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By David Tuller, DrPH In the past week, I have written three posts about a Norwegian study of cognitive behavior therapy plus music therapy for adolescents with chronic fatigue after acute Epstein-Barr virus infection–an illness known as mononucleosis in the US and glandular fever in the UK. The corresponding author of the study is Vegard …

Trial By Error: My Letter to Senior Author of Norway’s CBT-Music Therapy Study Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH Norway’s got a double whammy going on. First there’s the group of investigators that seems to have had trouble determining whether their newly published research on CBT and music therapy was an actual randomized trial or merely a feasibility study. (More on that below.) Then we have Dagbladet, a widely read …

Trial By Error: Norway’s Double Whammy of Fuzzy Science Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH In a well-designed clinical trial, the protocol, the registration and the statistical analysis plan should complement and not contradict each other. Investigators spend huge amounts of time developing clinical trial protocols. These are road-maps to the project, complete with (hopefully) well thought-out and clearly defined primary and secondary outcomes. These documents have …

Trial By Error: More Strangeness with that Norwegian CBT/Music Therapy Study Read More »

UPDATE, MAY 16: As I mentioned, the trial registration did not cite “recovery” as an outcome. However, the various study documents include a number of different statements about the status of physical activity, fatigue, and recovery as endpoints. Of four relevant documents besides the trial registration, one included the definition of recovery used in reporting …

Trial By Error: More on that Norwegian CBT/Music Therapy Study Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH Today, May 12th, is International Awareness Day for Chronic Immunological and Neurological Diseases (CIND), often shortened to International ME (or ME/CFS) and Fibromyalgia Awareness Day. Besides ME, other diseases included in the CIND group, per the May 12th International Awareness Day site, are chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome and multiple …

Trial By Error: Today is May 12th and Everyone’s Missing Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH I met Valerie Eliot Smith a year or so before I published my 15,000-word investigation of the PACE trial. As an experienced lawyer familiar with how libel and related torts are handled in the UK, she provided invaluable advice on legal issues. (She and her husband also suggested the name “Trial …

Trial By Error: Valerie Eliot Smith on COVID-19, ME and Legal Repercussions Read More »