Virology Blog: Recent Episodes
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By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, I took a quick speaking tour around Ireland at the invitation of the Irish ME/CFS Association. I first became acquainted with Tom Kindlon, the association’s assistant chairperson, about ten years ago. I was beginning to look into the background of the PACE trial, which purported to have proven the … Trial By Error: My Tour of Ireland, Through Wind and Rain; Slides of My Talk Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey As discussed in my previous post, we first became aware of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the early 1980s. However, when did the virus actually emerge in humans, and where did it come from? There are two strains of HIV – HIV-1 and HIV-2. The vast majority of infections are caused … Where Did HIV Come From? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. Last week, Guardian columnist George Monbiot wrote another scathing piece about the failure of the UK health care system to address the … Trial By Error: Guardian Columnist George Monbiot on the “Bizarre Cult” at the London-Based Science Media Centre Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. Last week, Guardian columnist George Monbiot wrote another scathing column about the failure of the UK health care system to address the … Trial By Error: PACE Authors Respond to Monbiot Column with Tired Arguments Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. In the last few years, geneticist Chris Ponting, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, has become a leading researcher in the … Trial By Error: Professor Chris Ponting Discusses His Recent Article in The Conversation about the Plight of ME/CFS patients Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. English actress Jennie Jacques is known for her roles in the BBC’s Desperate Romantics, a 2009 series about the Pre-Raphaelites, a police procedural … Trial By Error: Actress Jennie Jacques Interviews Guardian Columnist George Monbiot and Me about the CBT/GET Ideological Brigades, and More Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. In February, the journal Nature Communications published the US National Institutes of Health’s long-awaited paper, “Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue … Calls for Retraction of Absurd “Effort Preference” Claims from NIH Study Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. The case of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, who died in 2021 of malnutrition from severe ME after three hospitalizations failed to halt her … Trial By Error: Extensive News Coverage of Exeter Coroner’s “Report to Prevent Future Deaths” Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here. **** For two weeks in late July and early August, His Majesty’s Assistant Coroner Deborah Archer heard testimony regarding the death … Trial By Error: Coroner in Boothby O’Neill Inquest Issues Report to Prevent Future Deaths Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey This post was written in honor of Virus Appreciation Day, which occurs annually on October 3. Public awareness of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) began in the early 1980s when separate clusters of infected individuals were identified in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. These individuals all shared a group of … Why Don’t We Have an HIV Vaccine? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Dr Peter Rowe is a professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the Chronic Fatigue Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. As an expert on orthostatic intolerance, a common component of ME/CFS, Long Covid and related illnesses, he has recently authored “Living Well with … Trial By Error: Interview with Dr Peter Rowe of Johns Hopkins about “Living with Orthostatic Intolerance” Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier this month, I wrote a post about a new study asserting that “exercise does not cause post-exertional malaise in Veterans with Gulf War Illness.” As I explained, the research, led by experts from the University of Wisconsin and published by the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, made no sense. Although … Trial By Error: Norwegian Tabloid Covers Stupid Gulf War Illness/PEM Study; My Letter to Journal Editor on Bogus Claims Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Tuesday, September 17th, was World Patient Safety Day. (I didn’t know that either.) In the UK, more than 200 physicians, nurses and other health care providers and professionals marked the occasion by issuing an appeal—in the form of a letter to Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care … Trial By Error: UK Health Care Professionals Appeal to Health Secretary for Quick Action on Poor ME Care Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH A recent study investigated a question no one seems to have been asking. That can be a good thing—if it’s a question that’s worth investigating. But that’s not the case here. The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity and led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, was … Trial By Error: Bogus Claims in Study of Exercise and PEM in Gulf War Illness Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines have featured a mysterious and presumably new illness termed “sloth fever.” More aptly named Oropouche fever, the disease is caused by Oropouche virus (OROV), an arthropod-borne virus that is transmitted primarily through the biting midge Culicoides paraensis. OROV typically circulates in sloths, non-human primates, and birds, but it … Sloth Fever Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH One interesting aspect of the recent inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill was the widespread news coverage. Maeve died in October, 2021, in Exeter, UK, of malnutrition arising from her severe ME, as the coroner ruled a few weeks ago. During the two weeks of testimony, from July 22nd … Trial By Error: Little Sign of CBT/GET Ideologues in News Coverage of Inquest and BBC Breakfast Segment on ME and Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH During the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, both of her parents refrained from making public statements about the proceedings. The inquest was held in Exeter, in southwest England, UK, from July 22nd till August 2nd. After the coroner, Deborah Archer, issued her findings–that Maeve died of malnutrition as … Trial By Error: Post-Inquest Comments from Sarah Boothby, Maeve’s Mum Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last Friday, August 9th, assistant coroner Deborah Archer read in court her “findings and conclusions” in the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, the 27-year-old woman from Exeter, UK. Three hospitalizations in the months before Maeve died in October, 2021, failed to resolve her failing nutritional status. Over the … Trial By Error: A Deeper Dive into the Inquest’s “Findings and Conclusions” Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH On Friday, Deborah Archer, the coroner in the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, issued her factual findings. The bottom line: Maeve died from “malnutrition caused by severe ME.” Archer found that the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital and others involved in her care acted properly. She rejected the … Trial By Error: Valerie Eliot Smith on the Inquest Findings Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *I originally wrote “Whittington” instead of “Whittingham.” I apologize for the error. On Friday, August 9th (tomorrow), Deborah Archer, the coroner who presided over the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, will issue her findings of fact. Following that, she has tentatively scheduled another day of testimony on September … Trial By Error: Whitney Dafoe and Naomi Whittingham Reflect on Severe ME and the Inquest into the Death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last Thursday, both of Maeve Boothby O’Neill’s parents testified at the inquest into her 2021 death from ME-related complications. (I earlier posted Sarah Boothby’s statement as read into the record.) It was the penultimate day of two weeks of court sessions in Exeter, in the south-east of England, UK. The coroner, … Trial By Error: Sean O’Neill’s Inquest Statement Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The two weeks of public hearings in the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill ended on Friday. (The coroner, Deborah Archer, plans to issue her findings on the facts this coming Friday.) Last Thursday, both of Maeve’s parents testified. Her mom, Sarah Boothby, took the stand first. She read … Trial By Error: Sarah Boothby’s Statement to the Inquest Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey It is well known that stress and exposure to UV radiation can reactivate replication of latent herpes simplex virus type 1 and/or type 2 (HSV-1 and/or HSV-2), and the painful lesions associated with these infections. But why is that? During a primary infection, HSV-1 and HSV-2 replicate within the epithelial cells … Why Does Stress Reactivate Herpes Simplex? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH William Weir is an infectious disease physician in London who has treated many ME/CFS patients. He has been involved in some of the ongoing cases in England in which severely ill teenage girls and young women, and their families, have been in conflict with their local hospitals about the best approach … Trial By Error: Dr Weir’s Letters on Treatment of Maeve Boothby O’Neill Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH My heart sinks every time I see another ridiculous article from a member of the CBT/GET ideological brigades. They repeat the same bogus arguments that we’ve heard for years—arguments that have already been refuted time and again. So let’s take a look at the most recent iteration of this tiresome dog-and-pony … Trial By Error: Guardian Publishes Response to Boothby O’Neill Inquest from Ranking Member of the CBT/GET Ideological Brigades Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Heartbreaking. Infuriating. Mind-boggling. Those three adjectives are as good as any to describe the testimony heard during the first week of the two-week inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, 27, being held in Exeter, a university town in southwest England. Deborah Archer, the no-nonsense assistant coroner who has kept … Trial By Error: Maeve Boothby O’Neill Inquests Highlights Major Systemic Failures at UK’s National Health Service and in Medical Education Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH When I was a young gay man in the 1980s (I’m 67), a common term for sexual orientation was “sexual preference.” This phrase always struck me as weird. Preference? The urges I felt were not a “preference.” Preference clearly implies a choice—as in, I prefer to live in the city rather … Trial By Error: “Effort Preference”? WTF? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, Jonathan Edwards, an emeritus professor of medicine at University College London and an advocate for patients with ME/CFS, published a statement on a pre-print server about managing the nutritional needs of patients with severe disease. (I wrote about it here.) A few days ago, a group of parents and … Trial By Error: More Debate About Treatment of Severe ME/CFS Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The CODES trial investigated cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) as a treatment for dissociative seizures (DS), a sub-category of what is now called functional neurological disorder (FND). The intervention was a course of CBT specifically designed to address the variety of factors presumed to be triggering the seizures. (I have previously critiqued … Trial By Error: New Paper Seeks to Reframe Poor Findings in CODES Trial of CBT for Non-Epileptic Seizures Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Jonathan Edwards, a professor emeritus of medicine at University College London, has released a document involving the provision of care for people with severe ME, an issue at the core of some recent high-profile cases in England. The document, which Professor Edwards posted on a pre-print server, is called “Management of … Trial By Error: Professor Edwards’ Take on Nutrition and Severe ME Cases Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH A new piece in The Conversation shows just how problematic it is when poorly done biopsychosocial studies claim to have documented that cognitive and/or behavioral therapies are effective—and when these questionable findings are published in high-impact journals. The headline of the article: “Success in treating persistent pain now offers hope for … Trial By Error: The Conversation Recycles Biopsychosocial Nonsense Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH An in-depth pushback on “effort preference” When the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s long-delayed “deep phenotyping” study of a handful of ME/CFS patients was released earlier this year, the focus on a weird construct called “effort preference” sucked up all the attention–in part because the paper placed it front and center, … Trial By Error: Some Things I Read This Week–Scathing “Effort Preference” Analysis; Kids with Long Covid; National Academies’ Long Covid Definition Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Oonagh Cousins, a world-class rower who once dreamed of representing Great Britain in the Olympics, got sick early in the pandemic and has been suffering from Long Covid ever since. Her story was first covered by the BBC in November, 2020. A BBC article last year covered how her condition had … Trial By Error: Athlete Oonagh Cousins on the Lightning Process Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Science journalist Betsy Ladyzhets, co-founder and co-editor of The Sick Times, has been covering the problemls with RECOVER, the $1.15 billion Long Covid initiative from the US National Institutes of Health. Ladyzhets recently wrote a new article about RECOVER, published in The Sick Times as well as STAT, based on documents … Trial By Error: Betsy Ladyzhets on Problems with NIH’s RECOVER Initiative Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and long-time grant magnet, gave up her right to practice medicine last September, according to her current entry at the UK’s General Medical Council, which oversees the registration of physicians. The entry does not offer an explanation for why Professor Crawley … Trial By Error: Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s Methodologically and Ethically Challenged Pediatrician, Has Retired From Medicine Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey During the first few months of life, residual maternal antibodies that crossed the placenta during gestation and antibodies from breast milk protect infants from infection with various microbes. This type of immune protection is known as “passive immunity,” and differs from “active immunity,” which develops in an individual following vaccination or … Active vs. Passive Immunity Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month for Trial By Error. Donations (tax-deductible to US tax-payers) go to the University of Calinfornia, Berkeley, to support the project. The link to the crowdfunding campaign is here: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/42302 In the past, Professor Michael Sharpe, one of the lead PACE investigators, has intervened in my Berkeley crowdfunding … Trial By Error: The Michael Sharpe Crowdfunding Effect Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH For years, I have criticized the research purporting to prove that the Lightning Process, a three-day mind-body workshop that has claimed to be effective in curing ME/CFS and a host of other chronic illnesses. The largest study of the LP, conducted by the methodologically and ethical challenged Esther Crawley, a professor … Trial By Error: BBC Takes on Lightning Process and Highlights Perspectives of the So-Called “Anti-Recovery Activists” Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH This is a crowdfunding month for Trial By Error. Donations (tax-deductible to US tax-payers) go to the University of Calinfornia, Berkeley, to support the project. The link to the crowdfunding campaign is here: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/42302 *** Anil van der Zee and I first connected in 2016, when he invited me to Amsterdam to … Trial By Error: Anil van der Zee’s New Video on Living with Severe ME Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month for Trial By Error. Donations (tax-deductible to US tax-payers) go to the University of Calinfornia, Berkeley, to support the project. The link to the crowdfunding campaign is here: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/42302 Last week, Time magazine unveiled a list called the TIME100 Health—a selection of “leaders from across industries—scientists, doctors, … Trial By Error: Time’s Health100 List Includes Leaders in Long Covid and ME/CFS Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month for Trial By Error. Donations (tax-deductible to US tax-payers) go to the University of Calinfornia, Berkeley, to support the project. The link to the crowdfunding campaign is here: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/42302 Journalists Betsy Ladyzhets and Miles Griffis are the co-founders of The Sick Times, a non-profit that covers … Trial By Error: A Conversation with the Co-Founders of The Sick Times Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH This is a crowdfunding month at Berkeley for Trial By Error. If you appreciate my work, here’s a link to donate (tax-deductible to US taxpayers) directly to the university: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/42302 *** Marco Wetzel, a digital sales expert, is one of five German Long Covid patients who banded together earlier this year … Trial By Error: Interview with Co-Organizator of Next Week’s Unite To Fight Long Covid Conference Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Multiple recent outbreaks of “bird flu” in U.S. dairies are raising concerns about whether milk from infected cows is safe to drink. H5N1, the strain of influenza virus causing the outbreaks, is typically transmitted among birds but occasionally spreads to non-avian animals, including mammals. Prior to distribution, commercially sold milk is … You Cannot Get Bird Flu From Pasteurized Milk Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Berkeley’s latest crowdfunding campaign for Trial By Error begins today. It is hard for me to believe that I have been working on this project—debunking awful research into what was then called “chronic fatigue syndrome,” and related issues–for ten years. My efforts began in the summer of 2014, when I traveled … Trial By Error: Berkeley’s May Crowdfunding Campaign Begins… Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH What’s going on with Aussie members of the graded exercise therapy cult? (Oops!—I meant the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, a trade and professional organization. Sorry!) In 2019, I wrote about the organization’s guidance for “CFS/ME.” This guidance, published in 2015, was part of the group’s Handbook of Non-Drug Interventions … Trial By Error: Australian GP Group Recommends “Incremental Physical Activity” for “CFS/ME” Patients Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last week, I spoke with George Monbiot, a British investigative reporter and political activist, who has been a columnist for The Guardian for almost 30 years. He and I have been in occasional communication in recent years over an issue of mutual interest—the scandalous mistreatment of patients suffering from the devastating illness (or cluster … Trial By Error: Guardian Columnist George Monbiot Discusses His Scathing Rebuke of the Biopsychosocial Brigades–Text Version Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier today I spoke with George Monbiot, a British investigative reporter and political activist, who has been a columnist for The Guardian for almost 30 years. He and I have been in occasional communication in recent years over an issue of mutual interest—the scandalous mistreatment of patients suffering from the devastating … Trial By Error: Guardian Columnist George Monbiot Discusses His Scathing Critique of the “Biopsychosocial” Approach to ME/CFS and Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH On April 9th, Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who votes with the Democrats, unveiled an ambitious $10 billion “moonshot” proposal to fund research into Long Covid. The proposal has raised hopes among patients with the disease or cluster of diseases now being called ME/CFS—as well as concerns that … Trial By Error: Senator Bernie Sanders’ $10 Billion Long Covid “Moonshot” Proposal Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier this month, the European Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Alliance (EMEA) released a 235-page report on a survey of ME/CFS patients in Europe titled “Same disease, different approaches and experiences.” The authors are Arild Angelsen, a board member of the Norwegian ME Association and a professor at the School of Economics and Business … Trial By Error: An Interview with the Authors of the European ME Alliance Survey of 11,000+ Patients Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In recent weeks, I have been urging The BMJ to correct a flawed University of Warwick trial of an online mental and physical health rehab program for people with prolonged symptoms at least three months after hospitalization for Covid-19. The primary outcome was health-related quality of life, assessed with a measure … Trial By Error: REGAIN Team Responds to Criticism with Unconvincing Defenses of Methodological Missteps Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The University of Exeter is now recruiting for a study of “brain training” as a treatment for prolonged cognitive dysfunction after a bout of Covid-19. I found out about this via a post on X. The post highlighted a message that had been sent to an unidentified patient from their medical … Trial By Error: A New Study from Exeter on “Brain Training” for Treatment of Post-Covid Cognitive Problems Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH ME patients and advocates in England have been alarmed by a series of ongoing cases in which the families of severely ill young women have struggled to convince hospitals to fit them with feeding tubes before they starve to death. I covered a similar situation last year in a piece about … Trial By Error: In England, Conflicts Between Families and Hospitals Threaten the Lives of Young Women with ME Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, I sent a letter to Dr Abbasi, the editor-in-chief of The BMJ, about an egregious and arguably fraudulent claim in the REGAIN trial—an investigation of a Long Covid physical and mental health rehabilitation program. Several other experts co-signed the letter. The journal asked us to send in a rapid … Trial By Error: Another Letter Seeking Correction of Bogus “Clinically Effective” Claims from REGAIN Trial Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The other day I posted a blog about yet another problematic Long Covid study published by a major journal. The study concluded that physical activity (PA) can “reduce” symptoms in young women with prolonged medical complaints after Covid-19, or what the authors call post-COVID condition (PCC). The problem: the study design … Trial By Error: My Letter to Scientific Reports about New Study of Physical Activity and Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I’ve recently spent some time lambasting a Long Covid study in The BMJ that claimed a rehab program addressing both physical and mental health was “clinically effective”—even though the primary outcome results fell below the recommended level for what would be considered “minimal clinically important difference” on the measure in question. … Trial By Error: Yet Another Long Covid Study with Bogus Claims Published by a Prestige Journal Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder and the most common form of dementia. Although its exact cause is unclear, an increasing body of evidence suggests that an infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV) may contribute to onset of AD later in life. Both types of HSV (HSV-1 and HSV-2) infect … Does Herpes Simplex Virus Cause Alzheimer’s Disease? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Two weeks ago, I sent a letter to The BMJ on behalf of myself and 12 colleagues seeking a correction in a study published last month. The study, called Clinical effectiveness of an online supervised group physical and mental health rehabilitation programme for adults with post-covid-19 condition (REGAIN study): multicentre randomised controlled trial,” claimed that the intervention … Trial By Error: My Letter to Lead REGAIN Trial Investigator Seeking Correction of Bogus Claims of Clinical Effectiveness Read More »
Leave a Comment / By David Tuller / 24 March 2024 By David Tuller, DrPH Two weeks ago, I sent a letter to The BMJ on behalf of myself and 12 colleagues seeking a correction in a study published last month. The study, called Clinical effectiveness of an online supervised group physical and mental health rehabilitation programme for adults with post-covid-19 condition (REGAIN study): … Trial By Error: We Asked BMJ to Correct a Paper; BMJ Requested a Rapid Response; We Have Declined Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last week, just in time for Long Covid Awareness Day on Friday, the chief health officer of the Australian state of Queensland, John Gerrard, declared that the term “Long Covid” should be dropped. He based his argument on Queensland survey data suggesting that rates of prolonged disability after Covid-19 are similar … Trial By Error: David Putrino on 1) Australian Call to Scrap the Term “Long Covid” and 2) New Pre-Print on Sex Differences in LC Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH When the US National Institutes of Health released its lengthy ME/CFS study last month with much fanfare and publicity, the London-based Science Media Centre asked Professor Chris Ponting, among other experts, to provide comment. The study–“Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome”–was published by Nature Communications. It included in-depth findings … Trial By Error: Professor Chris Ponting on the NIH’s Findings and the Latest on the Genome-Wide Association Study Update Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In a blistering take-down published on Tuesday, Guardian columnist George Monbiot indicted Professor Sir Simon Wessely, Professor Michael Sharpe and the rest of the GET/CBT ideological brigades for their decades-long promotion of discredited theories about and bogus research into the cluster of illnesses now being called ME/CFS. Those theories and research … Trial By Error: Guardian Columnist George Monbiot Calls Out the GET/CBT Charlatans and the Fraudulent PACE Trial Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, The BMJ published a study of a rehab intervention for Long Covid in which the authors made claims that were not borne out by the data. The study was called “Clinical effectiveness of an online supervised group physical and mental health rehabilitation programme for adults with post-covid-19 condition (REGAIN … Trial By Error: Letter to BMJ Seeking Correction in Study of Long Covid Physical-and-Mental Rehabilitation Program Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH For years, Professor Esther Crawley, the University of Bristol’s methodologically and ethically challenged ME/CFS investigator, has hoovered up millions of pounds from public and private funders to support her misbegotten research. She achieved this success as a grant magnet despite abundant and easily available evidence that she was violating core principles … Trial By Error: Will MAGENTA’s Null Results Finally End Professor Crawley’s Long ‘Reign of Error’? Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey According to established scientific dogma, infection of cells with HIV-1 leads to delivery of the viral capsid into the cell cytoplasm, followed by “uncoating” of the capsid to release the single-stranded RNA genome. A viral-encoded enzyme called reverse transcriptase then catalyzes the conversion of the viral RNA into a single strand … Dogma Does Not Belong in Science Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH So, okay…The big enchilada from the US National Institutes of Health’s seven-year, $8-million, under-recruited and over-hyped study—”Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome”–was published last week in Nature Communications. It would be fair to describe the ensuing public debate over this massive text-and-data dump as spirited. (NIH press release here; … Trial By Error: An Interview with Neuroscientist Michael VanElzakker about the Just-Published and Long-Awaited NIH Study Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH A new study of an online group physical and psychological rehabilitation program for Long Covid confirms once again that people given an intervention purporting to help them are more likely to tell investigators that they feel better than those given nothing of the kind. People, this is not a surprising result! … Trial By Error: New Long Covid Exercise-and-Therapy Study Claims Success Despite Clinically Insignificant Findings Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In two recent posts, here and here, I wrote about our letter on inflated prevalence claims for functional neurological disorder (FND) and about the response from the authors of the study we criticized. The 2021 article in NeuroImage: Clinical, “Neuroimaging in functional neurological disorder: state of the field and research agenda,” asserted … Trial By Error: Leading FND Site Confirms Criticisms on Prevalence Outlined in Our Letter to Neurology Journal Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH As I wrote in a post the other day, the journal NeuroImage: Clinical has just published a letter from a group I organized about the misrepresentation of findings regarding the prevalence of functional neurological disorder (FND). They have also published a response from the authors of the article we criticized. The … Trial By Error: Unconvincing Response to Letter on FND Prevalence Inflation Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH For more than a year, I have been criticizing experts in the field of functional neurological disorder for misrepresenting the findings of a seminal study, in effect tripling the reported prevalence rate of the condition. These untrue claims about the Scottish Neurological Symptoms Study (SNSS)—specifically, that the prevalence of FND among … Trial By Error: Finally, Our Letter on Inflated Claims of FND Prevalence Is Published Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines have been featuring multiple outbreaks of measles across the globe, and an announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dated January 25, 2024, also reported 23 confirmed cases in the US over the past month. These outbreaks happen every few years and are usually triggered by … Let’s Talk About Measles Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I just wrote about how PACE was favorably cited in an article in Nature Reviews Cardiology. Last month, that piece of crap was also included as part of yet another meta-analysis that mushed together the findings from a load of bad papers and concluded that, collectively, they prove something or other. … Trial By Error: Yet Another Meta-Analysis Purporting to Prove that CBT Is Effective for “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH It has been a season of loss. Two weeks ago, I posted an obituary for the much-loved ME patient advocate Beth Mazur, who co-founded #MEAction and suffered with the disease for years. Last October, I posted tributes to Celine Corsius from her parents and brother; Celine died by euthanasia under Dutch … Trial By Error: Yet Another ME-Related Death Read More »
By David Tuller, DrP *This post includes a correction, which is noted in the text. Having a discussion about the PACE trial with someone who still maintains it was a well-conducted study is like debating the 2020 election with a Trumper who insists that Biden lost. These two distinct groups exhibit the same remarkable inability … Trial By Error: Debate Over Recent Citation of Arguably Fraudulent PACE Trial Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In early January, Nature Communications published a Dutch study called “Muscle abnormalities worsen after post-exertional malaise in long COVID.” The study caused a buzz among patients, clinicians, and other researchers and generated extensive news coverage. Called. (I wrote a blog post about it here.) The investigators identified significant biological differences after … Trial By Error: Interview with Dr Rob Wüst about New Study of Muscle Abnormalities in Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last Thursday (January 18th), the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions held a hearing called “Addressing Long COVID: Advancing Research and Improving Patient Care.” The bipartisan panel included senators who are also physicians and as well as Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia, who has been open about his own … Trial By Error: Reporter Betsy Ladyzhets on Last Week’s US Senate Hearing Read More »
By Brian Vastag Beth Anne Mazur, a fierce but unassuming advocate for people with a devastating — and devastatingly neglected — chronic illness, died on Dec. 21, 2023, in the mountains above Santa Fe, N.M. She was 47 years old. Beth leaves behind a wide circle of dear friends; many partners in patient advocacy; a … Trial By Error: Obituary for Beth Mazur Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH A British study of neurological sequelae in patients many months after hospitalization for COVID-19 has found that “post acute cognitive deficits…were associated with elevated brain injury markers in serum and reduced grey matter volume,” according to a pre-print posted earlier this week. (A pre-print is a paper that has not yet … Trial By Error: Study Finds “Elevated Brain Injury Markers and Reduced Grey Matter Volume” a Year After Hospitalization for COVID-19 Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH A new study in Nature Communications, called “Muscle abnormalities worsen after post-exertional malaise in long COVID,” caused a stir after it was published last week. The investigators identified significant biological differences after an exercise challenge between long Covid (LC) patients with post-exertional malaise (PEM) and matched healthy controls who had recovered … Trial By Error: Dutch Study Links PEM in Long Covid to Biological Abnormalities Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, journalist Ed Yong played a key role in alerting the public to the wave of people suffering prolonged symptoms after an acute bout of COVID-19—the phenomenon that has come to be called long Covid. Yong, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coronavirus … Trial By Error: An Interview with Journalist Ed Yong Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Once the innate immune system senses a never-seen-before pathogen as new, it engages elements of the adaptive immune response. These adaptive immunity elements coordinate over time to develop a response that protects from re-infection and disease upon a second exposure to the same pathogen. The second exposure will immediately lead to … The Problem of Original Antigenic Sin Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Update: In the comments, Colleen Steckel has highlighted her concerns about the CDC prevalence data, writing: “There is some basic misinformation in the CDC survey reporting. The results need to be put into historical perspective. Repeating narratives, based on inaccurate information, are not helping people with ME get recognized.” You can … Trial By Error: Update on NICE Response to “Anomalies” Paper; Higher ME/CFS Population Estimates in CDC Survey Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Pediatrician Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and factually challenged grant magnet, has released what seem to be the first outcome results from her much-hyped but fatally flawed FITNET-NHS trial—and they are disastrous. The trial, a pediatric study of online CBT based on similar Dutch research that (falsely) claimed to have proven … Trial By Error: Disastrous Results for Professor Crawley’s Pediatric Online CBT Trial Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Beth Mazur was a long-time ME advocate and a co-founder of #MEAction. ME-world was shocked to learn on Friday–two days ago–that she was gone, at the unconscionably young age of 47. At the time, she was visiting New Mexico and Julie Rehmeyer, another patient and advocate. Words often fail at times … Trial By Error: Julie Rehmeyer on the Heartbreaking Loss of Beth Mazur Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Investigative journalist Betsy Ladyzhets is a co-founder of The Sick Times, a new online publication covering long Covid and related disorders. Last week, she wrote about a new grant program for long Covid clinics from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), part of the Department of Health and … Trial By Error: Betsy Ladyzhets on New HHS Funding for Long Covid Clinics Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last Tuesday and Wednesday (December 12th and 13th), the US National Institutes of Health–and, specifically, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases–held a two-day meeting called “Advancing ME/CFS Research: Identifying Targets for Intervention and Learning from Long COVID.” In 2019, I’d physically attended a similar NIH gathering; this time, I … Trial By Error: #MEAction’s Jaime Seltzer on Recent NIH Gathering Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In August, I submitted a letter to NeuroImage: Clinical concerning inflated rates of prevalence of functional neurological disorder, on behalf of myself and nine colleagues. After the letter went through peer review and a round of revisions, I was informed in early November that it had been accepted, as I noted … Trial By Error: Update on Our Letter Concerning the Prevalence of Functional Neurological Disorder Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Satellite viruses lack one or more of the elements needed to replicate, and thus they depend on co-infection with a helper virus that can provide the missing components. In a well-known example of a satellite-helper system, Hepatitis D virus requires the presence of its helper Hepatitis B virus to make copies … A Satellite Takes a Bite of Phage Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH A survey of more than 1500 patients in the Netherlands with a diagnosis of ME, CFS or ME/CFS rated graded exercise therapy as “the worst” interventions, according to an article on the site of the ME and Disability Support Group, while “explanation and advice about the importance of lying down to … Trial By Error: Dutch Survey Respondents Rate GET/CBT as “the Worst” Approach, Per New Report Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In January, I wrote a piece for Codastory.com about Maeve Boothby O’Neill, a young woman from Devon, England, who died from ME-related complications in October, 2021, at the age of 27. This week, at a pre-inquest hearing, it was revealed that the medical director of the hospital involved in Maeve’s care … Trial By Error: NHS Lacks Policy on Severe ME, Per Testimony in Pre-Inquest Hearing on Death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier this month, Betsy Ladyzhets and Miles Griffis, two smart, young American journalists, announced the launch The Sick Times, an online publication focused on long Covid and related post-acute infection syndromes, including ME/CFS. I have met both of them in the last couple of years and have been impressed with their … Trial By Error: Interview with Founders of The Sick Times, a New Online Publication Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for the November campaign. Time magazine recently published an opinion piece that calls for an end to biomedical research for long Covid—based, it seems, … Trial By Error: Column in Time Magazine Calls for Halt to Biomedical Long Covid Research Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for this November’s campaign. UPDATE: Cochrane has rejected Science For ME’s complaint, as discussed yesterday on a thread on the forum at around the … Trial By Error: Cochrane Ends Silence on ME/CFS Exercise Review Developments Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for this November’s campaign. As I pointed out last month when I reviewed a ridiculous study of “psychosomatic therapy” for “persistent somatic symptoms,” the … Trial By Error: Yet More Stupidity from the Dutch CBT Fan Club Read More »
*This is a crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley for my Trial by Error project. If you appreciate my work and would like to help support it, here’s the link for this November’s campaign. By David Tuller, DrPH Lisa McCorkell is a co-founder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, a group of people with Long COVID and … Trial By Error: A Conversation with Lisa McCorkell of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Betsy Ladyzhets is an independent health, science and data journalist who has been covering the coronavirus pandemic, including long Covid. While serving as a journalism fellow at MuckRock, she co-wrote an investigative report for STAT, a well-known health and medical news site, about the US National Institutes of Health’s problem-plagued $1.2 … Trial By Error: Interview with Journalist Betsy Ladyzhets about NIH’s Flawed $1.2 Billion RECOVER Program for Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I have spent some time trying to correct the record on the reported prevalence of functional neurological disorder (FND). As I have documented, leaders of the FND field have spent the last decade misrepresenting the findings of a seminal 2010 study, Stone et al, to claim that this diagnosis is the … Trial By Error: Letter to Journal about Inflated Claims of FND Prevalence Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Did you know that eight percent of the human genome consists of DNA sequences that are derived from retroviruses? These “endogenous retroviruses” (ERVs) represent concrete evidence for retroviral infections that occurred in our ancestors. Although ERVs have no viral activity, an accumulating body of evidence suggests that they are not entirely … How the Viruses Within Us Protect Us From Other Viruses Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Sometimes I just like to post about a few things that have caught my interest, for whatever reason. I keep meaning to do this more regularly. Science For ME calls on Cochrane to retract flawed exercise review The Science for ME (S4ME) forum has posted a petition on change.org requesting that … Trial By Error: Call for Retraction of Cochrane Review from Science For ME; Overview of Viral Persistence in Long Covid; Senators United on Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I’ve said it before and will undoubtedly say it again. Trudie Chalder, King’s College London’s mathematically and factually challenged professor of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), is a one-trick pony. She writes what is essentially the same bad paper based on the same unfounded assumptions over and over again. Her apparent professional … Trial By Error: Just the Latest Gibberish from Professor Chalder Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Professor Chris Ponting is a geneticist at the University of Edinburgh. He is also the principal investigator for DecodeME, a genome wide association study. The DecodeME team recently published findings from more than 17,000 questionnaires it had collected from patients. I wrote about those findings in a post last week. In … Trial By Error: Professor Chris Ponting Discusses on DecodeME’s First Results Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH DecodeME paper finds ME/CFS severity linked to being female, being older and being sick longer DecodeME is a high-profile genome-wide association study (GWAS) that is seeking to identify DNA differences between people with ME/CFS and those without it. To date, more than 17,000 people in the UK who report having been … Trial By Error: DecodeME Team Describes Study Sample; The Atlantic’s Ed Yong Covers PEM; STAT Busts NIH’s Stumbling Long Covid Efforts Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry (JNNP) has finally published a cogent rapid response to its recent whine de coeur from the PACE authors and their cronies. In the commentary, the co-authors criticized eight purported “anomalies” they believe occurred during the process of developing the 2021 ME/CFS guideline from Britain’s … Trial By Error: Rapid Response to Anti-NICE Whine de Coeur; UK Government Seeks Input to Interim Delivery Plan for ME/CFS Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I recently wrote about a Dutch study published a few months ago in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases–“Efficacy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Targeting Severe Fatigue Following Coronavirus Disease 2019: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.” The study, nick-named ReCOVer, found that unblinded trials relying on subjective outcomes will produce modestly positive reports … Trial By Error: More on the Perplexing Dutch Claim that Null Results for Objective Measures of Physical Activity Are Irrelevant to Fatigue Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH On July 10th, the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry (JNNP) published what can only be called a whine de coeur from a bunch of academics and investigators on the wrong side of a dispute with Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Their article was called “Anomalies in … Trial By Error: That Whine De Coeur about NICE’s Rejection of GET/CBT Regimen, and ME Action UK’s Disappearing Rebuttal Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Have you ever wondered why some viruses circulate primarily in the winter and others are more prevalent in the summer? Although we don’t have a clear answer to this question, a combination of factors is likely responsible. Work done in the field of respiratory viruses suggests that these viruses can … Why Do Some Viruses Have a Seasonal Cycle? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH UPDATE: Not long after I sent the letter repeating our request for a correction, I received a response directly from Professor Murray, the editor-in-chief of Psychological Medicine who had commented on the length of our initial request for a correction. Here it is: From: Robin Murray Date: Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 9:02 AMSubject: … Trial By Error: Psych Medicine’s Rejects Request for Correction of Prevalence Rates Cited in FND Paper–Updated Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Two months ago, Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID), a high-impact journal, published a study called “Efficacy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Targeting Severe Fatigue Following Coronavirus Disease 2019: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.” The study, nicknamed ReCOVer amd conducted in the Netherlands, purported to provide the “first evidence for the positive effect of … Trial By Error: Dutch Team Offers “Dog-Ate-My-Data” Excuses for Not Reporting Null Objective Findings Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I have continued writing my letter-writing effort to alert journals about papers on functional neurological disorder (FND) that have included false statements regarding the prevalence of the condition reported by a seminal study in the field the reported prevalence of the condition. (I was going to refer to this as a … Trial By Error: Update on Efforts to Correct False Statements about FND Prevalence Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey In 1988 the World Health Organization, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention passed the initiative to eradicate polio globally by the year 2000. We are now 23 years past this deadline, and it is increasingly clear that this goal will likely never be achieved. Smallpox … Why We Can’t Eradicate Polio Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Slate recently ran a piece by a young journalist and Stanford neuroscience graduate student, Grace Huckins, about purported links between long Covid and mental illness. I found it problematic. For one thing, in the same sentence it linked to both a story of mine in Codastory.com and one from The Atlantic‘s … Trial By Error: My Twitter Thread about Slate’s Piece on Long Covid and Mental Illness Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The journal NeuroImage: Clinical, an Elsevier title, recently agreed to correct the false statement that a 2010 study found functional neurological disorder to be the second-most-common diagnosis at outpatient neurology clinics. To the journal’s credit, it responded positively within days of receiving a letter about the matter from a group of … Trial By Error: A Letter to Psychological Medicine about Inflated FND Rate Claims Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Several colleagues and I recently wrote to the journal NeuroImage: Clinical to request a correction in a 2021 article about functional neurological disorder (FND). The article included the false claim that a seminal 2010 study found that FND was the second-most-common diagnosis at outpatient neurology clinics. In fact, FND—called conversion disorder … Trial By Error: A Letter Requesting Corrections of Inflated Prevalence Rates in Nine More FND Papers Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH For decades in the UK, parents of children with what was formerly called chronic fatigue syndrome have run the risk of being accused of making or keeping their kids sick and/or not pursuing proper treatment strategies. These cases have been based on the discredited belief that graded exercise therapy (GET) and … Trial By Error: Families with Long Covid Kids Fight Against Social Services Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH For years, experts in functional neurological disorder (FND) have cited a seminal study in their field to claim that the diagnosis was the second-most-common presentation at outpatient neurology clinics, with a prevalence of 16%. This claim was, and is, categorically untrue. The Scottish Neurological Symptoms Study (SNSS), which yielded multiple papers … Trial By Error: FND Experts Agree To Correct Inflated Prevalence Claim Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I often feel so far behind in keeping up with developments in this field. Here are a few recent items I wanted to highlight. ****Action For ME’s report on NHS adoption of the new NICE guidelines In October, 2021, after a protracted and highly contentious process, the UK’s National Institute for … Trial By Error: Action For ME Report on NICE Guidelines; Brian Hughes on Myths About the Guidelines; Michael Sharpe’s San Francisco Speech Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH In a recent decision, the Advertising Code Foundation in the Netherlands has criticized as “misleading” a statement on the website of the Knowledge Center for Chronic Fatigue (NKCV) touting its treatment approach as “not harmful.” The decision is something of a slap at the NKCV and its co-leader, Professor Hans Knoop, … Trial By Error: Claim that CBT Is Safe Is “Misleading,” Says Dutch Ad Group Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Michael Alenyikov was the first person I knew with ME, or what was then being called CFIDS—chronic fatigue immune disorder syndrome. We met in the mid-1980s in NY—we were younger then!—and we both moved to San Francisco in the 1990s. Michael trained as a clinical psychologist but switched his professional focus … Trial By Error: Author Michael Alenyikov on ME and the Writing Life Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH I have posted previously about how papers on functional neurological disorder (FND) have routinely mis-cited a seminal 2010 study in asserting that the diagnosis is the second-most-common presentation at neurology clinics, with a rate of 16%. In fact, the 2010 study found that only 5.5% had FND, the new name for … Trial By Error: A Letter Regarding Inflated Prevalence Rates for Functional Neurological Disorder Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey Almost sixty years have passed since the initial formalin-inactivated respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine caused enhanced disease in children when they were subsequently infected with the virus. Since then, RSV has continued to be a substantial public health threat to infants, young children, and older people. Although progress in developing a … A Long-Awaited Vaccine Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Physician Binita Kane, a lung specialist in Manchester, England, and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester’s School of Biological Sciences, has been outspoken on the subject of long Covid in children. Her passion about the issue has been fueled by her own daughter’s struggle with prolonged symptoms after … Trial By Error: Dr Binita Kane on Kids with Long Covid Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH My friend and colleague Brian Hughes, a professor of psychology at the University of Galway in Ireland, recently published his latest book—“A Conceptual History of Psychology: The Mind Through Time.” Rather than dating the field of psychology to the creation and growth of university departments of psychology in the late 19th … Trial By Error: Psychologist Brian Hughes Discusses His New Book, “A Conceptual History of Psychology” Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Three years ago, I wrote a blog post about a problematic Dutch study that had been funded by a major health agency and was being led by Hans Knoop, a professor of medical psychology at Amsterdam University Medical Centers. The study sought to test whether a course of cognitive behavior therapy … Trial By Error: Dutch CBT Study for Long Covid Proves that Unblinded Studies with Subjective Outcomes Generate Positive Reports Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH(This is a long-ish post. Sorry! It covers two complicated issues. I want to thank an intrepid source for help with this.) I have great sympathy for patients diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND). Their symptoms can be seriously disabling and their plight has long been neglected and dismissed by the medical … Trial By Error: Questions About the Prevalence of Functional Neurological Disorder and the Research on Hoover’s Sign for Functional Leg Weakness Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH It is May 12th–ME International Awareness Day. (Or ME/CFS International Awareness Day if you’re the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Washington, DC, #MEAction and Body Politic have organized a protest and press conference “to demand bold, urgent governmental action for the millions of people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis … Trial By Error: A Day in the Life of Anil van der Zee Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH David Putrino is a neuroscientist and physical therapist at New York’s Mt Sinai Health System, where he is director of rehabilitation innovation. Over the last three years, he has worked extensively with patients experiencing prolonged symptoms after an acute bout of Covid-19, or what has become known as long Covid (LC). … Trial By Error: Mt Sinai’s David Putrino on Long Covid and Functional Neurological Disorder Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey In recent years, the phrase “gain of function” and its abbreviation “GoF” have attained a sinister connotation that is coupled with a general mistrust toward scientists who engage in this type of experimentation. This public perception is grounded in a basic misunderstanding of what constitutes GoF and a lack of appreciation … There Is Something to Be Gained From Gain of Function Experiments Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, The Nation published a wide-ranging overview of the impact of long Covid on the United States by Fiona Lowenstein and Ryan Prior. Called The Long Covid Revolution, the article proposed a number of steps for addressing the fallout and highlighted the critical role of grass-roots patient movements in pushing … Trial By Error: “Long Haul” Author Ryan Prior on Why Long Covid Is a “Political” Term and Related Stuff Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH*April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/37217 On Tuesday, ZonMw announced the first grant recipients in its program of “biomedical research on ME/CFS”—the initial round of awards from the … Trial By Error: Dutch Agency Awards Big Biomedical ME/CFS Grant to Judith Rosmalen, Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH ZonMw is an independent Dutch organization that receives significant government funding for a variety of healthcare-related research projects. On April 25th—tomorrow—it is expected to announce the recipients of €11.6 million in grants for ME/CFS research. This announcement regarding ZonMw’s ME/CFS program is the result of a lengthy process that began ten … Trial By Error: Dutch Agency to Announce ME/CFS Research Awards After Committee Resignation of Key Patient Advocate Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH*April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/37217 STAT and MuckRock co-publish investigative report slamming NIH’s RECOVER initiatve Earlier this month, I wrote about the problem of exercise studies for … Trial By Error: Some Recent Long Covid Articles from STAT/MuckRock, The Atlantic, and Nieman Reports Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/37217 No human being should ever have to read as many papers as I have from Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically … Trial By Error: Professors Crawley, Chalder & Colleagues Investigate Pediatric Long Covid in Yet Another Study with a Stupid Acronym Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH*April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/37217 Each year, the US National Institutes of Health publishes its “estimates of funding for various research, condition, and disease categories.” These estimates … Trial By Error: Why Did the NIH List an Award for Research on Cancer-Related Fatigue in Its List of Spending on ME/CFS? Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/37217 Last week, I wrote two posts–here and here–about a new Norwegian study in JAMA Network Open that was essentially designed not … Trial By Error: Further Thoughts on that JAMA Network Open Article and Estimates of Long Covid Prevalence Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH*April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/37217 As I wrote earlier this week, a new study of adolescents and young adults from Norway, published by JAMA Network Open, … Trial By Error: What is Recovery Norway’s Role in the JAMA Network Open Study of Long Covid in Young People? Read More »
by Gertrud U. Rey There are several highly effective vaccines that block infection by human papillomaviruses (HPVs) and thereby prevent the cervical, anogenital, and head and neck cancers caused by these viruses. However, none of these vaccines are effective for the treatment of established HPV-induced tumors. The success of the COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines … An mRNA Vaccine to Treat Cancer Read More »
By David Tuller, DrPH The long Covid narrative seems to bounce back and forth with each new study or review documenting contrasting findings—evidence of serious pathophysiological anomalies among sub-sets of patients followed by data that appear to implicate psychological and/or emotional factors in the generation of reported symptoms. A new study in JAMA Network Open […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Note: I posted this on March 29th, and for some reason it disappeared from the site–so I am reposting it today. I have written previously about the issue of exercise studies for long Covid patients. As with the discredited PACE trial for the illness or cluster of illnesses currently being referred […]
By David Tuller, DrPH I have written previously about the issue of exercise studies for long Covid patients. As with the discredited PACE trial for the illness or cluster of illnesses currently being referred to as ME/CFS, the theory behind these studies posits deconditioning as a central cause of patients’ disability. This approach tends to […]
By David Tuller, DrPH In 2019, the University of Bristol and the UK’s Health Research Authority issued a report about their joint investigation of 11 papers. The lead investigator of all 11 papers was Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant queen. The report recommended that Professor Crawley correct the ethics […]
By David Tuller, DrPH What is going on with Cochrane’s much-delayed re-review of exercise therapy for the illness the organization is these days calling ME/CFS? It is more than three years since Cochrane announced plans to develop this completely new review, but no one outside the organization seems to have much idea of what’s happening […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The Collaborative on Fatigue Following Infection, or COFFI, was formed in 2015 to promote the theories and treatment approaches embodied in the now-discredited and arguably fraudulent PACE trial and related research. In a nutshell, PACE and related research promoted the notion that the symptoms of patients with the clinical entity or […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Last April, I interviewed poet, journalist and editor Meghan O’Rourke about The Invisible Kingdom, her insightful and affecting memoir of living with chronic illness. The book, a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award, has just been issued in paperback. So I figured I’d re-post the interview. As the […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines have been highlighting the global spread of H5N1, the strain of influenza virus that is typically associated with “bird flu.” This outbreak is the largest in recorded history, involving at least 50 million dead birds and countless non-human mammals, including sea lions, otters, mink, foxes, cats, dogs, and […]
By David Tuller, DrPH I recently wrote an article for Codastory.com about Maeve Boothby O’Neill, who died from complications of severe ME in October, 2021, after three separate admissions to her local National Health Service hospital in Exeter, England. During her hospital stays, she and her family fought with the hospital over the need for […]
By David Tuller, DrPH What is it with the health care establishments in northern Europe? Why are they so devoted to non-evidence-based approaches to treating serious medical conditions? Why do they trust arguably fraudulent research, like the PACE trial and Professor Esther Crawley’s pediatric Lightning Process study? Why are the authors of these studies respected […]
TWiV reviews an outbreak of Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Equatorial Guinea, wild poliovirus type 3 shedding from a laboratory in the Netherlands, and white-tailed deer as a reservoir for previous SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, and Rich Condit Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 985 (66 MB .mp3, 109 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become […]
By David Tuller, DrPH When the pandemic began, everyone involved in the ME, CFS, and ME/CFS domain assumed that there would be a wave of post-acute, prolonged complications, since every virus seems to leave in its wake a small but still significant number of people who report a range of non-specific symptoms. It was also […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Last July, I sent a letter to Benjamin Tolchin, a neurologist at Yale, about the statement, in a 2021 paper for which he was the lead author, regarding prevalence rates for functional neurological disorder (FND). Last month, I sent it again. I’ve still had no response. I am reposting it below […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine published a comment called “A new paradigm is needed to explain long COVID.” Not surprisingly, this “new paradigm” is the same old paradigm that has been applied to ME and CFS patients for decades. That paradigm, of course, has been debunked and discredited–even though many […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Last week, Codastory.com published an article I wrote about Maeve Boothby O’Neill, a 27-year-old in Exeter, England, who died in October, 2021, from complications of ME. The specific cause appears to have been malnutrition. Despite being alerted to the seriousness of Maeve’s condition, the local hospital resisted appeals to insert a […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Proponents of the psychosomatic approach to ME and long Covid–as well as the broader range of so-called “functional” disorders and/or “medically unexplained symptoms”–routinely declare that those who disagree with them are engaging in what they dismissively refer to as mind-body “dualism.” The mind and body are not separate entities, they note, […]
Daniela joins TWiV to discuss her career and her research on T cells, their role in infection with SARS-CoV-2, T cell epitopes and why a variant that evades T cell immunity is not likely to emerge. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Brianne Barker Guest: Daniela Weiskopf Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 975 (58 MB .mp3, 98 […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The last time I was interviewed on camera about my work, I was sitting in a bubble bath with the guy tossing questions at me. That was, of course, my appearance last April on Tub Talks with Damon, a web series in which my friend Damon Jacobs, a gay, sex-positive psychotherapist […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Even though the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is the country’s leading public health agency, other government entities are not always up-to-speed on the latest recommendations. That could explain why the Department of Veterans Affairs appears to be using a variation of the 1988 Holmes definition for […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were infected with two different viruses at the same time? A recent study aimed at addressing this question has produced some astounding new findings. The authors of the study wanted to observe the interactions between respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza A […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The usual suspects—several dozen of them—are apparently about to publish a cri de coeur outlining their objections to the ME/CFS guidelines issued in October, 2021, by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The upcoming article is expected to appear in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. […]
Vincent travels to the NIH campus to speak with Jeffery Taubenberger about his career, the 1918 influenza pandemic, deciphering the genome sequence of the virus from tissues of disease victims and using it to rescue infectious virus.
By David Tuller, DrPH A recent article in the Journal of Neurology presents a twist on the issue of functional neurological disorder (FND). The article, which was published in September, is called “Functional neurological symptoms as initial presentation of Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease: case series.” Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a prion disorder that leads to dementia and death, […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The Journal of Medical Virology has just published a study called “Effect of using a structured pacing protocol on post-exertional symptom exacerbation and health status in a longitudinal cohort with the post-COVID-19 syndrome.” The investigators are from the University of Leeds and the Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust. Post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) […]
By David Tuller, DrPH For the second time in a few weeks, a major US news organization has provided Professor Michael Sharpe, lead PACE investigator and one-time Virology Blog commenter, with a high-profile platform to disseminate his typical blather and nonsense. Both articles—the first in New York Magazine, the second in The New Republic–-have presented […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Dr Signe Flottorp is a promoter of the Lightning Process for ME/CFS as well as the research director at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. That’s a scary combination! Dr Flottorp, a general practitioner, is also a fervent member of the Scandinavian arm of the CBT/GET ideological brigades. She and two […]
By David Tuller, DrPH As part of an ongoing project on long Covid, The Guardian recently published a powerful excerpt from a book called “What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us: Who We Become After Tragedy and Trauma.” The author, Mike Mariani, is an American journalist who a decade ago found himself smacked with a debilitating […]
by Gertrud U. Rey The antiviral drug Paxlovid is highly effective at inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 replication and reducing symptoms associated with COVID-19. Nevertheless, there have recently been numerous reports of recurrence of positive tests and symptoms after completing treatment with Paxlovid, leading some to infer that the drug triggers the recurrence. Is this inference actually correct, […]
By David Tuller, DrPH “The Long COVID Survival Guide: How to Take Care of Yourself and What Comes Next—Stories and Advice from Twenty Long-Haulers and Experts” is pretty much what it sounds like. The anthology was published earlier this month, and each chapter is written by one or more contributors. The topics covered address long […]
Michael Letko joins TWiV to discuss his research on understanding cell receptors required for sarbecovirus entry, including an ACE2-dependent isolate from Russian bats that is resistant to vaccine-induced antibodies.
By David Tuller, DrPH So getting back to that long, ill-informed and poorly reported New York Magazine article on the purportedly psychogenic nature of both long Covid and ME/CFS…I responded in a twitter thread to the article’s misrepresentations of my criticisms about the PACE trial. The journalist, a science writer named Jeff Wise, didn’t interview […]
By David Tuller, DrPH A few prominent news articles have recently drawn welcome attention to the links and overlaps between ME/CFS and long Covid. One key overlap is the core ME/CFS symptom generally known as “post-exertional malaise” (PEM). This term is so embedded in conversations in the ME and ME/CFS worlds that it is easy […]
Infectious Disease physician Jake Scott joins TWiV to provide a west coast clinical perspective on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to the impact of vaccines, antivirals, variants of concern and mortality. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler Guest: Jake Scott Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 952 (63 MB .mp3, 104 […]
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses Influenza incidence and vaccine effectiveness during the southern hemisphere influenza season in Chile, Nirsevimab for prevention of RSV infection in healthy late-preterm and term infants, severe Monkeypox in hospitalized patients, reinfections with different SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants, impact of community masking on COVID-19 in Bangladesh, unadjuvanted intranasal spike vaccine elicits protective […]
by Gertrud U. Rey You are fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 and have presumably never been infected with the virus. But how can you know for sure? One way to find out is by testing your blood for the presence of antibodies against the viral nucleocapsid protein, which can only be encountered during natural infection. This […]
By David Tuller, DrPH [*See correction in third paragraph] Three Norwegian researchers recently published an attack on critics of cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy as treatments for ME. The article, called “Facts and Myths about ME,” was published by the news organization Aftenposten. The authors, from the Scandinavian arm of the CBT/GET ideological […]
By David Tuller, DrPH *October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528 This month marks the seventh anniversary of Virology Blog’s publication of my 15,000-word investigation of the egregiously flawed and fraudulent (i.e. […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The European ME Coalition (EMEC) has published a statement about and an analysis of a recently released report about ME/CFS from a Germany agency, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). With EMEC’s permission, I have re-posted the statement in full below. The original post can be found […]
By David Tuller, DrPH In 2019, Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged grant magnet, was asked to make corrections to the ethics statements in eleven of her papers after a joint report from the Health Research Authority (HRA) and her own institution found deficiencies in her work. (My first post on this […]
By David Tuller, DrPH *October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528 I’ve been waiting to hear from the UK’s Health Research Authority about why seven papers from Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health recently published a paper called “Key Features of a Multi-Disciplinary Hospital-Based Rehabilitation Program for Children and Adolescents with Moderate to Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ME/CFS.” The investigators retrospectively reviewed the records of 27 children and young people (CYP) who were treated […]
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses the prediction of upcoming global infection burden of influenza seasons after relaxation of public health and social measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, severe COVID-19 outcomes after full vaccination of primary schedule and initial boosters, and how successful immunomodulators for treatment of COVID-19 have opened the pathway for comparative trials.
By David Tuller, DrPH *October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528 On October 5th, I got an e-mail from the Health Research Authority in relation to the concerns I had raised with […]
Angela Mingarelli joins TWiV to discuss whether the gut microbiota of bats confers tolerance to influenza virus infection in mice, and primate hemorrhagic fever-causing arteriviruses that can reproduce in human cells and might be capable of infecting humans.
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses a healthcare-associated infection with Monkeypox virus, air and surface sampling for monkeypox virus in a UK hospital, misrepresentation and nonadherence regarding COVID19 public health measures, tolerability and immunogenicity of an intranasally-administered adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine, clinical, virologic, and immunologic evaluation of symptomatic rebound following Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir treatment, early outpatient treatment with Eemdesivir in patients at high risk for severe COVID-19, Molnupiravir plus usual care versus usual care alone as early treatment for adults with COVID-19 at increased risk of adverse outcomes, and outcomes among confirmed cases and a matched comparison group in the long-COVID in Scotland.
By David Tuller, DrPH *October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528 Medical education in the US has not generally included accurate information about ME/CFS. If medical students learned anything at all about […]
Kathryn Hanley joins TWiV to discuss her career and the research in her laboratory on the molecular biology, evolution and ecology of emerging RNA viruses and their insect vectors.
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses high points of the multi-national monkeypox outbreaks, monkeypox virus genome mutations, possible occupational infection of healthcare workers with monkeypox virus, rates of monkeypox cases by vaccination status, protection of SARS-CoV-2 infection against reinfection, Paxlovid significantly reduces COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, and rebound in COVID19 with and without Paxlovid treatment.
By David Tuller, DrPH *October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528 In August, I alerted both the University of Bristol and the UK’s Health Research Authority about a problem. In a joint […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Long COVID is a chronic manifestation of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and it is most commonly characterized by lingering fatigue, brain fog, memory impairment, and confusion. Although it is unclear how the viral infection leads to long COVID, experts speculate that one or more of the following factors may contribute: an inability to […]
By David Tuller, DrPH David Putrino is a neuroscientist and physical therapist at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York. He runs a research lab and rehabilitation center that became a magnet for people grappling with what became known as long Covid–or what the US National Institutes of Health called post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC). A […]
By David Tuller, DrPH As in previous years, October is crowdfunding month at the University of California, Berkeley, and I am once again seeking funds to continue my work on ME, ME/CFS, “medically unexplained symptoms,” and now long Covid. (Link here.) These tax-deductible donations to Berkeley will support my academic position as senior fellow in […]
By David Tuller, DrPH *October is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error: project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/33528 Almost seven years ago—in October, 2015–Virology Blog published my 15,000-word investigation of the arguably fraudulent PACE trial. (Thanks, Professor Racaniello!). At […]
Paul Offit returns to TWiV for a discussion of SARS-CoV-2 bivalent boosters containing ancestral and Omicron spike mRNAs, including their composition, why they are being recommended by CDC, and who would benefit the most from them.
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses increased acute respiratory illnesses among children and adolescents, estimates of monkeypox incubation period, generation time, and reproduction number, rapid increase in suspected SARS-CoV-2 reinfections, interim infection prevention and control recommendations for healthcare personnel during COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 secondary attack rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated household contacts during replacement of delta with omicron variant, breakthrough infection by SARS-CoV-2 delta and omicron variants elicited immune response comparable to mRNA booster vaccination, interval between prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and booster vaccination impacts magnitude and quality of antibody and B cell responses, further humoral immunity evasion of emerging SARS-CoV-2 BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, short-course early outpatient Remdesivir prevents severe disease due to COVID-19 in organ transplant recipients during the Omicron BA.2 wave, effectiveness of Molnupiravir in high risk patients, and primary care and a distinct symptom pattern for long COVID.
By David Tuller, DrPH Last year, Mark Vink, a Dutch physician with ME/CFS, and Friso Vink-Niese, an independent researcher, published a review of occupational outcomes among ME/CFS patients after treatment with either graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). The results were not pretty. When viewed specifically through the perspective of employment status, […]
Eddie Holmes joins TWiV to discuss his role in the first release of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence, what really happened during the infamous Fauci teleconference, and evidence that the virus came from Nature and not from a lab.
Tom Monath joins TWiV to discuss his wide-ranging career that includes medicine, field work and vaccine development while working for the US government, the US military, and multiple biotechnology companies. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit Guest: Tom Monath Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 939 (73 MB .mp3, 121 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email […]
By David Tuller, DrPH When I have previously written about functional neurological disorder, or FND, I have gotten flack from FND patients. I understand from these exchanges that some have taken what I have written as criticizing patients with these diagnoses or dismissing their suffering. That is certainly not my intention. I know these conditions […]
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin reviews the public health response to poliovirus in New York, impact of mandatory influenza vaccination, monkeypox in a young infant, health care worker exposure to monkeypox virus, monkeypox testing delays, transmission potential of monkeypox virus, TPOXX trial for monkeypox, detection of SARS-CoV-2 subgenomic mRNA, mucosal IgA against SARS-CoV-2, BNT262b2 against Omicron, awareness and use of SARS-CoV-2 antivirals, comparable outcomes for Bebtelovimab and Nirmatrelvir, and COVID-19 and Alzheimer's disease.
From the European Society for Clinical Virology 2022 Conference in Manchester UK, Vincent speaks with Emma Thomson about the recent outbreak of pediatric hepatitis of unknown etiology and the finding that it is linked to infection by adenovirus-associated virus 2.
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses detection of a highly divergent type 3 vaccine-derived poliovirus in a child with a severe primary immunodeficiency disorder, severe respiratory illnesses associated with rhinoviruses and/or enteroviruses including EV-D68, effects of vaccination and previous infection on Omicron infections in children, COVID-19-associated hospitalizations among vaccinated and unvaccinated adults 18 years or older in 13 US states, effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines over time prior to Omicron emergence in Ontario, Canada, nasal IgA wanes 9 months after hospitalization with COVID-19 and is not induced by subsequent vaccination, resistance of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant BA.4.6 to antibody neutralization, persistent circulating SARS-CoV-2 spike associated with post-acute COVID-19 sequelae, and impact of COVID-19 vaccination on the risk of developing long-covid and on existing long-covid symptoms.
By David Tuller, DrPH Professor Trudie Chalder recently published a systematic review of CBT and GET studies for “chronic fatigue syndrome” in the journal Psychological Medicine, which seems to publish anything from the CBT/GET ideological brigades, no matter how poorly conducted or reported. Not surprisingly, given its provenance, the review was a piece of crap, […]
By David Tuller, DrPH CNN journalist Ryan Prior is the author of an upcoming book on long Covid called The Long Haul: Solving the Puzzle of the Pandemic’s Long Haulers and How They Are Changing Healthcare Forever. Ryan, who is 32, has struggled with ME/CFS for half of his life—he first got sick in October, […]
By David Tuller, DrPH I recently reported that seven papers from Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet, do not appear to have been corrected, as requested almost three years ago by a report of an investigation into her work. The investigation was commissioned by Bristol along with the […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier this week, I wrote about the bogus systematic review of treatment trials for “chronic fatigue syndrome” published this month by Professor Trudie Chalder in Psychological Medicine. In many respects, as I noted, this journal functions a an in-house marketing or public relations organ for members of the CBT/GET ideological brigades, […]
By David Tuller, DrPH It’s another month, and here’s another worthless paper from Trudie Chalder, King’s College London’s factually and statistically challenged professor of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). In her desperate effort to prove that the treatment paradigm for ME/CFS combining CBT and graded exercise therapy (GET) is evidence-based, she has now published a paper […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Miriam Tucker on Long Covid in WebMd The always reliable Miriam Tucker, who has frequently covered ME/CFS for Medscape and other publications, has just written a piece for WebMD called “Long COVID Mimics Other Post-Viral Conditions.” The article covers some of the similarities in symptoms between long Covid and ME/CFS and […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines are fueling public fears about possible transmission of monkeypox virus through contact with contaminated objects like bedding or clothing. However, data generated using environmental sampling methods indicate that the likelihood of this type of transmission is very low. In a study involving a two-person household in Utah in […]
By David Tuller, DrPH In 2019, a report from the University of Bristol and the UK’s Health Research Authority recommended corrections to the ethics statements of eleven studies. Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol’s ethically and methodologically challenged star researcher and grant magnet, was the main author and/or principal investigator of all eleven papers. In a post […]
By David Tuller, DrPH A few years ago, a valued source alerted me to a strange quirk in the work of pediatrician Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged star researcher and grant magnet. Not all tips are reliable, but this one definitely was. As it turned out, Professor Crawley had–based on a single […]
TWiV reviews the genetic characterization of a new strain of type 2 oral polio vaccine and its implications for eradication, and how a polymorphism in humans comprising a single amino acid change in an antibody molecule regulates vaccine elicitation of broadly neutralizing antibodies against influenza virus HA.
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses antibody response against nonpoliovirus enteroviruses, clinical presentation and virological assessment of confirmed human monkeypox virus cases in Spain, object and surface contamination with monkeypox virus, monkeypox virus infection in humans across 16 countries, clinical characteristics of ambulatory and hospitalized patients with monkeypox virus infection, compassionate use of Tecovirimat […]
By David Tuller, DrPH I’ve sometimes highlighted interesting or enlightening articles, blog posts, and podcasts I’ve read or heard/watched. I’m trying to make sure to keep up with that effort. That’s not always easy, given the volume of material now being produced about ME/CFS, long Covid, so-called “medically unexplained symptoms,” and related issues. But here […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier today, I posted a conversation about post-exertional malaise featuring Todd Davenport, a professor of physical therapy at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. I’d conducted the interview in April but had forgotten to post it here. And here’s another video I forgot to post—what I assume is the […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Todd Davenport is a professor of physical therapy at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He is also part of a research team from Workwell Foundation, an exercise physiology center in Ripon, California, that pioneered the use of 2-day cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) to document the core ME and ME/CFS symptom […]
By David Tuller, DrPH I recently criticized a study from New York University’s neurology department. The investigators wildly over-interpreted their findings in order to argue that postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, is a “functional psychogenic disorder.” This morning, I sent a letter to Brain, the journal that published the paper, on behalf of several […]
By David Tuller, DrPH I have written a few posts about how various health entities have so far not changed the information about ME/CFS on their websites or acknowledged the revised recommendations published by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) last October. In addition to replacing the name CFS/ME with ME/CFS, […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Norovirus and rotavirus are considered to be enteric pathogens because they are traditionally thought to be transmitted by the fecal-oral route; i.e., when consuming food prepared by someone who did not wash their hands properly after using the bathroom. Unlike rabies virus, which replicates in the salivary glands and transmits through […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Research into conditions categorized as “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS) or “functional” disorders seems rife with studies that eagerly interpret associations and correlations as causal relationships. Not surprisingly, these proposed causal relationships tend to flow in the direction required by the investigators’ hypotheses, not in the direction that would undermine their arguments. […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Here are a few things I’ve recently read (or listened to). FreakonomicsMD podcast The Freakonomics brand is well-known in the US. I didn’t realize there was a Freakonomics, M.D. podcast until I listened to this recent half-hour episode. The podcast is hosted by Dr Bapu Jena, a physician and economist at […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Calling out a Trudie Chalder paper is way too easy. It’s also old hat for Virology Blog—going back to 2015 and my initial investigation into the now-discredited PACE trial, of which she was one of three lead investigators. She is a professor of “cognitive behavioural psychotherapy” at King’s College London, so […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Adam Lowe, known in some incarnations as Beyonce Holes, is a longtime ME/CFS patient and advocate in Manchester, England, served as a lay member of the committee that produced the new clinical guidance published last October by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (This conversation was a follow-up […]
Virologist Vincent Racaniello breaks down the first case of polio in the US in nearly a decade.
By David Tuller, DrPH On Monday, The Times (UK) published a story about a 17-year-old girl with ME who has experienced hospital treatment that her family has referred to as “neglect and abuse.” The details are harrowing—but should not be unfamiliar to people aware of similar experiences reported by other teenagers with severe ME. Parents […]
TWiV reviews the FDA decision to update COVID-19 vaccine boosters in the fall, the meaning of fatigue with respect to long COVID, and a skin volatile induced by flavivirus reproduction that attracts mosquitoes to the infected host.
In COVID-19 clinical update #123, Dr. Griffin discusses rapid diagnostic testing in response to the monkeypox outbreak, leading causes of death in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, antibody evasion by subvariants, broadly-neutralizing antibodies against emerging variants, factors associated with severe outcomes among hospitalized immunocompromised adults, measurement of the burden of hospitalizations during the pandemic, parental vaccine hesitancy in diverse communities, evaluating saliva sampling to improve access to diagnosis in low-resource settings, oral sabizabulin for high-risk hospitalized adults, lower-risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, and neurovascular injury with complement activation and inflammation during infection.
By David Tuller, DrPH I recently noted that BMJ Paediatrics Open did not publish the peer review history of a 2021 study from a team led by Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. The study (Clery et al) was titled “Qualitative study of the acceptability and feasibility of […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Yesterday, I wrote a blog about a just-published but already out-dated conference abstract from a team led by Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet. After I tweeted about it, I heard from Naomi Harvey, a zoologist, who said she’d written to BJPsychOpen about the […]
By David Tuller, DrPH What is going on with Professor Esther Crawley, Bristol University’s methodologically and ethically challenged pediatrician and grant magnet? And why is she still disseminating misguided views about treatments for vulnerable children? Haven’t kids suffered enough from the discredited claims of the GET/CBT ideological brigades? Just last week, the East Kent Hospitals […]
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. […]
Although monkeypox cases continue to increase around the world, the average person is at low risk of becoming infected.
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 […]
TWiV discusses the recent decision by an FDA advisory committee to update COVID vaccines for the fall, the monkeypox virus outbreak, and the finding that enteric viruses infect the salivary glands and are transmitted through saliva.
Nels and Vincent discuss an analysis of the drivers of evolution of SARS-CoV-2 during chronic infections, indicating that a tradeoff exists between antibody evasion and fitness.
In COVID-19 clinical update #121, Dr. Griffin discusses age as a risk factor for severe disease, updated vaccine boosters for the fall, pediatric infection and antibody seroprevalence in Arkansas over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, all-cause maternal mortality in the United States before and during the pandemic, and the effect of 2-week interruption in methotrexate treatment and how it impacts vaccine immunity.
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 […]
TWiV provides an update on hepatitis of unknown etiology in children, an experimental nanoparticle vaccine for Epstein-Barr virus, and minimal impact of bamlanivimab therapy on antiviral antibodies induced by vaccination. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 911 (76 MB .mp3, 127 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show […]
In COVID-19 clinical update #119, Dr. Griffin reviews tixagevimab for infection prevention, ivermectin for outpatient infection treatment, symptom rebound after PAXLOVID treatment, bamlanivimab minimally impacting immune response to vaccination, in-hospital mortality among infection patients, residual viral antigen in patients following infection, usage of Casirvimab/Imdevimab and Remdesivir in infected patients with depleted B-cells, and rheumatic symptoms […]
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 […]
TWiV reviews human monkeypox infections, evidence for human Mimivrus infections, and incidence of long COVID in post-vaccine SARS-CoV-2 infections.
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 […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Herd immunity occurs when a large enough percentage of the population has acquired either natural or vaccine-induced immunity against an infectious disease, thereby indirectly protecting a minority of non-immune individuals who are dispersed throughout the population. During this pandemic, many prominent scientists have stated that it is impossible to achieve herd […]
By David Tuller, DrPH It’s déjà vu all over again in Norway with the Lightning Process (LP). Earlier this month, a national research ethics authority, NEM, postponed a decision on a proposed LP trial until at least June. The trial has already been approved by a regional committee. The NEM had been expected to decide […]
It was my great honor to be selected as the Richard R Ernst Lecturer for 2022. The aim of the Richard R. Ernst Lecture is to strengthen the relationship and understanding between the sciences, society, and politics and to raise awareness for the questions and challenges our global society is facing today and will face in the future.
In this special episode, Dr. Griffin answers questions about the recent cases of monkeypox including their origin, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and overall risk.
By David Tuller, DrPH Last year, King College London’s professor of cognitive behaviour therapy, Trudie Chalder, published another one of her extremely incompetent papers. This one is so statistically challenged as to be truly mind-boggling, even by Professor Chalder’s extremely low standards. A team of purportedly expert researchers has mangled descriptions of their own data […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a long history of missteps when it comes to the illness or cluster of illnesses currently called ME/CFS—as anyone who has read Osler’s Web knows. In the more recent past—2017–the agency dropped its unfortunate endorsement of the discredited GET/CBT treatment approach but […]
TWiV reviews recent cases of monkeypox, presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA but not infectious virus in feces, and the association of autoantibodies to interferons with severe COVID-19.
In COVID-19 clinical update #115, Dr. Griffin reviews cross-variant immunity without vaccination, EUA for boosters in 5-11 year olds, B.1.1.529 attack rate, scent dogs, Omicron and pets, Paxlovid, Veklury, Fluvoxamine, antigen positivity after isolation, inflammasome activation and severe disease, and GI persistence and fecal shedding.
TWiV celebrates 900 episodes, Vincent gives the Richard R. Ernst lecture, and we discuss why inflammasome activation in infected macrophages drives severe COVID-19. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 900 (65 MB .mp3, 108 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
By David Tuller, DrPH David Putrino is a neuroscientist and physical therapist at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. He runs a research lab and a rehabilitation center that quickly became a magnet for patients grappling with what has come to be known as long Covid–what the US National Institutes of Health calls post-acute sequelae […]
by Gertrud U. Rey Errors during viral replication can give rise to shortened and/or rearranged genomic sequences known as “defective viral genomes” (DVGs). Because DVGs often lack critical elements needed for replication and formation of new viral particles, virions containing DVGs can only complete a replication cycle if they co-infect a cell together with respective […]
TWiV explains a study of how climate change is predicted to increase cross-species viral transmission risk, and increased memory B cell potency and breadth after a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine boost. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, and Amy Rosenfeld Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 896 (65 MB .mp3, 108 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at […]
In COVID-19 clinical update #112, Dr. Griffin reviews seroprevalence of infection-induced antibodies, Moderna filing for vaccine authorization in young children, public health impact of vaccines in US, FDA approval of first treatment for young children, phase 2 data for Sabizabulin, and post infection inflammation.
TWiV explains what is known about cases of acute, severe hepatitis of unknown origin in children, and discovery of an inhibitor of TMPRSS2 protease that blocks SARS-CoV-2 infection.
By David Tuller, DrPH *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 And here’s another major trial designed by investigators who think that an exercise program might be the optimal strategy for treating […]
Elke, Adam, and Gabor join TWiV to discuss their work on Lloviu virus, a filovirus, including recovery of infectious virus from a DNA copy of the genome and from Schreiber's bats in Hungary.
By David Tuller, DrPH *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 It is clear that long Covid—however that term is defined–is having enormous impacts on employment, social benefits, disability insurance, and other […]
By David Tuller, DrPH *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 Last Friday, I interviewed poet, journalist and editor Meghan O’Rourke about The Invisible Kingdom, her insightful and affecting memoir of living […]
This episode of TWiV is focused on COVID-19 vaccines and antibodies: who should get boosters, whether a variant matched mRNA vaccine is superior to a historical vaccine, and how the interval between vaccination and infection influences the quality of the antibody response.
outbreaks, viral load in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, predictive capacity of symptoms in children, comparison of antigen tests, incidence of myocarditis after vaccination, steroids during replication phase, Paxlovid efficacy and safety, fluvoxamine, sabizabutin, colchicine, and prevalence of infection in Africa.
By David Tuller, DrPH April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 Note: To give credit where it’s due, Magical Medicine: How to Make an Illness Disappear, an exhaustive investigation from Malcolm Hooper […]
Richard joins TWiV to discuss the SARS-CoV-2 antiviral drug Molnupiravir , including how it was discovered, its mechanism of action, whether it is a mutagen for cells, and the future of drugs for treatment of COVID-19.
Virologists Amy Rosenfeld and Vincent Racaniello answer your COVID-19 questions (or any virus questions) on this livestream of 4/13/22 at 8:30 PM eastern US.
By David Tuller, DrPH *April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347 Professors Peter White, Trudie Chalder and Michael Sharpe seem to have embarked on what could be called the PACE Rehabilitation Tour. […]
TWiV explains why this season's influenza vaccine is not protecting against mild to moderate disease caused by H3N2 virus, and that antibody-dependent entry of SARS-CoV-2 into monocytes is a major contributor to severe COVID-19.
In COVID-19 clinical update #109, Daniel Griffin discusses cardiac complications after infection or vaccination, long COVID in children, fourth vaccine dose in Israel, no need for fourth vaccine dose in EU, dexamethasone dosing, immunomodulation therapy, MIS outcomes in children, US long COVID effort launched, and herd immunity.
By David Tuller, DrPH April is crowdfunding month at UC Berkeley. If you like my work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeley’s School of Public Health to support the Trial By Error project: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/31347*** I wrote recently about the problematic REGAIN study from the University of Warwick, which is testing an exercise-and-psychological-rehab program as […]
Several new lines of evidence suggest that Epstein-Barr virus infection may be a risk factor for the development of multiple sclerosis.
TWiV reveals an ACE2-dependent sarbecovirus from Russian bats that is not inhibited by anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, and a modified vaccinia virus Ankara vectored vaccine that protects nonhuman primates from Delta infection.
Virologists Amy Rosenfeld and Vincent Racaniello answer your COVID-19 questions (or any virus questions) on this livestream of 4/6/22 at 8:30 PM eastern US.
Vincent and Amy explain how asthmatic bronchial smooth muscle increases rhinovirus replication in the bronchial epithelium, and mimicry of IL-17 by the ORF8 protein of SARS-CoV-2.
In clinical update #107, Daniel Griffin reviews vaccine booster doses, at-home testing, transmission in hamsters, improving indoor air quality, trials of BCG, ivermectin, and fluvoxamine, vaccination during pregnancy, mRNA vaccines and Fc functions, anti-platelet and aspirin therapy and a trial of prone positioning.
Virologists Amy Rosenfeld and Vincent Racaniello answer your COVID-19 questions (or any virus questions) on this livestream of 3/30/22 at 8:30 PM eastern US.
By David Tuller, DrPH I've been writing for a while about the rush to treat long Covid patients with the outdated and debunked approach long applied to ME/CFS. A major effort to demonstrate that an exercise program can lead to "recovery" from long Covid, sponsored by the University of Warwick and funded with £1.200,000 from […]
TWiV describes the identification of a monoclonal antibody that provides broad protection against a variety of hantaviruses, and development of an oral remdesivir-like antiviral that ameliorates viral disease in mice.
In COVID-19 clinical update #107, Daniel Griffin discusses Moderna vaccine results in children, hospitalization by ethnicity, BA.2 severity in children, placentitis and thrombohematoma during pregnancy, predictive value of symptoms for diagnosis, Evusheld activity against BA.1 and BA.2, Remdesivir resistance, Ivermectin with and without strongyloidiasis, inhaled ciclesonide, home telemonitoring, pulse oximetry for remote monitoring, effectiveness of anti-platelet therapy, and deaths in Zambia.
TWiV reviews the emergence of remdesivir-resistant SARS-CoV-2 during treatment of a persistently infected immunocompromised patient, and how altered TMPRSS2 utilization by the Omicron variant influences infectivity and fusion.
Virologists Amy Rosenfeld and Vincent Racaniello answer your COVID-19 questions (or any virus questions) on this livestream of 3/23/22 at 8:30 PM eastern US.
TWiV revisits chronic wasting disease of cervids and the ability of the prions to infect meadow voles and raccoons, and the suggestion that stochastic assembly of influenza virus particles may play a role in phenotypic diversity.
In COVID-19 clinical update #106, Daniel Griffin covers failure of ivermectin to improve hospitalization, increased hospitalization of children with Omicron, seroconversion of children versus adults, effectiveness of Pfizer mRNA vaccine in children, high vaccine effectiveness in Finland against Omicron, distinct long COVID clinical phenotypes, and estimating worldwide excess mortality.
One aspect of virology that is confusing to students is the concepts of capsids and nucleocapsids. These two terms describe two different ways that viral nucleic acids and proteins are arranged in virus particles. The capsid (from the Latin capsa for box) is the protein shell surrounding the nucleic acid genome. Below are two different […]
Michael Worobey joins TWiV to explain evidence that SARS-CoV-2 emerged via the wildlife trade and that the Huanan market was the unambiguous epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
TWiV discusses the virome of game animals in China, and the finding that binding of sarbecoviruses to ACE2 is an ancestral and evolvable trait.
In COVID-19 clinical update #105, Daniel Griffin discusses changes in brain structure after infection, dementia in patients with pneumonia, Paxlovid in children, mask effectiveness in schools, host factors and severe disease, post-acute symptoms, and the mission of CEPI. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 874 (49 MB .mp3, 41 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes […]
TWiV reviews the six known coronaviruses that infect pigs and what can be learned about human infections, and how the giant Mimivirus DNA genome is organized into a nucleocapsid.
By David Tuller, DrPH This week, a journal under the umbrella of the British Journal of General Practice published–and a day later unpublished–a laudatory piece about the Lightning Process from a Lightning Process practitioner. The author, Anna Chellamuthu, is also a GP at Royal Cornwall Hospital. She wrote that the controversial program combining neurolinguistic program, […]
In COVID-19 clinical update #104, Daniel Griffin reviews effectiveness of mRNA vaccines among children, number of children affected by disease, accuracy of rapid antigen tests, CDC guidance for prevention strategies, monoclonal antibody effectiveness, predicting progression to severe respiratory failure from pneumonia, risk of long COVID after two vaccine doses, and peripheral neuropathy in long COVID.
Intranasal administration with a single dose of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccine induces potent immune responses.
By David Tuller, DrPH In what could be described as a form of epistemic land grab, core members of the graded exercise therapy/cognitive behavior therapy (GET/CBT) ideological brigades have proposed a “research agenda” for long Covid that reflects the premises of their crumbling treatment paradigm for ME/CFS. This is not surprising. It has been clear […]
TWiV discusses whether or not Omicron should be designated a new serotype of SARS-CoV-2, and the finding that amino acid changes that adapt SARS-CoV-2 to mink or ferret do not increase fitness in the human airway.
In COVID-19 clinical update #103, Daniel Griffin covers immunocompromised people, hospitalization of children, vaccine usage update, Omicron and cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies, reinfection prevents disease in hamsters, repeated infections with endemic coronaviruses, global burden of antimicrobial resistance, ivermectin not protective in hamsters, and Omicron evades therapeutic monoclonals. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 870 (52 MB .mp3, 43 […]
TWiV reviews epidemiological and experimental evidence that infection with Epstein-Barr virus leads to the production of antibodies against a viral protein that cross-react with a human protein, leading to multiple sclerosis.
In COVID-19 clinical update #102, Daniel Griffin reviews children and COVID, effectiveness of maternal vaccination, vaccines for immunocompromised, primary care physicians and vaccination rates, booster safety among adults, placentitis, azithromycin, oral Nirmatrelvir, Omicron antibody evasion, EUA for bebtelovimab, IL-1 blocking agents, thromboprophylaxis, effectiveness of vaccines against long COVID, and risks of mental health outcomes.
By David Tuller, DrPH Updated on March 2, 2022: Yesterday I received a thoughtful note from Professor Miek Jong in response to my recent letter to her (see below) regarding the effort on the part of a leading Norwegian doctor to denigrate my work by describing me as an “activist.” I have sent Professor Jong […]
TWiV reviews an experimental, intranasally administered SARS-CoV-2 vaccine that utilizes adenovirus vectors to deliver three viral proteins and induces immunity to ancestral and variant isolates. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 867 (128 MB .mp3, 107 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
From the authors of Paul Has Measles, Paul Stays Home, and Paul and the Mosquitos, comes Paul’s Uncle Doesn’t Want to Get Vaccinated, an illustrated book for children about vaccines and vaccine hesitancy. Uncle Henry doesn’t want to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Paul, Sophie, and Luis are afraid that he will get sick, so they show him […]
Amy returns to TWiV to discuss her work on the identification of cross-reactive antibody responses among diverse enteroviruses, and the implications for our understanding of viral pathogenesis and seroprevalence studies.
In COVID-19 clinical update #101, Daniel Griffin discusses children and COVID, human challenge study results, effectiveness of mask use, Omicron boost in macaques, mucosal vaccine candidate, long-term cardiovascular outcomes, and global vaccine perceptions.
By David Tuller, DrPH The Lancet has just published an anguished whine de coeur from supporters of the graded exercise therapy/cognitive behavior therapy/ [GET/CBT] approach to ME/CFS. (Or CFS/ME, as these authors insist on calling the illness in what those familiar with the debate will recognize as a childish fit of pique.) These impassioned members […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Earlier this week, I wrote to Helena Liira of the Helsinki University Central Hospital about a new trial of “amygdala and insula retraining” for so-called “functional disorders”—fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome along with ME/CFS and long Covid. (I critiqued the trial here.) In particular, I wondered how the investigators justified use […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Update: I have sent the following letter to the responsible person listed on the clinical trial registration for the Finnish study of “amygdala and insula retraining”: Dear Dr Lira– I am a public health researcher and journalist with the Center for Global Public Health, part of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. I frequently […]
Nels joins TWiV to discuss hypotheses for the origins of Omicron, including that it came from mice or arose during chronic infection of an immunocompromised patient. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker Guest: Nels Elde Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 861 (69 MB .mp3, 114 min)Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes […]
A capsid-like protein derived from an ancient retrotransposon family may help regulate learning and memory.
TWiV reviews a seminal paper showing that chemically modified bases in RNAs suppress recognition by Toll-like receptors, a finding that that was essential for the development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
In COVID-19 clinical update #99, Daniel Griffin discusses Omicron disease severity, neurologic manifestations in children, testing outcomes during multiple infections, boosters improve VE and VD, booster efficacy for ED and UC encounters, vaccines induce cross-protective T cell memory, and indications for monoclonal antibody therapy.
By David Tuller, DrPH Apparently, after 30+ years of promoting cognitive behavior therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (so-called), Professor Trudie Chalder has discovered something new: Patients worry a lot! And those with worse symptoms tend to have higher worry levels! She believes CBT for CFS can be tweaked to make a difference. She presents this […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Now here’s a paper called “The Effects of Messaging on Expectations and Understanding of Long COVID: An Online Randomised Trial,” from researchers at the UK’s Health Security Agency. Two of the nine authors, including the senior author who conceived the study, are also affiliated with a National Institute for Health Research […]
By David Tuller, DrPH More than ten years ago, Natalie Boulton and her son, Josh, made a film called “Voices from the Shadows,” about the plight of ME patients. Natalie, from Bristol, England, was intimately familiar with the issue because of the long-time illness of her daughter, Anna. The film, a harrowing depiction of the […]
TWiV reviews findings that increased fitness of the Omicron variant is due to immune evasion, not an increase in intrinsic transmissibility, and determination of infectious viral load in patients infected with wild type, Delta and Omicron viruses reveals lack of correlation with RNA loads determined by RT-PCR, similar levels of shedding among Delta and Omicron, […]
In COVID-19 clinical update #97, Daniel Griffin covers immunity after infection recognized by CDC, outcomes before and after Omicron, infectious viral load in Delta vs Omicron, PCR vs rapid antigen tests, booster interval shortened to 5 months, risk factors for severe outcomes in vaccinated, cross-reactive memory T cells, vaccine effectiveness vs MIS-C, and Rivaroxiban for […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Can Dogs Smell Compounds Associated with Host Response in Long Covid? It can be unwise to pay attention to research published on a pre-print server before it has been through a peer-review process. Although passing through peer-review is itself no guarantee of quality, the process represents at least one layer of […]
by Amy B. Rosenfeld I do not advocate testing for any person vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 unless they display severe symptoms or live with those who for whom vaccines are not yet approved. I understand that testing and isolation are mechanisms to break virus transmission chains and were used at the beginning of the pandemic to […]
The TWiV team reviews the observation that infection with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant causes reduced reproduction and pathogenesis in mice and hamsters. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 851 (61 MB .mp3, 102 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe/twiv
In COVID-19 clinical update #96, Daniel Griffin reviews Omicron in South Africa, rapid antigen tests, viral coinfections, isolation and quarantine, saliva preferred for Omicron, risk factors for severe disease in vaccinated, Paxlovid dosing, and long COVID. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 850 (58 MB .mp3, 48 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
By David Tuller, DrPH Since the emergence of the phenomenon now called long Covid (or Long COVID, depending on news organization), skeptics have been out in full force. Even as huge numbers of people experience a range of sequelae after a bout of Covid-19, some experts maintain that common non-specific symptoms, like cognitive impairment and […]
HSV-1 virions capture the cellular motor protein kinesin from initially infected epithelial cells and ferry it to subsequently infected neuronal cells to deliver their genome into the nucleus of those cells.
By David Tuller, DrPH Last month, the journal Occupational Medicine published an innumerate article from Professor Trudie Chalder and several colleagues at King’s College London, called “Chronic fatigue syndrome and occupational status: a retrospective longitudinal study.” Professor Brian Hughes, a psychologist at National University of Ireland, Galway, and I alerted the journal of some disqualifying […]
TWiV explores the impact of the intestinal virome on seroconversion after rotavirus vaccination, and implications of the ability of the SARS-CoV-2 beta variant to infect wild-type laboratory mice. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 846 (61 MB .mp3, 102 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
In COVID-19 clinical update #94, Daniel Griffin reviews the FDA EUA for Paxlovid, test to stay in school, immunity after infection, variants and therapeutics, quarantine and isolation guidelines, Molnupiravir in non-hospitalized patients, and convalescent serum in outpatients. Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Vincent Racaniello Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 845 (58 MB .mp3, 48 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Last week, Brian Hughes and I sent a letter to Occupational Medicine, which recently published yet another of Professor Trudie Chalder’s awful papers. Among other problems, Professor Chalder and her four co-authors completely misstated their own findings in the text of the paper. We called for retraction of the paper. In […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has a poor record when it comes to ME/CFS. It has a history of pushing the graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) approach outlined in the now-discredited PACE trial. These interventions were based on the notion that the symptoms were perpetuated […]
Viruses of bacteria (bacteriophages or phages) have been engaged in a battle with their bacterial hosts for hundreds of millions of years. This conflict has driven the evolution of multiple bacterial defenses against phages, such as CRISPR-CAS and restriction/modification systems. But phages have also been engaged with other phages: apparently sharing a host is frowned […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Members of the CBT/GET ideological brigades produce a gusher of dreck, and I don’t bother commenting on most of their work. Life’s too short. So it can be easy to lose sight of how flawed and truly awful each individual paper can be. But even among this flood of scientifically deficient […]
TWiV provides an update on immunity to Omicron, results of a randomized controlled trial of face masks, and a study of correlates of protection against respiratory syncytial virus infection in the upper and lower respiratory tract of nonhuman primates. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 841 (63 MB .mp3, 105 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
In COVID-19 clinical update #92, Dr. Griffin reviews emerging data on the Omicron variant, much information about monoclonal antibody treatment, including expansion of EUA for Lilly’s cocktail, FDA EUA for pre-exposure prophylaxis, outcomes after treatment, and investigation of subcutaneous or intramuscular administration; effect of adding immunomodulatory agents to usual care on thromboembolic events, and long […]
By David Tuller, DrPH A few days ago, I wrote a post about yet another atrocious paper from Professor Trudie Chalder—this one called “Chronic fatigue syndrome and occupational status: a retrospective longitudinal study. Professor Chalder and her colleagues seem constitutionally incapable of writing anything that isn’t marred by massive flaws. In this case, as I […]
It will be some time before a substantial fraction of the human population is immunized to prevent COVID-19. In the meantime, widespread use of face masks can have an impact on disease, a conclusion suggested by results of a trial carried out in Bangladesh. WHO would not recommend the use of face masks until June […]
TWiV reviews the impact of vaccination on SARS-CoV-2, the latest information on Omicron, West Nile virus transmission by organ transplantation, and why a 16 week interval between doses of BNT162b2 vaccine is better than a shorter interval. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 839 (64 MB .mp3, 107 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
By David Tuller, DrPH Same-Day Update: In re-reading the new paper, I noticed that the discussion section also features errors involving the percentages. It includes this sentence: “About 9% of individuals who were not working at baseline had returned to work at follow-up.” And this one: “Further, 6% of those working at baseline were no […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Another Anti-Science Campaigner Takes Aim at NICE The anti-science zealots do not give up easily. Now Live Landmark, the Norwegian Lightning Process practitioner, has written an opinion piece blasting the new evidence-based guidelines for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). I assume she is not just […]
This post describes the case of a woman who appears to have been naturally cured of her HIV infection.
TWiV reviews why children should be vaccinated against COVID-19, increased risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 Beta, Gamma, and Delta variant compared to Alpha variant in vaccinated but not recovered individuals, and immune correlates of protection from the mRNA-1273 vaccine efficacy trial. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 835 (59 MB .mp3, 99 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show notes at […]
In COVID-19 clinical update #90, Dr. Griffin covers FDA expansion for booster doses, 3 more at home antigen tests approved by FDA, immune correlates analysis of mRNA-1273 vaccine, risk for stillbirth, PROVENT prophylaxis trial results, fluvoxamine recommendations, advice on molnupiravir, automated text messaging service for monitoring illness, and long COVID-19 after vaccination and infection. Click […]
By David Tuller, DrPH Adam Lowe, a patient, was one of five lay people on the committee pulled together by Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to work on the new ME/CFS guideline. He and I spoke recently on Zoom about his role in the process.
TWiV reviews Michael Worobey's dissection of the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, and the discovery that herpesviruses assimilate cellular kinesin to produce motorized virus particles. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 833 (77 MB .mp3, 128 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
TWiV reviews the vials labeled smallpox that were not, re-emergence of enterovirus D68 in Europe, efficacy of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, and cellular correlates of protection for an oral influenza virus vaccine. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 832 (77 MB .mp3, 128 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
In COVID-19 clinical update #89, Dr. Griffin reviews upcoming meeting on FDA emergency use authorization for molnupiravir, 25% of US cases in children, reinfection associates with presence of antibodies, national surveillance for acute flaccid myelitis in the US, and monoclonal antibody treatment of infection in vaccinated, high-risk individuals. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 831 (20 MB .mp3, […]
By David Tuller, DrPH The October 29th publication of the new guideline for ME/CFS from Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) represented an enormous and humiliating repudiation of the PACE trial and the many related studies of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) as treatments for the illness. That […]
TWiV explains that a recent report suggesting that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein inhibits V(D)J recombination in vitrowould not impact immunity after infection or vaccination, and describes the isolation of remdesivir resistant mutants in cells in culture, and the emergence of amino acid changes in the spike protein identical to those in variants of concern, in the […]
By David Tuller, DrPH In late October, the UK’s National institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) released its new ME/CFS guideline, which specifically recommend against graded exercise therapy (GET) and a specialized form of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Last week, I wrote about how King’s College London continues to host a page on “CBT […]
By David Tuller, DrPH For years, London’s Science Media Centre has fiercely promoted research into graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for the illness or cluster of illnesses variously referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome, myalgic encephaloymyelitis, CFS/ME, ME/CFS, and other names. Some of the prominent experts in this field have had […]
A TWiV duo reviews how SARS-CoV-2 attacks the olfactory mucosa but spares the olfactory bulb, vaccination with BNT162b2 induces virus-specific stem cell memory T cells, and development of an oral protease inhibitor for the treatment of COVID-19. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 829 (67 MB .mp3, 112 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
In COVID-19 clinical update #88, Dr. Griffin covers vaccine protection among US veterans, absence of long COVID in vaccinated who are infected, single dose of REGEN-COV monoclonal antibody cocktail provides long term protection, and Pfizer protease inhibitor Paxlovid is 89% effective in preventing hospitalization or death. Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
Did you know that the innate immune DNA sensor TLR9 is on the membrane of red blood cells? I didn’t know that. To learn about why it’s there, listen to Immune episode #50. In that episode we review evidence that toll-like receptor 9 on the surface of red blood cells binds DNA, leading to uptake […]
Multiple vaccines have been developed that have made substantial contributions to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, but where are the antivirals? Only repurposed drugs have been used and not with much success. That situation seems about to change with the authorization of drugs that target the RNA polymerase (Molnupiravir) and a viral protease (Paxlovid). Molnupiravir is […]
By David Tuller, DrPH It is hard enough to write when you’re feeling healthy. So I’m in awe of people who manage to write despite suffering from a debilitating chronic illness—especially one that messes around with cognitive functioning. That number includes some ME patients who have written novels. (I don’t write fiction; I have a […]
By David Tuller, DrPH A week ago, Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published its new, evidence-based guideline for ME/CFS, which recommended against graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavior therapy offered as curative rather than as supportive care. Not surprisingly, this event creates some public relations problems for members of the CBT/GET ideological […]
Rhesus macaques that are vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 are protected from severe disease and probably transmit very little virus when infected with SARS-CoV-2 one year later.
By David Tuller, DrPH *For more about the significance of the new NICE guideline for ME/CFS, the blog ME/CFS Skeptic has this excellent summary. Also, psychologist Brian Hughes covers the deep concerns of leading medical groups that the guideline recommends against the Lightning Process. It is not surprising that esteemed experts whose research has been […]