Is Your Antacid Medication Ruining Your Gut?
Proton Pump Inhibitors are a class of Antacid Medication that are so common and considered to be so safe that they were even declassified as prescription drugs and are now available over-the-counter so that anyone can use them if they happen to have heartburn. With names like Omeprazole, Nexium, and Prilosec, the ‘little purple pill’ is advertised everywhere on billboards and TV ads with barely a mention that their might be consequences to suppressing stomach acid.
There are consequences of any Acid Reflux Medication, however, like the Side Effects of Omeprazole and other proton pump inhibitors can lead to osteoporosis...
Source: Immune Health Blog - March 2, 2016 Category: Nutrition Authors: Kerri Knox, RN Tags: Digestive Health Infections Source Type: blogs
On The Pulse - February 2016
Increased risk of suicide in people with chronic fatigue syndrome (Source: OnMedica Blogs)
Source: OnMedica Blogs - February 26, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Source Type: blogs
Wheat Belly: Self-Directed Health?
Director chair, film slate and load horn.
Here’s a proposal for you: If, by following the Wheat Belly lifestyle, a long list of conditions are reduced or reversed at no risk, almost no cost, reversing even chronic and potentially fatal conditions . . . does that mean that the notion of self-directed health might be on the horizon, i.e., putting control over health back in our own hands?
I think it does. No, we will never implant our own defibrillators or take out our own gallbladders. But so many chronic health conditions afflicting modern humans recede that I believe that it is entirely reasonable to start talking a...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - February 16, 2016 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle arthritis autoimmune diabetes eating disorder gluten grains Inflammation joint Weight Loss Source Type: blogs
An open letter to The Lancet, again
On November 13th, five colleagues and I released an open letter to The Lancet and editor Richard Horton about the PACE trial, which the journal published in 2011. The study’s reported findings–that cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy are effective treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome–have had enormous influence on clinical guidelines for the illness. Last October, Virology Blog published David Tuller’s investigative report on the PACE study’s indefensible methodological lapses. Citing these problems, we noted in the letter that “such flaws have no place in publis...
Source: virology blog - February 11, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Information chronic fatigue syndrome Lancet mecfs myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE request for data Richard Horton vexations Source Type: blogs
Sexism in Medical Education
The medical school professor stands affront a group of first year students in a mid-size auditorium. “I need a go-to guy,” he says, “someone to direct my questions towards.” He scans the room. “I’ve never actually had a go-to girl, before,” he admits. Later in the lecture, he makes a joke at a male student’s expense. “I joke!” he laughs. “Usually I don’t pick on the girls of the class – they can be too emotional – its true! My wife tells me it’s true.”
During an exercise aimed at discussing issues of public health, the facilit...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - February 10, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Advocacy Health Professions Source Type: blogs
My Children are Vaccine-Damaged; are Yours?
Conclusion
A growing number of today’s children suffer from vaccine damage. Most individuals do not make the connection between health problems and vaccines. When asked about the cause of autoimmune disorders, asthma, allergies, diabetes, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism, and other common childhood diseases and illness, the majority of health care providers advise patients that the causes are unknown. Doctors, including most integrative physicians, fail to make the connection to vaccines.
It takes one moment to permanently damage the health of an adult or child, but takes a lifetime to t...
Source: vactruth.com - February 5, 2016 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Michelle Goldstein Tags: Logical Michelle Goldstein Top Stories autoimmune disorders gardasil HPV Vaccine Medical Authority vaccine injury Source Type: blogs
Reexamining Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research And Treatment Policy
In recent months, two developments have provided some degree of optimism to people with the illness variously called chronic fatigue syndrome, myalgic encephalomyelitis (“inflammation of the brain and central nervous system, with muscle pain”), CFS/ME, and ME/CFS — the term often used these days by U.S. agencies. Taken together, these developments herald the welcome possibility of significant changes in research and treatment policies for the illness, which is estimated to afflict between 1 and 2.5 million people in the U.S. They also reinforce a critical but often overlooked point: patients can possess far more ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 4, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: David Tuller Tags: Drugs and Medical Technology Equity and Disparities Featured Hospitals Public Health Quality chronic fatigue syndrome NIH PACE trial Research Source Type: blogs
Trial By Error, Continued: A Few Words About “Harassment”
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.
Last week, a commentary in Nature about the debate over data-sharing in science made some excellent points. Unfortunately, the authors lumped “hard-line opponents” of research into chronic fatigue syndrome with those who question climate change and the health effects of tobacco, among others—accusing them of engaging in “endless information requests, complaints to researchers’ universities, online harassment, distortion of scien...
Source: virology blog - February 1, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Commentary Information chronic fatigue syndrome data sharing FOI information requests mecfs myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE vexatious Source Type: blogs
At least we’re not vexatious
On 17 December 2015, Ron Davis, Bruce Levin, David Tuller and I requested trial data from the PACE study of treatments for ME/CFS published in The Lancet in 2011. Below is the response to our request from the Records & Compliance Manager of Queen Mary University of London. The bolded portion of our request, noted in the letter, is the following: “we would like the raw data for all four arms of the trial for the following measures: the two primary outcomes of physical function and fatigue (both bimodal and Likert-style scoring), and the multiple criteria for “recovery” as defined in the protocol pub...
Source: virology blog - January 19, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Commentary Information chronic fatigue syndrome FOI request GET graded exercise therapy Lancet mecfs Michael Sharpe myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE trial Queen Mary University of London Source Type: blogs
Trial By Error, Continued: More Nonsense from The Lancet Psychiatry
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.
The PACE authors have long demonstrated great facility in evading questions they don’t want to answer. They did this in their response to correspondence about the original 2011 Lancet paper. They did it again in the correspondence about the 2013 recovery paper, and in their response to my Virology Blog series. Now they have done it in their answer to critics of their most recent paper on follow-up data, published last October in The Lancet ...
Source: virology blog - January 19, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Commentary Information chronic fatigue syndrome GET graded exercise therapy Lancet mecfs Michael Sharpe myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE trial Source Type: blogs
Trial By Error, Continued: Did the PACE Trial Really Prove that Graded Exercise Is Safe?
By Julie Rehmeyer and David Tuller, DrPH
Julie Rehmeyer is a journalist and Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who has written extensively about ME/CFS.
David Tuller is academic coordinator of the concurrent masters degree program in public health and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
Joining me for this episode of our ongoing saga is my friend and colleague Julie Rehmeyer. In my initial series, I only briefly touched on the PACE trial’s blanket claim of safety. Here we examine this key aspect of the study in more detail, which is complicated and r...
Source: virology blog - January 7, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Commentary Information chronic fatigue syndrome GET graded exercise therapy Lancet mecfs Michael Sharpe myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE trial Tom Kindlon Source Type: blogs
Trial By Error, Continued: Questions for Dr. White and his PACE Colleagues
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.
I have been seeking answers from the PACE researchers for more than a year. At the end of this post, I have included the list of questions I’d compiled by last September, when my investigation was nearing publication. Most of these questions remain unanswered.
The PACE researchers are currently under intense criticism for having rejected as “vexatious” a request for trial data from psychologist James Coyne—an action called “unforgivable” b...
Source: virology blog - January 4, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Commentary Information CBT chronic fatigue syndrome GET mecfs Michael Sharpe myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE trial Peter White PLoS One recovery Trudie Chalder Source Type: blogs
Revisiting the PLoS One economics analysis of PACE
On October 23rd, virology blog published the third installment of David Tuller’s investigative report about the PACE study of treatments for ME/CFS. In the post, Dr. Tuller demonstrated that the key finding of an economic analysis of the PACE trial, published in PLoS One in 2012, was almost certainly false. The finding–that cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy were cost-effective treatments–relied on an inaccuracy in the paper about whether the results of sensitivity analyses were “robust.”
Since the publication of the virology blog series, the PACE study has come under susta...
Source: virology blog - December 22, 2015 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Information Commentary chronic fatigue syndrome mecfs david tuller PACE myalgic encepalomyelitis James Crowe freedom of information request vexatious Source Type: blogs
A request for data from the PACE trial
Mr. Paul Smallcombe
Records & Information Compliance Manager
Queen Mary University of London
Mile End Road
London E1 4NS
Dear Mr Smallcombe:
The PACE study of treatments for ME/CFS has been the source of much controversy since the first results were published in The Lancet in 2011. Patients have repeatedly raised objections to the study’s methodology and results. (Full title: “Comparison of adaptive pacing therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, graded exercise therapy, and specialist medical care for chronic fatigue syndrome: a randomized trial.”)
Recently, journalist and public health expert David Tuller docu...
Source: virology blog - December 17, 2015 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Information chronic fatigue syndrome clinical trial Declaration of Helsinki Freedom of Information mecfs myalgic encephalomyelitis PACE Queen Mary University of London Richard Horton The Lancet trial data request UK Source Type: blogs
