User talk:Sciencewatcher/Archive 3

NHS and UK

Hi Sciencewatcher, I think you are right generaly about NHS in UK, but for some reason the NICE guidelines say they are just for England and Wales. I wonder why, but I guess it is some thing about Scotland and Irish differences. RetroS1mone talk 03:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I did look in the guidelines for something about England and Wales but I didn't find anything. But I must just not have looked hard enough. Yes, the NHS is for the entire UK but there are differences between the different countries, so maybe NICE only applies to part of the NHS for some reason. Anyway, I'll revert my edit unless you've already done it. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:20, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

ANI

Please see this ANI about our favorite editor for the week, Dr. Anymouse. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Guido tagging again

Sorry i am bugging you about it, Guido is adding a tag again at Alternative names for chronic fatigue syndrome, i am getting tired from this. RetroS1mone talk 11:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Guido den Broeder

Please refrain from making personal attacks. Fram (talk) 08:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It was Guido who made the personal attack. I simply reflected it back at him, pointing out the obvious, that it is him (and not the potential new admin in question) who has the bad behaviour. Right now Guido isn't making any useful contribution to wikipedia - instead he is just sabotaging potential new admins. Have a look at his recent contributions. Something needs to be done. --sciencewatcher (talk) 15:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic - criticism

Chiropractic remains controversial, with critics pointing out that it is not based on solid science and it's effectiveness has not been demonstrated for any medical condition with the possible exception of lower back pain. The American Medical Association's Committee on Quackery labeled chiropractic an "unscientific cult" until they lost a lawsuit against the chiropractors in 1987 for restraint of trade.

Literature Synthesis

Thanks for your comment; I followed up at Talk:Chiropractic #Literature Synthesis. Eubulides (talk) 18:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again; I followed up again at the same location. By the way, are you watching the Chiropractic article? If so, I'll stop notifying you of talk-page changes here. Eubulides (talk) 21:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm watching it. Thanks. --sciencewatcher (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother, I saw

Your comment was removed, but I read it. Posting more on that talk page is useless and feeds the drama. Something more useful could be found here (in case I haven't spammed it to you already). WLU (talk) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about the draft RFC. Let me know if it becomes official and I'll give my support. You've pretty much got it spot on. You might want to mention that he has been blocked a gazzilion times before and each time he harrasses and argues with the admins who blocked him and doesn't admit his mistakes. After his last 1-day block he accused the admin of abusing his admin privs, and I think said the same thing when he was blocked for the month.

And if anyone is interested in my deleted comment on Guido's talk page here it is. As usual he deleted it for being a "personal attack". What he doesn't realise is that it just looks bad for him when he deletes stuff he doesn't like. And even if it was a personal attack it would still be better to leave it up because then it shows the attacker in a bad light. In this case I just got too close to the ugly truth, and he didn't like it. --sciencewatcher (talk) 17:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Uh-oh, THE TRUTH!!!! As wikipedians we should run from it. I fear the truth and for some reason every time someone tries to convey the truth to me, they get permablocked. Must be me :)

If you want to help me with the assembly I would be most grateful. Everyone seems to be busy these days, and repairing the damage to CFS proper alone is a time sucker 'cause I have to check every single edit before I undo, source, modify, replace or delete. Thank God for full-text journals. WLU (talk) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia can take up all your free time if you let it. And you don't "have to" check every edit to CFS - if you don't, I'm sure someone else will eventually. Anyway I'm glad you do it, because it means I don't have to. I usually just take a quick look at any changes and check to make sure there isn't anything too outlandish. But I will try to add some more info to your RFC at some point. --sciencewatcher (talk) 20:43, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

It's tedious work, but it serves the valuable function of familiarizing myself with the topic such that I can meaningfully engage on the talk page. Plus, since the edits tend to be repetitive, I only have to read 'em once to get nigh-ulimited reverts out of it. Plus, I want to take some of the burden off of RetroS1mone, who has shouldered much of the unpleasant gruntwork on this. I'm happy to maintain an edifice built by her. WLU (talk) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:47, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

What are you talking about

I did not readd any comment to any talk page. QuackGuru 04:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I left a note at ANI in regard to your bad faith. Do you believe your comment was bad faith. QuackGuru 04:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The editor who made 8 reverts was Levine2112. Each comment I made was different. You have some explaining to do. Why did you falsely accuse me of Constantly re-adding deleted comments to people's talk pages when I never did. Please see WP:HONESTY and WP:CIVIL. It is uncivil to make comments that are false. QuackGuru 07:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I didn't actually check the comments you put on the talk page. I was just trying to help, giving some friendly advice. Next time I won't bother. Sorry for the inconvenience. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I was going to check out your ANI posting about me, but I see you've already been blocked for a week. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

cortisol for fibromyalgia

Hello. Please stop deleting my edits to fibromyalgia. The Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a well-known medical journal, and the articles are reviewed by experts. [1]. If you care to read the article itself you'd see it reviews and discusses a few RCTs of this treatment thereby reaching the conclusion I quoted. Mathityahu (talk) 16:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

First of all, JCFS has been discontinued, so there are doubts as to whether it is a reliable source. And secondly if you actually read the article you will see that nowhere does it say that cortisol treatment has been proven to be effective for treating fibromyalgia. In fact the article doesn't discuss any RCTs for fibromyalgia, only for CFS (and those give differing results). So the conclusion does not match up with the content of the article. This seems to happen a lot with JCFS - their peer review didn't seem to be very good. Perhaps that is why the journal is now defunct? --sciencewatcher (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The need for cortisol has been shown not just by RCTs (which differ) but by reviewing various articles showing an HPA-axis abnormality that causes the low cortisol situation. If you go just by RCTs then the whole endocrinology specialty is flawed and should be stopped, yet they still treat adrenals/thyroid/sex with no RCTs. I still think this is a very good review of this topic and the conclusion in the case of a hormone deficiency does not necessarily need to be "proven" in RCTs, since it is agreed upon that if a deficiency is demonstrated, it should be treated. Since it is shown that the deficiency exists, using more "advanced" tests, and it is shown that the ACTH-stim-test is not reliable enough, it has therefore demonstrated a deficiency that needs to be treated, regardless of RCTs. Mathityahu (talk) 16:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

With CFS there is not even an agreement on the nature of the HPA axis abnormality. And even if there is low cortisol, giving cortisol treatment is not likely to help because the underactivation appears to be central (i.e. in the hypothalamus). To treat you need to reverse the hypothalamus underactivation, which means either drugs similar to antidepressants, or psychological therapy. However all of this is just my opinion and not really relevant. Anyway, to get back to the point, you can't put speculation into the article. For this info you have to use reliable reviews, and the review you put in was not reliable. If you disagree, feel free to post at the reliable sources noticeboard. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The standard treatment for central hypoadrenalism IS cortisol, ask any endocrinologist. In general when the insufficiency is of central origin, all target organs affected are given replacement therapy. Anyhow, if the review turns out to be reliable you'd have no further comments on it? Mathityahu (talk) 17:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

No. However I'm pretty sure it's not reliable - see my reasons in my first comment above. And regarding your comment above, I think you're talking about hypoadrenalism caused by a defect in one of the glands, which isn't the case for CFS or FMS. --sciencewatcher (talk) 17:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

In hypoadrenalism you can read about primary and secondary, and the article I cited, and myself, referred to the "secondary"(central) type, which is caused by a defect in either the hypothalamus or the hypophysis, which can cause an atrophy of the glands, however the origin of the defect is not the glands. In this case the treatment is the same as is primary, just encompasses all glands affected. Anyhow I'll check about the reliability of the article. Mathityahu (talk) 18:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

In CFS and FMS there (appears to be) no defect in the hypothalamus or hypophysis, so it is not secondary hypoadrenalism. Most likely it is similar to stress: stress causes an increase in cortisol due to other parts of the brain signalling the hypothalamus to release more cortisol. But again this is irrelevant for the article as it is just our opinions/speculation. I've added a comment to the talk page on the fibromyalgia article regarding this review, as another user re-added it. --sciencewatcher (talk) 18:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Guido and psychosomatic medicine

Hi Sciencewatcher,

Based on your experience, could you include links, diffs and discussions - live or archived - that demonstrate POV-pushing by guido on psychosomatic medicine, placed in this section of the evidence page? The clearer the better obviously. If you have time, of course. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Well in the end we managed to agree on a compromise where CFS is still mentioned, but the wording was changed. However as can be seen from the talk page Guido certainly didn't make it easy to come to a consensus. If you think it's worth it, you could point to a few of his entries in the talk page. But you might want to just concentrate on the worst stuff rather than dredging up everything, otherwise it might make him look like a victim. The stuff where he has been adding his own Nivel research is probably much more relevant (and I guess you've probably already added it). --sciencewatcher (talk) 18:00, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder

Required notice to all parties involved with the Guido den Broeder ban/block/discussion: I have appealed the ban on his behalf at WP:RFAR. Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you have nothing better to do

Do you have nothing better to do???? I certainly do!! However highlighting the fact that Jacob de Wolff is editing medical articles that may be used as reference by the general public when he has been before the GMC for very, very serious issues is in the public interest. I have copied below the latest from Margaret Williams with regard to ME/CFS. No I don't have time for wiki nonsense, I do have a real life to live.

Will you consider the below, are you capable of no POV to use such an anal wiki acronym?

A NICE Conundrum?

Margaret Williams

30th December 2008

A NICE conundrum seems to have presented itself, which the Judge in the Judicial Review of the NICE Clinical Guideline on “CFS/ME” may require NICE to explain for the benefit of straight-thinking folk who cannot readily understand such brain-teasers.

Straight-thinking folk know that NICE is funded by the UK Department of Health.

These straight-thinking folk also know that the NICE Guideline on “CFS/ME” (CG53) recommended as the primary intervention only behaviour modification, together with incremental aerobic exercise (cognitive behavioural therapy / CBT and graded exercise therapy / GET) for a disorder that NICE’s own paymaster accepts is a neurological disease, this having been confirmed once again in Hansard by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health, Lord Darzi, on 2nd June 2008.

It seems remarkable indeed that people unfortunate enough to be stricken with a neurological disease should not be permitted by NICE to be adequately investigated, but straight-thinking folk also know that NICE claims that its recommendations for CBT and GET in its Guideline are based on the very best evidence-base, which must surely re-assure these straight-thinking folk that they will be receiving the best possible management of their life-destroying disease.

But here’s the conundrum: NICE’s own paymaster (i.e. the Department of Health) is on record as stating – in writing – that it holds no evidence that the interventions recommended by NICE in CG53 actually work in restoring the return to work (this being the underlying purpose of the recommended management interventions).

This was revealed when the Department of Health was asked about the recommendations set out in the NHS Plus National Guideline – which the Department itself notably funded -- that was published in October 2006, (“Occupational Aspects of the Management of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A National Guideline” in which Wessely School members Professors Trudie Chalder, Peter White and Michael Sharpe were instrumental), the recommendations in that Guideline being the same recommendations that were adopted by NICE in its Guideline of August 2007.

Crucially, both Guidelines were based on the same “evidence-base”: of six Wessely School studies, three were co-authored by Trudie Chalder and one was co-authored by Peter White. In the NHS Plus Guideline, the Wessely School authors made inflated claims for the efficacy of CBT/GET in returning people with “CFS/ME” to gainful employment (“CBT and GET have been shown to be effective in restoring the ability to work”), but a US systematic review of the “evidence-base” had reported that “No specific interventions have been proved to be effective in restoring the ability to work” (SD Ross et al: Arch Intern Med 2004:164:1098-1107).

The key fact here is that the NHS Plus Guideline cited the Ross systematic review as its own evidence-base.

An inquiry was therefore made of the DoH how such divergent conclusions could be drawn from the same systematic review of the same publications --- one conclusion by Ross et al and the exactly opposite conclusion by the Wessely School. In the light of such an obvious dichotomy, the DoH was asked a simple and direct question: “Does the Department agree with the statement that cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise therapy have been shown to be effective in restoring the ability to work in those (with ME/CFS) who are currently absent from work?”

On 6th June 2008 the written response from the DoH was unequivocal: “The Department does not hold any data that support this claim”.

So here we have a situation in which the Department of Health (which funds NICE and which funded the NHS Plus Guideline) is on record as stating that it has no data to support the claims made by both the NICE Guideline and the NHS Plus Guideline.

If the Department itself holds no data showing that CBT/GET are in fact effective, where is this data? Does it actually exist, or is it merely a contrived “evidence-base” created by the Wessely School, whose vested interests in claiming its efficacy cannot be denied?

Regarding the obvious and serious conflicts of interest of the Wessely School in relation to the NHS Plus Guideline, on 23rd December 2008 a remarkable revelation was made – in writing – by Dr Ira Madan, Director of Clinical Standards, NHS Plus (who, with Wessely and Chalder, is based at Kings College): “The Department of Health have (sic) asked me to investigate your concern that one of the guideline development group members, Professor Trudie Chalder, and the two external assessors, Professor Michael Sharpe and Professor Peter White, had conflicts of interest whilst involved in the production of the guideline. I can confirm that I was aware of the potential for competing interests that you have stated. The roles that Professor White, Professor Sharpe and Professor Chalder have undertaken for the agencies and companies that you stipulate (i.e. the medical insurance industry) were in the public domain prior to the publication of the NHS Plus guideline. I am content, as the Director of that guideline, these potential competing interests did not in any way influence the synthesis of the evidence or the guideline recommendations”.

As straight-thinking folk will recall, the NHS Plus Guideline states “No conflicts of interest declared”, yet Dr Ira Madan is here acknowledging the existence of these Wessely School conflicts of interests, but stating that she is “content” about the situation, as people already knew about them.

In the Wessely School world of NHS Plus, two researchers were allowed to sit in judgment on their own publications, with the permission of Dr Ira Madan. They were not required to make conflict-of-interest declarations. This is not peer-review as the rest of the scientific world understands it.

Notably, the same people (Chalder, Sharpe and White) who were involved with the production of the NHS Plus Guideline (where they declared no conflict of interests) did declare and list very serious conflicts of interest in the MRC PACE trial documentation: "PDW has done voluntary and paid consultancy work for the Departments of Health and Work and Pensions and legal companies and a re-insurance company. MCS has done voluntary and paid consultancy work for government and for legal and insurance companies. TC has done consultancy work for insurance companies, is the author of Coping with Chronic Fatigue published by Sheldon Press and co-authors Overcoming Chronic Fatigue with Mary Burgess published by Constable and Robinson." ( http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2377/7/6 ).

This is remarkably different from what the Department of Health confirmed in relation to the NHS Plus Guideline – in writing – on 20th November 2008: “I can confirm that the guideline contributors gave written confirmation that they had no conflicts of interest”.

What can explain such a marked discrepancy, and why should a statement have been published saying that no conflicts of interest exist when serious conflicts of interests are undoubtedly involved?

Not only do we now have written evidence that (i) the Department of Health holds no data that the recommendations in both the NHS Plus Guideline and in the NICE Guideline are in any way effective in restoring the ability of people with ME/CFS to return to work, and (ii) that two members of the DoH (William Scott and Dr Ira Madan) have made statements on the same issue that diametrically oppose each other, but we also have written evidence -- straight from Dr Madan at the Department of Health -- illustrating how the normal rules of independent peer review and conflicts of interest are regularly suspended when it comes to the “evidence-base” for CBT/GET in people with ME/CFS.

Consequently, as Dr Madan has stated that the Wessely School’s conflicts of interests did not make any material difference, she is now being requested to explain WHY the conflicts of interest she has acknowledged exist were not recorded as required, since conflicts of interest should be recorded to enable people to make up their own mind whether or not the conflicts matter. Such an important issue is not up to Dr Madan to decide but is –or should be -- determined by the AGREE Instrument.

Even though it is in the public interest to publicise that there is a potentially dangerous guideline in circulation that was engineered by Wessely School members whose conflicts of interest in respect of the medical insurance industry are legion (and who have no expertise in infection or in inflammation or in immunology that underpin ME/CFS), the Judge will not be considering the issues surrounding the NHS Plus Guideline

It is, however, hoped that the Judge will require the particular conundrum pertaining to NICE to be explained so that straight-thinking folk can understand it, namely, why NICE recommended interventions for “CFS/ME” for which its own paymaster (the Department of Health) has stated that there is no supportive data. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.54.47 (talk) 09:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not appropriate to talk about wikipedia editors' personal lives. However even if an editor was barred by the GMC it wouldn't mean he couldn't edit wikipedia (and in this case, as I understand it, that didn't even happen).

Regarding Margaret Williams: she mostly just rants about psychiatrists. As far as her comments about NICE go: let me give you my NPOV. CBT and GET do not help everyone, and are certainly not a cure-all. While they may help a lot of patients, they only result in full recovery for a small percentage. So both studies are probably correct: CBT/GET can restore the ability to work, it only does so in a minority of patients.

And as for CFS being a neurological disease, that hasn't been proven. The classification is just that - a classification. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Fibromyalgia & SSRIs

Great job! You just blasted out a section with a ton of references. Now all those lousy fibromites will be placed on these meds and have all the wonderful side effects you rubbed out any evidence for. Score one for the Pharmaceutical industry! If you're not being paid by Eli Lilly, well...you're working for free.

Just so you know, the idea that there are no systematic reviews of the use of SSRIs in fibromyalgia is just plain wrong. You appear to have a fondness for PubMed. I suggest you key in Arnold LM [au] fibromyalgia with Review as you limiting factor and see where it takes you. 71.191.7.3 (talk) 21:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to improve it. As it was, the section was incomprehensible. I simply took the conclusions from what (appeared) to be the most authoratitive review. If there are better/newer reviews, please do update the text. As of the Goldberg review there were no systematic reviews, but perhaps that has changed. --sciencewatcher (talk) 23:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I can set you up with bars of gold delivered to your secret Swiss bank account for your service to Big Pharm. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

NPOV sources

Hi SW, I've a question for ye. On Talk:Past_life_regression#Reliable_sources an anon posted a comment that The Skeptic's Dictionary should be qualified because it's not neutral. Sources don't have to be neutral, that I'm sure of, but I'm looking for where I can point yon anon to. Any suggestions? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I think WP:NPOV discusses this. Wikipedia doesn't just present neutral viewpoints, it presents different POVs in a NPOV manner. As long as the source is reliable and the viewpoint is at least a significant minority it should be fine. As far as past life regression, I imagine that the Skeptic's Dictionary presents the majority viewpoint. But there may be other, better sources anyway. Quackwatch is a reliable source - have a look at the wikipedia quackwatch page and it discusses this. Not sure if it talks about past life regression though. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

So long as there's no magic bullet policy/guideline/essay I'm missing, I think I'm covered then. Thanks! Incidentally - reading Bad Science by Taubes. Great book, riveting! Never, ever going near the cold fusion page though. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm by no means an expert in wikipedia policies, and in fact I haven't read most of them anyway, just browsed NPOV and RS and other main ones. Most of what I know about them is based on me unknowningly breaking them in the past and learning from experience. And talking about bad science, did you see the "free energy" machine on Dragon's Den? magnacoaster.com. Not only did they get TV time, but Brett Wilson agreed to invest in them even though it is obviously a scam. I'm guessing he later did a little due diligence and didn't bother. Makes you wonder what the point is of working for a living when you can so easily scam people. I'm off to set myself up as a naturopath. --sciencewatcher (talk) 20:03, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Zing! My mother loves naturopaths, and when I hurt my shoulder gave me some homeopathic arnica. I glare at it in disgust, but still dissolve it under my tongue. I guess I'm a better son than a scientist :) WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Same with my wife. She loves chiropractors, and I have to be very careful what I say about any alternative medicine. I tried a homeopathic hay-fever remedy once, back when I was a young lad and didn't know any better. Needless to say it didn't work. --sciencewatcher (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Ha, I love my chiropractor, but I've had some terrible ones in the past. He's great with dealing with musculo-skeletal problems, but why would I see him when I have a cold?

You know, may be you're right it didn't work. Maybe it didn't work so badly that it anti-worked! Like, a reverse placebo or those psychic tests that get results worse than chance and they blame it on the experimenter. Huh? How 'bout that? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I just checked that magnacoaster link. I notice none of the links in the sidebar seemed to be about the science. Sweet. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment on user

Hi Sciencewatcher some editors at Chronic fatigue syndrome have talked about banning me. That is a later step in a dispute process, but it can start with a request for comment about me and i think comments from outside are good. Here is the guidelines for an RfC when you are interested at that [2]. Thx, RetroS1mone talk 13:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

As I said on the CFS talk page, I don't think you should be banned. But I think you should take more notice of criticisms when people make valid points. Also, even if CFS is mainly caused by psychological factors (which I believe it is), that doesn't mean that CBT is a cure-all. It doesn't even help everyone, never mind cure them. Perhaps this is because many patients don't believe it will help them. Or maybe it's just that CBT isn't the best therapy for CFS because it makes a lot of false assumptions and doesn't have a good explanation for how psychological factors cause the physical changes in the brain and body which result in the symptoms of CFS. Anyway, the point is you need to stick to reliable sources, AND you need to make sure you aren't twisting those sources, or cherrypicking, to try and present a particular point of view. Wikipedia isn't "the truth", it is just the majority mainstream viewpoint plus discussion of significant minority viewpoints. No more, no less. --sciencewatcher (talk) 17:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll endorse this statement Retro - being the best- or even only-proven treatment for something doesn't mean it reveals a proven or only explanation that exists. All significant views must be discussed, not just the ones with peer-reviewed trials. So long as a considerable number give an idea credence, it has a place on the page. Unlike Guido, your position is strongly supported. That doesnt' make it the truth. Pushing for exclusion of all other explanations on the basis of one set of trials is just as inappropriate as pushing for unsupported personal opinion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

You asked, "Reverted to revision 262297812 by RetroS1mone; how come anon can keep doing this when page is still semi-protected?. (TW))" --> protection expired at 15:23 on 4 January 2009. The template is still in place (or will be until I remove it), but the article isn't actually protected. - Nunh-huh 16:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

removed the template. If an edit war erupts, you can ask for the article to be reprotected; it looks like a longer period of protection should be discussed. - Nunh-huh 16:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this plus.net anon is just going to keep doing the same thing, and protection is probably the only solution. It can't be banned because it's using a dynamic ip. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:30, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I dropped a warning on his user page for this edit. There seems to be a lot of combative anti-science anonymous editors this new year. Meh. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I am not quite sure how this is a personal attack, I added information which I saw as important and relative and it was immediately removed. This has happened several times and has always been reverted. If any offence was caused by my comments then I do apologize. But I thought I was allowed to make edits and amend things I see fit. Who is to say whose viewpoint is correct and whose is not? Anyway once again my sincere apologies for any harm caused. 87.112.79.76

You put in a personal attack previously regarding JFW. And you can't put YOUR viewpoint (or MINE) into wikipedia. It has to come from a reliable source. You might not agree with some of the stuff in wikipedia (and I certainly don't), but that doesn't mean you can just go and change it. If you want to contribute constructively I'd suggest reading WP:NPOV and the other main policies, and if you find your edits are being reverted you should discuss them on the talk page rather than just putting them in again (doing that will probably just get you banned). --sciencewatcher (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I certainly have never put any personal attacks on you or anyone else on this site. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from. I added some information I thought was relevant and it was immediately removed and I reverted it back again. how does this constitute a personal attack. Best Wishes 87.112.79.76 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.79.76 (talk) 17:48, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

here is the personal attack that you put in multiple times. --sciencewatcher (talk) 19:37, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I hate to disappoint you but I can unequivocally state that this particular piece of text has absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever. Best Regards.. Angela.. 87.112.79.76 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.143.8 (talk) 08:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Same ISP, same page, same agenda, so I naturally thought it was you. No point arguing - I can't prove it. But if you want to avoid getting lumped in with other people from the same ip range you really need to get a username. --sciencewatcher (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

CFS psychological viewpoint

Also, perhaps it's your 8 years of research that's the reason behind your views being more pro-psychological than mine. Back when you first started your research, that would've been a more predominant view. My research started just over two years ago, I think...about a year after symptoms first started that nobody could explain. By then, the psychological view was in decline, particularly amongst Canadian doctors, and being debated much more heavily by UK doctors. The US still believed that it was psychological by that point, though I'm seeing a substantial shift there in recent literature as well. My impression is that most European doctors have always considered it physical, but I'm content to be disproven on that...I didn't exactly do a study on each country's doctors' viewpoints. :D --Rob (talk) 10:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't really look at any research on CFS for the first few years (there wasn't much around, and things haven't really improved much). Most of my research was into how the body and brain work, seeing that all the symptoms and abnormalities were typical of stress related illnesses, and noticing which factors consistently caused relapses and recovery in patients. So no, I haven't been brainwashed by Wessely, etc. --sciencewatcher (talk) 16:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hahaha, okay, well, it was a nice theory while it lasted. I'll be the first to admit that while on the surface, it can resemble a somatic disorder, knowing how it felt when it hit and in the time since then, and having heard others describe their onset/progression, you'll never convince me that the majority of CFS sufferers have any kind of psychological disorder. That said, I fully acknowledge that there are people out there who may well have psychiatric disorders which cause similar sets of symptoms who have been diagnosed with CFS for lack of a better understanding of it. I also acknowledge that CBT has helped many CFS patients, making it seem to some like a psychological disorder. What would be interesting would be to study people with similar fatiguing illnesses or other long-term conditions, ones we know to be physical in nature, and see if CBT has a similar effect on them. To my knowledge, this has never been well studied and documented (though I'm certainly no expert), though as I mentioned at one point, I've come across studies of religion producing similar positive effects in people with long-term illness.

The big problem I have with it being considered similar to a stress-related illness is how many people it hits who have no major stress in their lives. There are also a host of measurable physical symptoms that I think when taken all together cannot be attributed to psychological illness. Yes, I agree, stress and other such things may produce some neurological and other such changes, but I have difficulty reconciling that with the plethora of newer studies that have found things such as viruses, spinal fluid findings, inexplicable positive ANAs in many of the patients, and so forth.

In the end, I think CFS is actually many different things, though, and I'm sure that there are physical causes in some, psychological in others, a combination of both, or even external environmental factors in some cases (mold toxicity, for example, has very similar symptoms, and undoubtedly some such patients have been lumped in with the CFS crowd due to the difficulty in diagnosing mold toxicity). Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough for now. :) If you'd like to reply to this, please let me know on my talk page so I don't miss it, or just send me an e-mail. I know *that* works, cuz someone else just sent me a wiki e-mail a couple of days ago. Unlike some of the other discussions, I'm enjoying ours, since we're on different sides of the issues, but both able to talk about it rationally, so I have no problems continuing this discussion if you'd like...though admittedly you have me at a disadvantage, since medical research was never a forté of mine and I can tell you're better (or at least more experienced) at it than I am. --Rob (talk) 08:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

CFS textbooks

There was a word missing in my comment which changes the meaning somewhat. Sorry about that (ie. I do "not" agree with the new editor with ownership issues) Verbal chat 18:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I guessed that! But thanks for letting me know. --sciencewatcher (talk) 18:44, 7 January 2009 (UTC)