Part 1: A Flawed Study on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Patients Fight Back

CFS patients fight back against flawed PACE study! It may seem like a paradox that exhausted, debilitated patients should be engaged in a militant effort to refute the conclusions of a study published in the Lancet in 2011 which posited that “fatigued patients who go out and exercise have the best hope of recovery.” The PACE study claimed that CFS patients were deconditioned and exercise-phobic, and that dramatic successes could be achieved with “graded exercise” and cognitive behavioral therapy. Critics of the study were denounced as “cranks.” But CFS activists (an oxymoron?!) were convinced the study was bogus and trivialized the deep-seated physical dysfunction of true sufferers. The CFS community waged a long, ultimately successful battle to uncover the methodological errors and outright conflicts of interest that rendered the PACE a case study of bad science. Click HERE for part 2.