All life forms on Earth harbor an array of genetic parasites, including viruses, plasmids, and transposons. Unfortunately, if cells could reduce their uptake of these elements, they would suffer as the entry of beneficial genes would be impaired (link to paper). In other words, genetic parasites are unavoidable.
By David Tuller, DrPH When the PACE trial was published in early 2011, my New York Times editor sent it to me, along with the press release. As a non-staff contributor to the Times, I had started covering the debate over the mouse retrovirus hypothesis and science, but I’d heard nothing about anything called PACE …
Trial By Error: My 2011 NY Times Exchange With the PACE PIs Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH It’s been almost a year since the CDC removed its recommendations for GET and CBT as treatments for ME/CFS (or CFS, or ME, or CFS/ME, or even SEID or whatever else one calls this illness or cluster of illnesses). When questioned about the decision, the agency explained that people had misunderstood …
Trial By Error: More on the CDC; Reader’s Digest; and BBC’s Newsbeat Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last year, BMJ Open published a paper called Randomised controlled trial of online continuing education for health professionals to improve the management of chronic fatigue syndrome: a study protocol. The seven authors, all affiliated with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, included Professor Andrew Lloyd, the infectious disease expert …
Trial By Error: Australia’s Online GET/CBT Education Program Read More »
I am very skeptical about the pronouncement this week that a group of scientists plan to engineer cells to resist virus infection. The initiative is called Genome-Project-write (GP-write) and is composed of an international group of collaborators with the broader goal of designing and assembling a synthetic human genome. The first goal of this consortium, …
By David Tuller, DrPH A Brief Update: Berkeley’s crowdfunding period closed on April 30th–Monday night. I ended the campaign with $87,580. After Berkeley’s 7.5% in fees, the funds will cover my salary/benefit from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019, and some travel costs. I really, really appreciate the fantastic support. Thanks to everyone! I’ve …
Trial By Error: A Q-and-A with Leonard Jason, on Case Definition Read More »
