TRIAL BY ERROR: The Troubling Case of the PACE Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study

By David Tuller, DrPH David Tuller is academic coordinator of the concurrent masters degree program in public health and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.  A few years ago, Dr. Racaniello let me hijack this space for a long piece about the CDC’s persistent incompetence in its efforts to address the devastating illness the agency itself had misnamed “chronic fatigue syndrome.” Now I’m back with an even longer piece about the U.K’s controversial and highly influential PACE trial. The $8 million study, funded by British government agencies, purportedly proved that patients could “recover” from the illness through treatment with one of two rehabilitative, non-pharmacological interventions: graded exercise therapy, involving a gradual increase in activity, and a specialized form of cognitive behavior therapy. The main authors, a well-established group of British mental health professionals, published their first results in The Lancet in 2011, with additional results in subsequent papers. Much of what I report here will not be news to the patient and advocacy communities, which have produced a voluminous online archive of critical commentary on the PACE trial. I could not have written this piece without the benefit of that research and the help of a few statistics-savvy sources who talked me through their complicated findings. I am also indebted to colleagues and friends in both public health and journalism, who provided valuable suggestions and a...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Information adaptive pacing therapy CFS chronic fatigue syndrome clinical trial cognitive behavior therapy Dave Tuller exercise graded exercise therapy mecfs myalgic encephalomyelitis outcome PACE trial recovery Source Type: blogs