegraph readers will sadly remain in ignorance.

This sort of imbalance is pretty much standard, of course, in situations like this, and Dr Shepherd and the ME Association are to be congratulated for at least getting the deal they did. It is worth, too, saying a word or two extra in praise of Charles Shepherd, who has been performing duties like this on our behalf for the best part of three decades now, plodding time and again to the barricades to call out the truth into the no man’s land of ignorance, doubt and incomprehension, then plodding patiently back again in the knowledge that he will probably have to do the same thing all over again in an another week’s time. And another. And another. The man is a hero. We are very fortunate to have him.

We are also lucky to have ME patients such as Tom Kindlon who have been plugging away with well reasoned comments for years, slowly exposing the fracture lines in the PACE Trial and counteracting other misconceptions. Not all of us are capable of such exhaustive feats of analysis, and yet there is a growing understanding that we all have a part to play in getting the truth out there. Continue reading “Time to be Heard”

Telling It Like It Is

It’s been a gruelling and messy few weeks for those of us who try to keep up with developments in the world of ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). On the plus side, there’s been a comprehensive and damning critique of the PACE Trial by investigative journalist David Tuller. As you may be aware, the 2011 UK PACE Trial purported to demonstrate the efficacy of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and GET (graded exercise therapy) as treatments for ME, findings which have been hotly contested – and for very good reasons – by patient advocates and informed health professionals alike. Now, Tuller’s series of articles has provided an invaluable and comprehensive summary of the numerous failings of the trial all in one place for the very first time.

Then, just as the PACE researchers were firing up their response – a very damaging response, of which more soon – influential Professor of Health Psychology James Coyne joined the fray to explain the shortcomings of the latest PACE follow-up study; while in what may be the most significant PACE development of all, the Information Commissioners Office ordered the release of raw data from the trial, a move which may provide its many critics with the ammunition to finally expose the truth behind the study’s spin and bluster.

Lastly, as far as the positive side of the equation is concerned, though you could be forgiven for overlooking it amid the drama of what is coming to be known as ‘PACE-gate’, the US National Institutes of Health has announced a major new CFS/ME research initiative, the main objective of which will be to investigate ‘at a biological and molecular level’ what happens when someone develops ME following an infection. Furthermore, US CFS/ME research will now be under the wing of the ‘National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’ as opposed to ‘Women’s Health’, which seems like a more sensible way to proceed, given that men get ME as well.

On the negative side, the PACE researchers published another follow-on study, the latest in a series of number-crunching re-imaginings based on data from the trial, studies which keep the fires of PACE burning over and over again, long after reasoned argument should have extinguished them. This time, unfortunately, the fires were stoked not only by the study itself, yet another triumph of spin over substance, but by a couple of press reports from the Daily Mail and – worst of all – a front page piece from the Daily Telegraph which took the nonsense from the study and transformed it into something so outrageous, unrecognisable and – unfortunately – damaging that even Prof Michael Sharpe, lead researcher on the dodgy study itself, described the article as ‘misleading and insulting’. Continue reading “Telling It Like It Is”

How to deal with layer upon layer of misinformation?

So you think social media are really empowering.

But then you have the PACE Trial, a £5million study of ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) largely funded by the British Taxpayer which used diagnostic criteria that included people with other conditions; which changed entry and recovery criteria mid-study so that it was possible for participants to get worse and still be classed as ‘recovered’; which jettisoned most of its objective measures of assessment mid-study because they didn’t give the desired results; which despite therefore relying almost entirely on subjective ‘tick-box questionnaire’ measures of outcome nevertheless issued a newsletter for participants mid-study telling them how well the therapies were working; whose authors claimed that these therapies (GET and CBT) led to the ‘recovery’ of many patients with ME even though their physical functioning at the end of the trial was similar to those with congestive heart failure; which has now spawned a follow-on study showing that GET and CBT are actually no more effective long term than the other therapies studied but which nevertheless is spun to give the impression of providing further proof of how wonderful they are; which in turn leads on to a front page story in the Daily Telegraph which is so divorced from any kind of reality that even the lead researcher of this latest manifestation of the mind-numbingly flawed, woefully mismanaged trial itself describes the story as ‘misleading and insulting’.

Try addressing that little lot in a Tweet.

Meanwhile the Telegraph reader looks at the front page, reads the misleading headline and, now feeling reliably informed about ME, turns to the sport…

Further reading:

An overview of David Tuller’s comprehensive critique of the PACE Trial

Sign a petition calling for the retraction of unfounded PACE trial claims