Earlier this month, on World ME Awareness Day, I spoke at the Hope 4 ME & Fibro NI conference in Belfast. The event was hosted in the Stormont Parliament Buildings by Alliance Party MLA, Paula Bradshaw.
The title of my lecture was Getting it Right: Addressing Myths about the 2021 NICE Guideline for ME/CFS. I outlined eight pieces of misinformation regarding the new guideline (and about ME/CFS more generally) that are currently being pushed from certain quarters.
These myths included:
- “CBT and GET are ‘evidence-based’ treatments for ME/CFS!”
- “Evidence cannot just ‘change’!”
- “The NICE review was driven by patient advocacy!”
- “The defenders of the old guideline are simply standing up for science!”
- “You cannot evaluate ME/CFS outcomes using objective measures!”
And so on. There were plenty more…
I am delighted to report that the video of my talk has now been posted on YouTube. You can stream it below:
So much material. You know, a person could even write a book about all this…
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With thanks to Joan McParland, Linda Campbell, and all at Hope 4 ME & Fibro NI for organising the event, and to Alpha Video for producing such a high-quality recording.
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Brian Hughes is an academic psychologist and university professor in Galway, Ireland, specialising in stress, health, and the application of psychology to social issues. He writes widely on the psychology of empiricism and of empirically disputable claims, especially as they pertain to science, health, medicine, and politics.