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Congratulations to Fauci & Karim, but if @nature and @senseaboutsci wish to reward those who show “great courage and integrity in standing up for science and scientific reasoning against fierce opposition and hostility” they should set an example by withdrawing the 2012 prize. 1/ https://twitter.com/senseaboutsci/status/1338523945264418816
The 2012 #MaddoxPrize was awarded to a psychiatrist who developed the CBT/GET models of ME/CFS. These therapies were rejected by CDC in 2017. New draft NICE Guideline for ME specifically warns against them, grading the research low and very quality: https://thesciencebit.net/2020/11/21/no-more-mr-nice-guy/ 2/
In 2012 Nature (which in recent years has been much more helpful to people with ME, eg: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08965-0 by @amymaxmen) falsely portrayed those who criticised the #MaddoxPrize winner’s research as an extreme, anti-science minority: https://www.nature.com/news/john-maddox-prize-1.11750 3/
We all make mistakes, but sometimes it can take great courage and integrity to admit to admit to them. Such qualities have been notable by their absence from those who continue to defend the PACE trial and promote graded exercise and CBT as effective treatments for ME/CFS 4/
My nomination for the 2021 #MaddoxPrize would be Alem Matthees who successfully took QMUL to court to force the PACE authors to release the trial data they wanted to hide. Sadly, Alem’s health has suffered very significantly following his heroic work: https://www.virology.ws/2020/04/09/trial-by-error-my-visits-with-alem-matthees-reprise/ 5/
I would also nominate @TomKindlon and the late Robert Courtney for all their work exposing multiple methodical flaws in CBT and GET research, and particularly their submissions to Cochrane which highlighted the problems with its reviews of exercise therapy and CBT for ME/CFS. 6/
Many others are worthy of mention too, including @wilshica (lead author re-analysis of PACE: https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-018-0218-3) @davidtuller1, Jonathan Edwards, @MTackCVS, @Huisarts_Vink, @sjmnotes and many more. 7/
Finally, it is worth noting that @SenseScienceUSA has never shared @senseaboutsci’s enthusiasm for the #PACEtrial and other very low quality GET and CBT research (see, for example https://senseaboutscienceusa.org/editorial-on-pace/). 8/
Apologies, I forgot to mention @johnthejack – and I’m sure many others 9/
