By David Tuller, DrPH I have recently written two posts (here and here) about how experts in functional neurological disorder (FND) have a tendency to assert prevalence rates that ignore their own diagnostic criteria. Today I sent a letter to the corresponding author of yet another paper that has similarly engaged in this problematic strategy. …
By David Tuller, DrPH The new ME/CFS guidelines from the UK’s National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, published last October, reversed the agency’s previous recommendations for graded exercise therapy and (curative) cognitive behavior therapy. While this change presented a welcome repudiation of the research and claims emanating from the GET/CBT ideological brigades, many regional …
By David Tuller, DrPH In a post last week, I noted that experts in FND have a tendency to assert prevalence rates that ignore their own diagnostic criteria. Before offering further thoughts on that score, I want to make one point very explicit: I am in no way questioning whether people with the diagnosis have …
Trial By Error: An FND Patient’s View–and More on Those Inflated Prevalence Rates Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Functional neurological disorder, or FND, is the new-ish name for the hoary Freudian construct known as conversion disorder. For decades, psychiatrists informed patients that they were “converting” their emotional distress and anxieties into physical symptoms like tremors, seizures, sensory and cognitive deficits, a halting gait, or other physical dysfunctions. The impossibility …
By David Tuller, DrPH In a new book, Fiona Fox, the head of the London-based Science Media Centre, has compared critics of the GET/CBT ideological brigades and the PACE trial to Nazis, as I noted recently on Virology Blog. In response to her unfortunate reference to the Holocaust in this context, some on social media …
By David Tuller, DrPH I have called the PACE trial of graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for ME/CFS “a piece of crap.” As I have indicated over the years, I think the trial is an example of serious research misconduct. (Whether it meets legal definitions of “fraud” is beyond my professional …
