By David Tuller, DrPH
People who know little or nothing about the illness or cluster of illnesses variously called myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS/ME, and ME/CFS can’t seem to stop writing stupid and ill-informed stories about it. And Professor Michael Sharpe seems to blame “Americans”–rather than his own disastrous research–for his current problems and the reputational damage he has suffered. That’s mainly what I got from articles in The Guardian and Psychology Todaythat followed one another in quick and dispiriting succession last month.
Both stories were essentially rehashes of the March dung-heap written by Reuters “reporter” Kate Kelland, one of the Science Media Centre’s BFFs in the UK. Right now I’ll focus on the Guardian piece. (It ran on a Sunday, so it was presented as a piece in The Observer, the Guardian’s sister paper.)
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