PACE-trial

There's thought to be a natural rate of recovery of around 5%, so there will be many people who recovered while co-incidentally doing all manner of things, CBT, GET, homeopathy, etc. There's no good evidence that CBT or GET help people recover. Even relying on just subjective self-report questionnaires prone to problems with bias, the PACE trial's prespecified recovery criteria showed that there was no significant improvement in recovery rates when CBT and GET were added to patients' medical care: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21641846.2017.12...

I think this article is sad because it gives readers such as yourself such a misleading understanding of the issue.

The article implies it is 'scientists' vs 'activists'. Yet many more scientists have spoken out against the PACE trial than it its favour, eg: http://www.virology.ws/2018/08/13/trial-by-error-open-letter...

It implies that the 'activists' reject results for ideological reasons, rather than because the research being challenged includes verifiably false claims, statistical spin and poor methodology: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13591053177223...

No mention is made of the fact that when an information tribunal had to examine claims about these researchers being harassed and abused their judgement stated that claims about activist behaviour had been "grossly exaggerated": https://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/news/major-breaktn-pa...

When data from the PACE trial was forced out by this legal process it showed that using the trials prespecified outcomes undermined key claims from the trial researchers: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21641846.2017.12...

It is disappointing to see so many people seeming to uncritically accept a media smear campaign.

This article seriously misrepresents matters. Not that there's no mention of the substance of the science.

David Tuller has written on this topic in publications like the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/getting-it...

There are some summary pieces from science blogs:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/treating-chronic-fatigue-sy...

https://senseaboutscienceusa.org/pace-research-sparked-patie...

There are also important political aspects to this, particularly in the UK, eg: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-simon-duffy/the-misleadi...

Cochrane commissioned a report which confirmed that Courtney's complaints about Larun's work were well justified: http://www.virology.ws/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Cochrane-R...

If anyone has any questions, I'll try to answer them. This Reuters piece is more spin and BS from powerful people who want to avoid engaging in debate about the problems with their work.

The Journal of Health Psychology published an entire special issue on the PACE trial: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13591053177223...