Trial By Error, Continued: Julie Rehmeyer ’ s Journey “ Through the Shadowlands ”

By David Tuller, DrPH In February, 2011, I wrote a bad article about the PACE trial. At that time, I was reporting on the XMRV situation and had never heard about this piece of crap. As happens at news organizations, my editor at The New York Times sent me the Lancet paper and asked me to write it up for publication later that day. I did the best I could. Not knowing any of the background, I took the study at face value and reported the bogus findings—that cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy appeared to be effective treatments. I did include a few caveats—that the authors had links to disability insurers, that they used a broad definition for the illness, and that patients had reported that exercise made them worse. I got immediate push-back from patients, which was what persuaded me to examine the concerns they were raising—and that ultimately led to my 15,000-word investigation of this disastrous piece of research. Little did I know at the time that my article had triggered a crisis for someone who would later become a valued friend and colleague—journalist and ME/CFS patient Julie Rehmeyer, who has been instrumental in the ongoing efforts to discredit and debunk the PACE paradigm. As this campaign has progressed since Virology Blog posted my initial investigation in October 2015, we have strategized together and have reviewed and supported each other’s work, culminating in the opinion piece we co-wrote for The New York Times this spring. Last m...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs