Article in The Lancet

[budgiefriend]

I don't know what to think about this. Maybe those of you who have political insight and like a spy or detective challenge will have ideas.

thelancet.com/journals/lanc...

[Ian123]

Ben Goldacre in his books - Bad Science, Bad Pharma has pointed out that the emperor has no clothes but as can be expected this is not a popular view amongst the vested interest groups. The FINE and PACE trials are evidence of such poor science attempting validation of theories that would be used in blocking research funding of bio medical research.

[RockRose in reply to Ian123]

(Forgive me a side-comment - yet I wonder what would happen if the FINE and PACE researchers received CBT to help them examine their pre-existing beliefs?)

[Ian123 in reply to RockRose]

The pre existing beliefs have provided lucrative research funding for over twenty years, a fear of changing behaviour would not be irrational given their employment prospects selling snake oil elsewhere.

[RockRose]

V. interesting, BudgieFriend, though I long left M15...

If I read this right, this lays down a gauntlet on medical research principles, including scale and validation - recognising a wider issue in research at large.

I wonder if this fits with WHO findings on medical research (and whether it is published or unpublished) - I haven't read that yet, but sense a tension around who are the gate-keepers and their motivations, potential vested interests?

And I know physicists passionately engaged with 'truth' of defining appropriate scientific frameworks....and who meet walls of internal politics on getting 'heard'...and so I won't go there...

Then I think about education - and how fields are defined and structured in the first place

and later down the line, competition between 'fields', perceiving tensions between 'hard' and 'soft' science for respect, status, funding and even sometimes - half-joking- I dare say, supremacy !

I say this from concern at the silo effects this thinking generates... in our current structures and practice...

wondering about the cross-over between 'fields', and the 'jet lag' in thinking and sharing between them...

And conversely...seeing potential wisdom in genuine multi-disciplinary approaches to solve 'difficult and unsolved' medical problems - based on sound research frameworks and standards, with care, ingenuity and rational thinking combined and absolutely well facilitated...

[RockRose in reply to RockRose]

PS Also makes me think again about the different disciplines within medicine...and where 'homes' for research are based (which may bias thinking?)

I notice in another website 'Health Rising' a question about where ME/CFS research sits - to ensure best possibility of funding- which is importsnt (for respect, political and financial levers).

I think they were looking at - is it neurology? Is it infectious diseases and immunology? (I notice my local CFS clinic places it under endocrinology...and the next nearest clinic places it under psychoneuroimminology...)

And to add to analogies (I love and respect the Emperor's New Clothes analogy, as Ian says), feels like describing the proverbial elephant from their different angles...maybe each has a 'jot' of truth, yet how does it add up as a whole?

And I won't mention the elephant in the room...