Suzanne O’Sullivan on the @Amol Rajan podcast says #LongCOVID is psychosomatic for a large proportion of patients. There are several problems with this claim.
Suzanne O’Sullivan on the @Amol Rajan podcast says #LongCOVID is psychosomatic for a large proportion of patients. There are several problems with this claim. O’Sullivan cites a study linking loneliness with symptoms in children as a clue #LongCOVID is psychosomatic. But correlation isn’t causation. She appears to be referring to the CLoCk study, which has a number of problems as highlighted by David Tuller.
virology.ws/2023/04/17/tri
When challenged O’Sullivan cites Paul Garner’s recovery as evidence #LongCOVID is psychosomatic. But a single recovery story (N=1) cannot establish causation or explain a heterogeneous condition affecting millions.
O’Sullivan mentions Garner’s is a professor of infectious diseases as an appeal to authority. But he has said he’d been influenced by “activist rhetoric” when assessing evidence on #MECFS, suggesting he can be swayed by rhetoric.
I generally avoid analysing individual recovery stories. But when one case is repeatedly used in the media to support psychosomatic explanations of #LongCOVID, it’s reasonable to note that a number of people have raised questions about his account.
x.com/keithgeraghty/
Dr Keith Geraghty@keithgeraghty
Dec 08 24
View on Twitter
Prof Garner in his own words, Sept 2020, he says dont try exercise - pace yourself, - then by November 2020 he took a diving holiday in the Caribbean during his Long-Covid, contracted Dengue fever at that time, returned to UK, and by Jan 2021 he writes in the @The BMJ blog that it was brain retraining that helped him get better. blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25
O’Sullivan has history of wrongly claiming that illnesses are psychosomatic. She did this with #MECFS in 2015. That framing goes against guidance from major health agencies such as NICE and the CDC.
me-pedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_O
Adam
@ABrokenBattery
Severe ME patient currently on a 10% battery, the gas goes out more than I do. I also compile ME/CFS Awareness videos.
Missing some tweets in this thread? Or failed to load images or videos? You can try to .