Hi all,

In case anyone in the ME community hasn’t seen it, this is an excellent letter from several leading academics including Professor Ronald Davis (Stanford) and Professor Jonathan Edwards (UCL) to The Lancet, dissecting PACE and requesting a re-analysis of trial data by independent assessors. Given The Lancet’s history as a cheerleader for the PACE study, we don’t hold out high expectations for a change in attitude from that journal or its editor Dr Richard Horton, but we can but hope.

As has been mentioned by ourselves and many others over the past few few years, PACE is staggeringly bad science and in our opinion is a stain on the British scientific community, the sooner it is dead and buried the better. Historically, it has been difficult for members of the ME community to critique any study promoted by the Wessely school of psychogenic conjecturists, as however qualified those offering the criticism have been, the response from the British medical establishment, led by the likes of Dr Horton, has been dismissive and abusive. Apparently we are just a ‘vocal minority’ unable to accept the ‘help’ offered by our betters. Hopefully such condescending and patronising language is now behind us and those who have been promoting a failed hypothesis for three decades will go quietly into the night.

http://www.virology.ws/2015/11/13/an-open-letter-to-dr-richard-horton-and-the-lancet/

UWS