It’s been an amazing year in ME advocacy. In countries all around the world, patients are rising up with a new energy (if that’s the right word!) of creativity and collaboration. There is a growing sense that we are living in a moment that is bigger than any one advocate or organization. That we are at the
Announcing #MEAction groups We are thrilled to formally announce a new feature we’ve had running in the background these last few months: #MEAction groups. As many of you know, Beth and I have been deeply inspired by the legacy of ACT UP and its grassroots ethos. Decisions were made democratically but decisively in large group meetings,
#MEAction has just launched a major new petition to get the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to throw its considerable weight behind calls to The Lancet to have the notorious PACE trial independently re-analysed. The petition also asks the HHS to take immediate steps to protect ME/CFS patients both in the US
Call for HHS to Investigate PACE Recently, journalist David Tuller, DrPH, published an investigative report outlining serious concerns with the conduct, analyses, and results of U.K.’s £5 million PACE trial for chronic fatigue syndrome. PACE investigated the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) Since then, other researchers and journalists have
Virology Blog today published an open letter from six leading scientists calling on The Lancet to seek an independent re-analysis of data from the controversial PACE trial. The Lancet published the first PACE trial paper in 2011, which examined psychological and exercise therapies aimed at getting chronic fatigue syndrome patients more active and was based
Professor James Coyne today publicly urged the PACE trial authors and Queen Mary University of London to stop fighting the release of raw data from the study. He used his popular blog in a powerful call to those responsible for withholding the information from the £5 million, taxpayer-funded trial to “let the People’s data go”.
Prof. Carl-Gerhard Gottfries is a professor of psychiatry. In this video, he explains how he and his colleagues first approached the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia and ME from a psychiatric perspective, and later came to view these illnesses as “multi-organic disorders” involving the immune system. Gottfries became interested in ME in 1957, when a pandemic
The Gottfries clinic is the leading ME/CFS and fibromyalgia clinic in Sweden. It both treats patients and conducts biomedical research, yet the health authorities there are planning to withdraw their support in favor for a “bio-psycho-social” approach to treatment. Politicians in Gothenburg, Sweden have now decided not to renew the contract with the clinic when
Use this code to add a PACE petition counter to your blog or website. It links back to the original petition and is a great way satisfy your PACE petition mania from the comfort of wherever on the internet you call home: You’ll need to format the font, colors, etc. to suit your tastes. Here’s what
In wake of David Tuller’s investigation, PACE investigators publish follow up study Last week, journalist David Tuller published a four-part investigative piece on the 2011 PACE trial, a £5 million (US$8 million) non-blind study of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and graded exercise (GET) as treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. In his piece, Tuller quotes top
