Een artikel in News Com Australia besteedt aandacht aan recente ontwikkelingen rond de omstreden
PACE-trial, de rol van Alan Matthees die hierin speelde en de huidige "crisis in de wetenschap".
How Alem Matthees' letter helped solve Chronic Fatigue Syndrome mystery
January 8, 2017, 11:01AM
Jason Murphy
news.com.au@jasemurphy
A letter from Alem Matthees helped lead to a breakthrough in chronic fatigue.
..
When Alem first got sick,
many doctors believed ME/CFS was probably a psychological problem.
..
Their study (called the PACE trial), was full of data that showed
a lot of ME/CFS patients could be improved
by exercise and counselling (cognitive behavioural therapy)
was released in a prestigious medical journal called The Lancet.
Around 22 per cent of patients were counted as "recovered".
..
Rumours were circulating that the trial was not as it seemed,
but without the full data, nobody could say for certain the size of the problem.
..
When the psychologists finally released the data, what it showed was shocking.
During the study, they had changed the thresholds for what counted as recovery.
Patients who were still sick got counted as recovered.
..
Psychology: in crisis
You might hope a dodgy study like that is a one-off.
But the field of psychology has been plagued recently with revelations
that many of its findings are, in fact, not findings it all.
They are calling it the Crisis of Replication.
Studies are going down like bowling pins.
..
This crisis has spread from psychology to the rest of science.
It is sparking unprecedented soul-searching in the research community.
One of the world's top medical journals published an editorial suggesting
as much as half of all published research could be wrong.
..
All this is extremely hopeful for people like Alem Matthees.
"I am hopeful about biomedical research", he says. "In the long-term."
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/how-alem-matthees-letter-helped-solve-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-mystery/news-story/eb566e1a0f6bcaadb362818a12c2e386
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