Slashdot Mirror
Are Online Activists Silencing Researchers of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? (reuters.com)
Zorro (Slashdot reader #15,759), shares Reuters' report about Michael Sharpe, a medical researcher studying chronic fatigue syndrome, "a little-understood condition that can bring crushing tiredness and pain."
Eight years after he published results of a clinical trial that found some patients with chronic fatigue syndrome can get a little better with the right talking and exercise therapies, the Oxford University professor is subjected to almost daily, often anonymous, intimidation... They object to his work, they said, because they think it suggests their illness is psychological. Sharpe, a professor of psychological medicine, says that isn't the case. He believes that chronic fatigue syndrome is a biological condition that can be perpetuated by social and psychological factors...
Sharpe is one of around a dozen researchers in this field worldwide who are on the receiving end of a campaign to discredit their work. For many scientists, it's a new normal: From climate change to vaccines, activism and science are fighting it out online. Social media platforms are supercharging the battle. Reuters contacted a dozen professors, doctors and researchers with experience of analysing or testing potential treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome. All said they had been the target of online harassment because activists objected to their findings. Only two had definite plans to continue researching treatments. With as many as 17 million people worldwide suffering this disabling illness, scientific research into possible therapies should be growing, these experts said, not dwindling. What concerns them most, they said, is that patients could lose out if treatment research stalls.
Sharpe says he's no longer researching treatments, because "It's just too toxic." And he tells Reuters that other researchers appear to be reaching the same conclusion.
"Of more than 20 leading research groups who were publishing treatment studies in high-quality journals 10 years ago, Sharpe said, only one or two continue to do so."
Sharpe is one of around a dozen researchers in this field worldwide who are on the receiving end of a campaign to discredit their work. For many scientists, it's a new normal: From climate change to vaccines, activism and science are fighting it out online. Social media platforms are supercharging the battle. Reuters contacted a dozen professors, doctors and researchers with experience of analysing or testing potential treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome. All said they had been the target of online harassment because activists objected to their findings. Only two had definite plans to continue researching treatments. With as many as 17 million people worldwide suffering this disabling illness, scientific research into possible therapies should be growing, these experts said, not dwindling. What concerns them most, they said, is that patients could lose out if treatment research stalls.
Sharpe says he's no longer researching treatments, because "It's just too toxic." And he tells Reuters that other researchers appear to be reaching the same conclusion.
"Of more than 20 leading research groups who were publishing treatment studies in high-quality journals 10 years ago, Sharpe said, only one or two continue to do so."
I got tired of feeling sorry for myself, looked on the brighter side of life, cut out wheat, started exercising, and made sure I got enough sleep.
Beyond that, they understand that if the problem is written off as being psychological, there is little chance that a physical remedy will be sought or even tried at random that might actually help them.
Based on the history of medical treatment of the peptic ulcer, they're probably right. For decades it was written off as the patient stressing too much and the advice was "learn to relax". Then finally, the problem was demonstrated to be an infection of H. Pylori. Even then, it took another 15 years before "learn to relax" gave way to treatment of the infection.
I can see why chronic fatigue sufferers might not want to wait half a century for an effective treatment.
Once again, turning otherwise normal people into hateful persons who believe themselves to be ridden with problems whose fault is anyone's but theirs. They have an illness? The fault is of the dishonest doctors who won't cure them because they're mediocre. Having devoted one's life to study and research is nothing to them, compared to collecting information on Facebook groups, made by real people and not by big-pharma servants.
Where is the data for the PACE trial? https://me-pedia.org/wiki/PACE.... Can unrelated researchers rake over same data to verify the conclusions within it? No.
That said, harassment is bad. In order to play fair, activists should restrict their activities to release the "release the data behind the findings for the PACE trial that's now found its way into policy, or withdraw/retract the published papers and the policy". I don't myself have CFS/ME but I have been following it. Over 25 years now, I've known three people personally with CFS/ME and totally see how debilitating it is to have, and frustrating to have to explain/justify in front of friends/relatives as well as some/many health care professionals. Just as MS has now advanced to treatable with a stem-cell reboot, and Parkinson's & Altzhiemer's are showing signs of pathogens being the cause, that's the direction of research that's being delayed by PACE directed findings (allegedly).
A twitter account to follow - https://twitter.com/keithgerag... - a medical professional with CFS/ME who's doing his best to sift through everything for the rest of us.
Kind of moronic to shout down anyone researching the disease, then, isn't it?
I have Fibromyalgia Syndrome. There is no effective treatment, because it is about brain wiring. Exercise and positive attitude are the ONLY things that work. The best thing FMS and CFS sufferers can do is to stop hoping for a magic cure. It won't come. But taking hold of your life and pushing through it does work. You have ups and downs, but just letting it just wash over you destroys you.
It took me 20 years to understand how to control it, and to accept that no one was going to find me a cure.
Many physical disorders can be at least partially overcome through psychology if there is no other known treatment.
That doesn't mean the problem is actually psychological, and it certainly doesn't mean we should stop looking. Given sufficient determination, one may walk on a broken foot. That doesn't suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy is the best treatment approach to a broken foot.
Since people aren't BORN with Fibromyalgia, that implies that something changed later. It's not unreasonable to think that something else could change it back.
Yeah, lets protect ourselves from the implications of a stigma of "crazy" by acting as crazy as possible, that will surely help.
And just who is going to find that actual treatment if the activists drive out all the researchers?
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
On one hand, you try to dismiss it as fraud, yet by believing there is something to be understood, you acknowledge that it is real.
Big surprise, dome people will claim anything for fraudulant purposes. Others really have the condition.
Some seem to get better for reasons unknown, some never do.
If we keep laughing at the perpetual motion cranks, who's going to invent a fusion reactor?
You are not a particularly logical person, are you? The problem isn't that there is no underlying physiological cause for CFS. The problem is that, until we know what it is, it's easy for anyone to claim they are suffering from it, and it is difficult to refute the claim. Thus, as long as the underlying causes are not understood, it's easy to make fraudulent claims. Thus, there is incentive to shut down research.
> Your question is kind of like who will solve our energy problems if we drive all the perpetual motion cranks away?
Well, there are good mathematical, theoretical and experimental foundations to presume perpetual motion is a crank hobby and not real science.
There are also good clinical foundations for psychosomatic illness to be an actual thing.
So your analogy is really terrible...
=Smidge=
RTFA closer. There are now few people looking for a psychological treatment. That may be for the best.
Consider that once the 'learn to relax" answer became standard, practically nobody looked in to curing ulcers either.
CFS already has a history of terrible psychological treatments including verbally abusing patients to practically force them to walk with a walker until they collapsed. Mysteriously, this made things worse.
A big red flag here, a psychologist researches CGS, claims that psychological issues cause it to not get better, then claims that he's not suggesting a psychological treatment. Excuse me? How's that again?
Then read carefully, only researchers making similar suggestions are being pestered. On;y they are leaving the field. What remains is people looking for the biological/physiological cause and how to treat it.
When you read it carefully, it really does sound a lot like ulcer patients who rejected "try to relax" as the answer to their very much physical problem.
It may not be ideal, but it's certainly understandable given the history and it's better than discouraging research into physical causes and cures.
Not only am I quite logical, I also have the ability to read between the lines. Evidently you do not.
There is also a long history of suffering caused by dismissing illness with real physiological roots as psychosomatic. Considering that it has already taken DECADES to have CFS sort of recognized as even possibly anything but psychosomatic in spite of a total failure to treat it successfully through psychology, it does kinda make sense that sufferers might want to call "no backsliding", doesn't it?
I believe troll is the recognised term. But psycho works too. When they come from a position of nonsense, they're not hard to identify. Usually the first words out are deluded speak.
Facebook does a great job of friending them all to one another so they can amplify the recruiting process.
The weirdest part is if one goes through an argument logically with them they rather quickly try to change the subject or throw a myriad of red-herring in to derail the exchange. Meaning they know it's all bullshit.
They rewrote the DSM to reflect insights into the actual causes of gender dysphoria, and the understanding that in many cases gender reassignment surgery is actually the treatment with the highest chance of success. Sadly that success rate is not all that high yet... due in part to the way society at large treats transgenders. And that includes the SJWs. No transgender I know holds much truck with the modern day nonsense propagated by these "allies", and think it's actually hurting acceptance of trans people.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There is an even longer history of psychosomatic illnesses being correctly diagnosed as psychosomatic. And also a history of psychosomatic illnesses being incorrectly diagnosed as physiological.
I can see why chronic fatigue sufferers might not want to wait half a century for an effective treatment.
You mean they prefer "never" to half a century? Because that is the effect they are having.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As a fusion reactor is by no means a perpetual motion engine, I would wager that laughing at perpetual motion cranks gets people to actually look into energy, mass, quantum field theory and physics in general and not to chase pipe dreams.
If you're still hungry, help yourself to another helping.
Have you been 'diagnosed'? Everybody should get 'diagnosed'. You have no business criticizing other people for their lifestyle choices! /s
You have the ability to scribble between the lines. And to flame.
While I wouldn't defend this behaviour it's important to understand why even just suggesting that it is a psychological problem can be a real problem for people suffering from CFS.
If anyone puts forward evidence of it being a psychological condition then some doctors and even non-doctors will latch on to it. That stops people suffering from it getting the treatment they need, because it's cheaper to fob them off with some talking therapy (which they often have to pay for themselves in the UK) than say graded exercise therapy or making adaptations for them.
It even affects things like claiming benefits for their disability or getting their employer to make reasonable adaptations for them. It's very unfortunate that if someone loses a leg they get far more sympathy than someone who has a mental illness, but that's the world we live in.
This is a real problem. Mental health is an issue for many people with CFS, because feeling like shit all day every day tends to run you down a bit. But it's also a problem when the very very limited amount of money and effort available to research CFS is diverted away from addressing the physical causes. What is really needed is more money, but it's a fairly rare condition and you get the impression that half the doctors you talk to don't think it's real.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
the common teen gender confusion which is almost always resolved as simple homosexuality by the age of 18
While there are plenty of such cases mistakenly labeled as gender dysphoria (which is why one should be extremely careful with diagnosis given the nature of the treatment), there are real cases as well that have nothing to do with "confusion"
poor diagnosis with these conditions, because it means no expectation of recover and no end to funded treatment.
They should have picked a better condition to capitalize on. Sex reassignment surgery isn't that expensive actually, and most post-ops only require permanent hormone treatment which is dirt cheap.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Exactly what the people pestering the psychologists are hoping to do for CFS
I think doctors have a cognitive bias (or biases) that likes to blame patients for their illnesses, especially if they can tie them to some self-help step like not enough exercise or some other perhaps true but unlikely "lack of effort" lifestyle choice.
I had a doctor who said my headaches would be helped by more exercise. Admittedly, I didn't do any structured kind of exercise besides daily mile-long walks with the dog. I bought an elliptical machine and began using it every day. Next doctor visit, "well, you're probably not getting enough exercise". I described my use of the elliptical and he looked at me like I was liar.
Finally I asked him, "OK, how much exercise and what type do I need? Be specific in terms of heart rate, duration, frequency" and then he rambled about hiring a personal trainer. Basically it was a bullshit suggestion like "reboot your computer" that had nothing to do with my illness that he assumed I wouldn't comply with, probably with the hope that I'd avoid him knowing I was guilty of non-compliance.
I think part of it is that doctors go through a ton of training and effort to become doctors and end up assuming if they can go through with complex, high-discipline programs to achieve their goals than anyone can, without recognizing that some people are less able for reasons which have nothing to do with moral judgements about laziness/character/morals. It's no different than rich people who blame poor people for not working hard enough.
We want solid good guys and bad guys. And the world to fit into our preconceived notions on how the world works.
We don’t want to think of that bully who we finally got the courage to punch in the face to stop him from harassing you is actually living a tough life and may not be eating every day.
Or the Fat Woman down the street isn’t lazy and just over eating but starving herself with constant diets and avoiding the public because of fear of ridicule.
When ever we find out that someone needs something extra to function in the we call it charity so we feel good offering it to them, but we don’t feel bad if we refuse.
No matter how tough you life is you can look at these people and figure that you must be a better person then them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Something being of psychological nature is not blaming the sick person. And the researcher is not even saying that chronic fatigue symptom IS psychological, only that some psychological treatments might help a little. If it is a neurological issue, psychological treatments to dampen the symptoms might be the best we have until medicines are developed.
I bet a lot of the ones harassing researchers are not sick. They are lazy bastards who claim to have chronic fatigue symptoms to scam the government out of disability checks and are scared that the real disease gets mapped and a working treatment they will be found out. Are your ears burning, Dog-Cow?
Those that really have chronic fatigue symptoms would probably give an arm and a leg to get cured.
My ex had a cancer related surgery some years ago. That went well, but the cfs started right after it. At first we thought it was a side effect of the anaesthasia (perhaps it is a possible cause?) but in any case she didn’t get better. A specific test (I can’t remember what they checked, it may have been a number of indirect elements) confirmed the likelihood of cfs. And while she was always enterprising before, after a long home leave she took on a lower receptionist half time job just not to be at home all the time and that she could bare manage.
yes, there is a lot of blaming the victim with this condition. We noticed the implicit scorn and disbelief because she didn’t look ill (though if you knew her well you could see she was all the time tired). And even if it was psychological, which I don’t think it was, well it would still be a kind of illness to treat.
we tried all kinds of food supplements, vitamins, exercises etc to no avail. I heard that lately she was doing somewhat better since she went for a gluten-free diet as an experiment - though she isn’t allergic to gluten it seems to make some difference (though definitely not back to normal).
"Cheer up and exercise more" hasn't worked for CFS sufferers all these decades. Why should the same approach work now? I'm not surprised he's getting shit on by those suffering from it. Look what happened with ulcers. "Just relax" didn't cut it either.
if you want people to think you know what you are talking about, just put ".com" at the end of everything you say.com
Truth is not stigmatization. Suppressing attempts to find truth is bigotry
I don't know how it is where you are but in Australia a psychiatrist has to have done a medical degree, internship, residency and then another five years or thereabouts of training while practicing as a doctor. A psychologist from memory needs a four year degree and a two year internship before they can be registered. Are things significantly different where you are?
I think part of it is just that in maybe 7 out of 10 cases advice like "get more exercise" or "get some bed rest" appears to work because the person doesn't come back with the same complaint.
That's why there now has to be a rule that if someone comes in with chest t pain they MUST be checked for heart problems, because too many doctors were fobbing them off and then thinking they had done well when in fact they didn't come back because they were dead or had a severe stroke.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Would love to see citations about CFS or MS sufferers being imprisoned.
Many illnesses have both a physical and psychical part. Mental illnesses are mostly based on physical malfunctions. Psychosomatic symptoms are real symptoms (people can die from them). The interaction between physical and psychical processes are complex and more complexities are discovered the more humans (and other animals) are studied. There is essentially no sharp border between mind and body, the mind is part of the body and the mind controls the body (and vice versa).
Treatments targeting psychical well-being for known physical illnesses (with known physical cause) is used today. That doesn't say the patients are crazy, just that doing this have been shown to improve the well-being of patients and so improving their quality of life. Longtime and debilitating problems tend to cause mental problems like depression which can in turn cause the physical problems to get worse indirectly or (yes) through psychosomatic effects.
This isn't about stigmatizing someone - it's about doing actual research and finding solutions to a problem. This is about people don't liking some of the results and harassing the researchers. This is about people not liking science, of people actually by their own will choosing to act crazy and should be treated as crazies.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I work in healthcare but do not have a horse in this particular race. After skimming over publications by the researchers named so far I can only shake my head over your comment. CFS is real, and it has a predominant somatic factor, but like many somatic diseases it also has psychiatric components, treatment of which can help alleviate symptoms even if a somatic cure is still a long way off. If this bullshit did not hurt uninvolved patients I would say 'Then let them suffer!', but those activists are willingly jeopardizing the development of treatments for a condition we may well never be able to cure. And that pisses me off.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Of course! Because when there are hundreds of unexplained medical conditions to choose from, researchers will be rushing in droves to pick the one that has already proven itself to be a toxic minefield where activists decide which research is allowed and which one is bullied into silence. I can absolutely see that happen.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
They are quitting?
They just don't have the energy to pursue the subject anymore.
Have gnu, will travel.
What if chronic fatigue syndrome is somehow like that? What if somehow these patients have a condition where any exertion triggers a strong and abnormal fatigue response and this leads to a vicious circle wherein they get more tired with progressively less activity. That would explain why the condition is so resistant to treatment and why it has no obvious measurable hallmarks other than fatigue.
soylentnews.org
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, it worked for gender dysphoria. It's a real condition, but despite a total lack of physiological evidence they managed to bully the entire medical industry into removing it from the Mental Illness category.
You seem to be confusing ASD (autism) and ADHD (attention deficit disorder). How brave of you to not let ignorance stop you from having an opinion.
I read this article a few days ago. This is the biggest problem with these whole social-justice social media warriors. They bully and bully and bully to get their way. These idiots draw conclusions, or more accurately, they _jump_ to conclusions. In this case the researcher did some research that suggested that exercise therapy can bring some relief. So they jump to conclusion that they think its all in their head and start bullying the researcher till he quits. Its fucking idiotic. These asshats have no clue how research works. for starters telling people that research is showing that exercise can bring some relief implies, in no way, that they are done and thats the best you can hope for. Why wouldn't you share this non-invasive and multi-theraputic finding with the world? The benefits of exercise are very pervasive. Furthermore, once you find a link, that's where the interesting part happens, WHY does it provide relief? Is it a dopamine response? A serotonin one? Perhaps there is something going on with exercise and the lymphatic system... Research starts at a 5000ft overview and starts zooming on on things that help until they find the 1 or more, most effective responses. THEN they figure out how to increase this to provide greater relief.
These social bullies dont deserve treatment, and thats exactly what they are doing with their behavior. REAL science is about following the research REGARDLESS of whether you _like_ the results or not. Its not about what you like. Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? There is no room in science for prejudices. Leave that shit at the door and follow the research empirically. The idea that you can make science conform to your expectations is such an abortion of logic, these idiots should be forced to take a 12 week course on nothing but the scientific method. Revoke their driving privilege till they pass a course. The only reason they are not called out for this is because they happen to also be easily made to agree with any other policy issue. In other words they are free votes / allies on any topic they dont understand. It reminds me of that guy on youtube that goes around asking people at college stuff and listen to them give the most ridiculous answers based on prejudices.
Presumably, someone who will study the condition properly rather than just pronouncing it's just a bad case of the lazies.
So far you're kinda only providing evidence that it is actually a bad case of the crazies.
And that it is FAR WORSE than what the research shows.
But do keep shouting "I'M NOT CRAZY! YOU ARE CRAZY!"
Your analogies, equating medical researchers with "perpetual motion cranks" are also REALLY helping your case.
Well... not your actual case...
And just who is going to find that actual treatment if the activists drive out all the researchers?
Your question is kind of like who will solve our energy problems if we drive all the perpetual motion cranks away?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
my wife has it, she describes it as arthritis but in your muscles. For all anyone knows, it could be a very mild form of scleroderma. Often the medicines for arthritis came with serious side effects including heart attack. However, exercise has always been a form of non-invasive therapy for arthritis. Psychological? It amazes me how hospitals took a while to realize that outpatient, when possible, had much faster recovery times. Your state of mind is _critical_ to your ability to heal and repair. The power of positive thinking has some merits. No, you wont cure cancer just by thinking positive. However, your chances of having an effective treatment regimen increases drastically when you have a positive attitude. It could be diet related like celiacs, another auto-immune disorder. The whole point of research is to find what things help, and then figure out why. We dont treat infections with bread mold anymore because we researched the why after we observed the effect.
20 years of physiological studies have shown brains of people with gender dysphoria are physiologically similar to the average brain of people of the other sex. Even the rate at which this happens is known: about one in every 20 thousand newborns have the condition.
So, no, they did no bullying. They demanded medical studies, those studies were made, and they confirmed the condition is real.
Now the challenge is in figuring out what causes brains of fetuses to develop in this way and whether there's a way to prevent this, or somehow help them, before the misalignment between their body and the neurological mapping their brain have of their body causes the onset of the very real disease that is gender dysphoria. Otherwise, sex reassignment surgery will remain, for the foreseeable future, the only available, partial solution, for reducing the disease symptoms.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
How are you disagreeing with actual scientific research?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
By "it", I think he means the social-media landscape. There are other solutions besides ceasing research and hiding behind the couch -- ignore social media or hire someone to strike back at on-line activists like David Tuller. Fight fire with fire; sewage with sewage.
How about a for-profit business specializing in on-line dissemination of vitriol, half-truths, personal attacks and veiled threats of violence? Oh. Never mind. We already got that.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
PTSD is a real thing, but the number of people claiming to have it is far lower than those who actually do. When a clerk who spent her entire deployment drinking coffee and watching movies can get diagnosed with PTSD, you know that the system is ridiculously open to abuse.
I think the problem is that CFS is just a diagnosis for a set of symptoms. It appears that some people can treat the condition through psychological means. Others have had success through adjustments to their diet. I believe that there's a very real possibility that there are multiple rare conditions that can manifest these same symptoms.
If you can empirically demonstrate a treatment that works for some percentage of people suffering from these symptoms, you can start to examine the differences between the people for whom the treatment is effective and those for whom it is not in order to isolate the underlying cause. That doesn't help everyone, but it might help some people and it lets others know the look elsewhere for answers.
The other problem is that no one wants to be mentally ill or even thought of that way. Mental illness is for crazy people! Even people with mental illnesses aren't crazy enough to want to be called mentally ill. Maybe it's not as bad now that they won't lobotomize you, but there's a pretty fucked up history of how we've approached treating the mentally ill, so it's hard to blame anyone for not wanting to be regarded that way, even if they are.
If it needs a crank to work, how is perpetual motion? I suppose it could work its own crank, but the head nun warned us about such things back in the day.
There is some research that shows that people suffering from CFS have faulty mitochondria. That explains why they both feel tired and experience aching - their mitochondria are not delivering the energy their muscles need and they feel like they did too much exercise.
Exactly why they fail in that way and what, if anything, can be done to fix it isn't known. There has been some success with related conditions involving stuff like an immune system reboot (basically chemo, you kill your immune system and grow a new one that isn't broken) but there is no research into how it might help people with CFS, so it's all just desperate people paying for it themselves and no control at all.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
But over 50% of the population carries the Helicobacter Pylori bacterium in their gastrointestinal tracts, and peptic ulcers don't occur with that percentage. It was discovered that people that were already stressed were the ones that developed ulcers from the bacterium. https://articles.mercola.com/s...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
You do realize that pre-supposing a specific treatment and then working backwards is exactly how the big, high-profile PACE study being defended in the article worked, right? They even modified their definition of successful treatment after the study started in order to get their results, then claimed it was vexatious harassment when the patients tried to find out what the results would've been according to the originally-planned procedure. (Which is, you know, only the correct and scientifically valid way to carry out a study like this so no big deal.)
Also, they pretty much threw out all the objective measures of treatment effectiveness that they tracked - stuff like hours successfully worked, fitness tests, etc - and just paid attention to the patient survey part. Which would be a little iffy even if it wasn't for the fact that the whole thing was inherently and unavoidably not blinded, or the way they insisted that it totally made the patients more fit for work and they were all just malingering.
Ugh. *far higher
Not sure what country you're from, but basic SRS here runs about €10.000 for people not covered by universal health care (like temporary visitors who come here and pay for the surgery themselves), and most opt only for some superficial additional plastic surgery, say another €3.000. Hormones really aren't that dear; the common ones here are Systen and Progynova, at most €150 / year or so. A few people I know don't react well to those and they get an alternative for which they pay out of pocket, about €300 a year. There might be others which are more expensive but those are by far the most common.
I don't know anyone though who has fallen victim to "skeevy therapists"; access to fully licensed and qualified ones is available to anyone who needs it, and there 's extensive psych screening before even getting access to hormone treatments (which are prescription only). I do know that in the past there's been a few people self-medicating, but now that it's treated as a regular disorder, this is rather rare.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This is true to an extent, but learning to relax and not stressing out is a somewhat effective way of treating stomach ulcers. Not terrible effective, but it does work.
Diseases with a physical cause can still be cured without medicines and sometimes this is the best we have. Telling someone with a cold to sleep and take plenty of fluids is not to suggest that the cold is psychosomatic. It's just the best we have.
Although I contradict, I support your point: One can get a stomach ulcer with no signs of H. Pylori (I did). And there are people who are H. Pylori-positive in the alimentary tract, but don't develop ulcers. So, yes, it is dangerous to stop running if we incorrectly think we've crossed the finish line.
I don't know anything about gender dysphoria, especially how it relates to homosexuality, but I do remember in the documentary "Brain Sex" that scientists could make a rat's offspring homosexual, at will, just by altering the hormones in the pregnant mother.
Anyone claiming to have this should get down to a healthy weight, exercise for 30+ minutes 3 times per week, improve your diet, and get 8 hours of sleep at a regular time then see if you still think you have it.
If you truly believe that, scrape together a few bucks and provide funding for development of a perpetual motion machine.
The claim was actually that the biological illness gives way to a psychological problem allowing a cure through psychology. As others her pointed out, the study had some serious flaws. But you knew that because you read the fine article carefully, right?
Do you know what physical therapy is NOT? It's not a psychological treatment, it is a physical treatment.
Note that it is possible to walk on a broken foot given sufficient determination and possibly hypnosis. So is hypnosis an appropriate treatment for broken bones? Should we just quit all that nonsense with plaster and tell the patients they could walk if they really tried
Placebo and Nocebo effects. Look into them.
If exercise is one possible treatment for clinical depression - a bona-fide psychological disorder - then it can possibly be a treatment for other psychological disorders. It doesn't matter if it *actually* does anything, merely the act of trying with the expectation that it will help can be helpful in and of itself. The best part? Even if the patient is told it's a placebo, it usually still works!
=Smidge=
Sure, a positive attitude and a calm state of mind makes an excellent adjunct to a primary treatment. Also familiar comforts of home.
I would recommend that as an adjunct to treatment of any condition or for maintaining wellness. But if I break my foot, I'll be expecting that the bones need to be set, a cast applied and that I will need to stay off of it for a while.
Dig deeper. What evidence?
Stress can be a contributor but isn't a necessary pre-condition.Either way, to make it go away you will do well to take antibiotics.
How about telling them that the virus kicks it off for the first few hours, but the week of sniffles, aches, and tiredness are just psycho-social issues prolonging the symptions? So quit complaining and get to work!
They object to his work, they said, because they think it suggests their illness is psychological.
And so what if it were? Is the brain magically not biological for some reason?
Being an illness of the brain wouldn't make it "not real".
And yet, nobody tries to treat clinical depression psychologically anymore except possibly as an adjunct to anti-depressants.
Dig deeper. What evidence?
So? What gives the SJW's the right to bully the Scientist? If the SJW's are correct his scientific peers will do the job for them. Contrary to your view, most Scientists would love come up with novel solution outside the mainstream. The Ulcer example is perfect. The discover won world-fame and a Nobel prize.
Only in the sense that Wakefield was "bullied" over his paper claiming a link between vaccination and autism. Perhape the three of you can find a safe space somewhere.
The research in question has already been refuted simply by re-analysing the data presented. The "bullies" as you call them stand to be personally harmed by the bogus conclusions.
As a back-pain sufferer who turned out to have 12 large gall bladder stones I thank you for your sharp observation. I could have had years more of pain medication and counselling instead of an operation.
From what see, it looks like anyone who suggests that there may be a psychological compotent to CFS is being pestered.
Let's look at another case: low back pain. It used to be that the only treatment for low back pain was surgery. But surgery never worked. There was no consideration of the possibility of a psychological component until Dr Robert Addison, in Chicago's Rehabilitation Institute insisted that it be looked into. Well it turns out that a malady that was considered to be 100% physical could not be cured until the psychological component was addressed. So now, low back pain (and pain management generally) is treated via multiple approaches. Low back pain may be a much better comparison for CFS than ulcers.
The people who are CFS activists online are demanding that their disease be seen only as a physical phenomenon. They come down hard if any psychological factor is discussed AT ALL. It doesn't matter how promising the research. If someone mentions a psychological component, the brigade descends, and as with most online brigading, it gets very ugly very fast. The people who are doing this research are trying to help. They don't deserve to have this kind of harassment.
You are welcome on my lawn.
On the other hand, if you are confronted with evidence that a certain treatment modality results in improvement of symptoms for some people with the condition and your response is to discount the reality of the results, you are actively harming those people who could benefit from the treatment.
That said, the question of âoeis it psychologicalâ is fucking ridiculous. Your brain and body arenâ(TM)t separated by a giant wall. Theyâ(TM)re not two different things that you happen to own. Theyâ(TM)re one and the same, with interlocking, reciprocating, and often indistinguishable areas of primary dominance.
The non-verbal parts of your brain know this intrinsically and use it for everything from homeopathic placebo effects to autonomic control of body systems. Your body knows this intrinsically and uses it for everything from pain response to orgasm. It seems the height of ignorant arrogance to stand in the way of using the mind to heal the body and using the body to heal the mind, especially when they are both affected by the illness.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The difference is that CFS HAS for a long time been treated as a psychological illness. It took years for anyone outside of the sufferers to even consider the possibility that it might not be psychological. Notably, people weren't getting better with a psychological approach. Sharpe's PACE study has been strongly rebutted already by other researchers.
In the case of back pain, the various forms of fusion surgery have been a complete failure. For years, surgical centers didn't let that stop them from promising miracles even as research demonstrated that the "abnormalities" on MRI claimed to be the source of the pain were equally likely to show up in pain free control subjects. However, there is still a strong belief that there is a physical basis for back pain, psychology (and anti-depressants) are considered a useful adjunct to physical therapy.
Here is some relevant background on CFS treatment and why patients are so vehemently against any claim that CBT and especially "graded exercise" is at all useful for CFS.
You should REALLY do more background reading. The study you cite as evidence was well debunked by other psychologists and medical researchers. There is considerable evidence for the physiological theory. Other research suggests that the graduated exercise therapy in the debunked study is actively harmful to the patient. Here's some background.
Correlation is not causation/curative treatment.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Drugs ARE a possible treatment for psychological disorders. The fact that medication is used does not make the illness any less psychological in nature.
Anxiety, depression, schizophrenia... all mental disorders, all treatable by tweaking the chemistry of the brain. Why not add Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to the list?
=Smidge=
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
either there are differences or there aren't, you can't flip flop
I'm not a SJW. There are differences, they're biological, they're measurable, they've been measured, this has been published in peer reviewed medical literature, and it's been corroborated in multiple further medical studies also published in peer reviewed medical literature.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
A big part of the problem is America's welfare system. Since it doesn't exist, the disability system has become a de-facto welfare system. This is terrible for any number of reasons, this article is only highlighting one.
Cheap storage VM.
Wish I had some troll points.
Cheap storage VM.
I think part of it is just that in maybe 7 out of 10 cases advice like "get more exercise" or "get some bed rest" appears to work because the person doesn't come back with the same complaint.
That's why there now has to be a rule that if someone comes in with chest t pain they MUST be checked for heart problems, because too many doctors were fobbing them off and then thinking they had done well when in fact they didn't come back because they were dead or had a severe stroke.
There aren't many people who wouldn't benefit from some moderate exercise and a regular good night's sleep.
If a doctor recommends these, a sensible diet, and not too much booze/drugs, they are only going to do some good in the vast majority of cases.
But, yes, they do have to diagnose actual illnesses too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Correlation is not causation/curative treatment.
Well if you want to split hairs, you can never 100% prove causation anyway, at least in something as complex as a human being.
There are (probably) people who take no exercise, sleep four hours a night, drink two bottles of whisky, and smoke 60 cigarettes a day, yet die peacefully in their beds from nothing more than old age at the age of 95.
But on average, you're better off doing at least some moderate exercise, sleeping for 6-8 hours a day, drinking moderately and not smoking.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You're missing an aspect here. If you walk on a broken foot out of necessity by whatever means, you do further damage and keep it from ever healing. You could even convert it to a compound fracture.
As it turns out, the study suggesting a psychological approach has been debumked by other researchers It seems the analysis was fudged. The researcher is being "bullied" the same way Wakefield was after his vaccine=autism paper was debunked and he kept doubling down on gis claim.
Even before that paper was specifically debunked, the course of treatment is recommended had been tried for a decade or two already and indeed had only made things worse for a number of people.
So, imagine you have a broken foot. For yars you were told there's nothing physically wronk, you could walk on it normally if you would just try. You were denied further disability and told to get back to work. Treatment plans are mad involving CBT to "allow you to deal with the normal sensations of walking on a perfectly good foot that you are somehow interpreting as extreme pain". When your foot swells to twice it's normal size, you're told that's caused by your psychosomatic pain. Then after 10 years some doctors started saying you know, it looks like there may be a physical aspect to this. Then some clown comes along with fudged data that claims the only real problem is that you haven't been practicing walking on your foot enough.
Given that, might you be tempted to make a few "mean tweets"?
I'm not personally invested in this, but I do feel empathy for people stuck in that situation. I also hate when people use fudged data to support strategies that have already been tried and tried again and again to no success.
The difference is that CBT is quite unlikely to cause harm. Many CFS patients have experienced harm from the "graded exercise" that the PACE study also suggested.
It turns out that the study in question has been debunked. The analysis was fudged. The fudged results are still being used to guide treatment of sufferers.
Exercise has been tried for CFS for decades. It tends to make it worse. CBT has been tried for decades. It doesn't show signs of making it better. It can be useful to devise coping mechanisms, but to pretend that is will actually make the patient objectively better (as opposed to just helping them make the most of what they have) is not helpful.
it means you can provide links.
Indeed. The Wikipedia article on the subject link to the most relevant peer reviewed articles on the physiological differences between brains of transsexuals and those of non-transsexuals, which in turn highlight the physiological differences between male and female human brains. Focus on the huge "Biological factors" section and its links and you're good to go.
PS: There's also a small section with psychological speculations, but those are fluff you can ignore without problems.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Read this. Follow the links.
"Mean" tweets are not threats.
If that's the study I think you are referencing,
It's not a single study. There have been several since the first was published, all corroborating the original findings while providing even more precise measurements as technology advanced.
they didn't control for hormones the subjects were taking.
I find it unlikely that hormone usage after the brain mostly finished its plasticity phase, and even after it finished it, would be able to change the physiology that radically. We're taking differences in the volumes, neuronal density and synaptic density of different areas, as well as absolute and relative amounts of connectivity. But it's possible hormones an some effect, yes, including in the womb. That's left for future studies focused on figuring out causalities, as these are still more about correlations than causes.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.