Some examples of comedy are jarringly impactful precisely because they feel so authentic. A personal favourite of mine is the 1984 movie This is Spinal Tap, the legendary mockumentary depicting a fictional English rock band attempting to rescue their dwindling reputations by organising one last big-splash concert tour. It is […]
Whether to laugh or to cry, truly that is the question. Professors of psychology can be a strange breed. While some are blind to their own faults, others are are obsessively self-critical. Perhaps this is why the field of psychology has been described as being “in crisis” since (at least) […]
Having spent years casting their critics as angry anti-science activists, some of our favourite panjandrums have now entered Phase 3 in their own year-long campaign of (a) getting angry, (b) engaging in activism, and, yes, (c) throwing science-based medicine under the bus. Here is what the Royal College of Physicians […]
Whether to laugh or to cry, truly that is the question. Professors of psychology can be a strange breed. While some are blind to their own faults, others are are obsessively self-critical. Perhaps this is why the field of psychology has been described as being “in crisis” since (at least) […]
We are under attack! Well, at least at my university we are. A cyber attack that is. As a result, all our IT systems are down and there is widespread disruption. Coming in the middle of a pandemic (yes, I said “middle”), it is certainly creating quite a lot of […]
[UPDATED: 29 October 2021] 1. What’s going on? 2. How is the new guideline different to the old one? 3. Why is the new guideline being welcomed? 4. Why was the old guideline problematic? 5. How did NICE arrive at the new guideline? 6. Was NICE overly harsh in using […]
David Tuller and I have written a response to an alarming research paper that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. We have posted a preprint with the Open Science Foundation, and David has also posted the text in full over on Virology […]
Ireland often likes to see itself as a cosmopolitan kind of place, where the world’s tourists, investors, and bohemian artistes are promised the traditional hundred thousand welcomes. As the most recent example of our keenness to globalise, witness our incorporation of the latest intellectual trend: delusional-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-based anarchy! Last weekend’s violence […]
It turns out that not all medical doctors are infallible. Who knew? Some of them, it seems, dally at the margins of pseudoscience. Take for example the latest BMJ Op-Ed from the doctor who cured himself of long COVID. He says he did so through positive thinking. Go him! ‘Pseudoscience’ is […]
I have recently been quoted in not just one, but two recent articles about the controversial psychotherapy, the Lightning Process (insert your own “lightning-never-strikes-twice” joke here). Quite apart from my own contributions, both articles are well worth reading. * * * The first is from David Tuller, part of his […]
Here is my letter to the BMJ. I think it is pretty self-explanatory (nonetheless, I have added some additional context below the fold): Date: Sep 11, 2019To: <Fiona Godlee>, Editor in Chief, BMJRE: BMJ’s scientifically and ethically indefensible decision about Bristol’s Lightning Process study Dear Dr Godlee, First of all, […]
[UPDATED: 29 October 2021] 1. What’s going on? 2. How is the new guideline different to the old one? 3. Why is the new guideline being welcomed? 4. Why was the old guideline problematic? 5. How did NICE arrive at the new guideline? 6. Was NICE overly harsh in using […]
The very fact they call themselves “Royal Colleges” should have been a sign. Simply put, some of these folks have a rather high opinion of themselves. There seems to be a widespread view within Britain’s “Royal Colleges” that they form a kind of medical aristocracy, a ruling class with feudal […]
To fully understand the future, it is important to know the past. Next week, we finally get to see that long awaited new NICE treatment guideline for ME/CFS. As regular readers will know, all indications so far suggest the new guideline will be dramatically different from the old one. Graded […]
I was delighted to be part of this panel discussion on Gez Medinger‘s YouTube channel, RUN-DMC. As many readers will know, Gez is a London-based film producer and director who has been debilitated with severe Long COVID ever since contracting Covid early in the pandemic. His YouTube channel is now […]
The BMJ are reporting that four members of NICE’s guideline committee on ME/CFS have stood down. One is the medical advisor of the ME Association, who stated yesterday that he found it too difficult to combine membership of the committee with his wish to comment publicly in the media about […]
Academic publication is increasingly a performance art. So how effective is its quality control? – AN ESSAY – The sheer stampede of COVID-19 research has drawn mainstream attention to the issue of quality control in scientific publishing. Even long-established major journals seem more inclined than ever to carry content of […]
