Bias in the New Scientist

Last month, the New Scientist published an interview with psychiatrist Simon Wessely. Wessely has made a name for himself promoting the view that people with ME/CFS -- as well as Gulf War syndrome, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome -- are just thinking themselves sick.

In his own words:

Often there is an organic trigger like glandular fever. That's the start, and usually most people get over it, albeit after some weeks or months. But others can get trapped in vicious circles of monitoring their symptoms, restricting their activities beyond what is necessary and getting frustrated or demoralised. This causes more symptoms, more concerns and more physical changes, so much so that what started it all off is no longer what is keeping it going.

You can read the whole article here. The telling bit is not so much in anything it says, but in what it doesn't say:

1. Though Wessely states that there's no organic cause beyond the "infective trigger," he provides no evidence to back up his claim.
   
   
2. Wessely fails to mention the mountain of evidence that ME/CFS is a biological disease.

And then it gets interesting.

Following the Web version of this article are, at this writing, 562 comments. The thread began on March 15 and it's still going. The vast majority of commenters vehemently disagree with everything Wessely said. If you don't have the hour or two it would take to carefully read all the comments, here's a sampling.

From Michael Tomlinson, in response to Wessely's assertion that severely affected ME/CFS sufferers need to exercise:

Most of us have tried anything they could. We've tried exercising, physio, chiro, massage, weird diets, acupuncture... you name it! ... All exercise did for me was add to the number of limbs that are inflamed; and this was carefully supervised by a fully trained personal trainer. I had to stop after 18 months or I wouldn't be able to use my arms at all! ...

I was incredibly fit before - I rowed in the head of the river, did competitive downhill skiing, rock climbing at a high level, bike riding, swimming, and more. I can no longer do any of those activities. Can you really understand how horrible it is to be unable to do those things? That's why I'm depressed! It's NOT the other way around.

From Balbuie, challenging New Scientist to interview biomedical scientists about the disease:

I could suggest scientists like Dr Judy A. Mikovits, Director of Research at the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Immune Disease in Universtiy of Nevada, Reno. Here is some of WPI's latest work:

Cytokine Volume 43, Issue 3 September 2008, page 245, Special Issue, Abstracts and Reviews

"Our analysis has revealed distinct pathogen associated signatures with significant 5-200 - fold differences between patients and controls for the inflammatory cytokines Il-8, IP-10, MIP-a and MIP-1b, as well as the procytokines IL-6, TNFa and Il-1b ..."

And also Dr Jonathan Kerr, Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation, St George's University of London who has published several groundbreaking papers on gene expression in ME/CFS.

So here's where I'm confused: Why is New Scientist presenting the Wessely angle exclusively? As the above commenter noted, they could have found any number of scientists who would have been happy to provide an alternate view.

If they couldn't be bothered to procure quotes from other scientists, how about a few probing questions for their subject? For instance, how does Wessely respond to the biomedical research demonstrating that the disease is organic? Or, if we know that there are legitimate serious chronic illnesses -- multiple sclerosis, for example -- what makes ME/CFS different?

Who knows. Maybe New Scientist just figured that stories about how people's own minds make them sick are sexier than stories about pathogens and inflammatory cytokines. But standing by their flimsy, biased work after getting hammered by their readership for a solid month? It doesn't make sense.

So what now? Will it help for us to add to the still-growing list of comments? To contact an organization like MediaWatch and try to get them to nudge the journal into doing the right thing?

Your suggestions are welcome.

Smoke gets in my eyes (and lungs)

Every performance provides an opportunity to learn something, whether it's about musicianship, showmanship, or what have you. Saturday night's gig -- playing at a block party in Ron the Drummer's neighborhood -- was no exception. The lesson: if meat is cooking on a huge freaking barbecue, and wind is blowing the smoke right in my face, it makes for less-than-optimal singing conditions.

Granted, I probably could have guessed that on my own.

Why Ron does all our booking

Walking into a grocery store the other night, I noticed someone in the checkout line who seemed vaguely familiar. She looked a lot like the woman who ran the computer lab I frequented back when I was in grad school several lifetimes ago. I didn't think it was likely to be the same person, though, until I noticed that she was giving me second glances as well.

Not only was it her, but in line ahead of her was her husband, who had taught a couple of my statistics classes. We talked for a minute or two about what they had been doing, and then they asked, "So you're good?"

I said yes and they were on their way.

Not until I was in the car going home did I realize I'd missed an opportunity. My answer should have been, "Yeah, I'm doing great. My band's in the Folk Festival this year." Who knows, maybe they would have gone.

This is why Ron does all of the promotional/networking stuff. He would've been all over that.

Lyrics vs. technology

Lately I've been going over songs that we haven't rotated onto our set lists in a while. It's a good idea to dust these off every now and again, as it's easier than you'd think to forget the words to your own stuff.

To that end, I practiced a song we hadn't performed in ages, "Good Intentions." In the process I realized that it could do with some revision. The basic setup: the narrator has been sitting around at a diner for an hour, waiting for a friend who never shows up. The problematic passage:

Slide the quarters in the pay phone
Softly ask your answering machine why you're not there

I wrote this in 2002, back before absolutely everyone carried cell phones everywhere. (Or maybe I was the only holdout. I don't remember.) Should I change the line, I wondered? On the one hand, there must still be people out there who can't afford cell phones. On the other hand, pay phones are nearly extinct. If I leave the lyrics as they are, listeners won't assume the narrator is poor; they'll assume the lyrics are dated. Which they are.

No problem, I mused. We never put "Good Intentions" on an album, so I still have the opportunity to bring the lyrics in line with current realities. It wouldn't be that hard.

Dial your number on my cell phone
Softly ask your answering machine why you're not there

Perfect. Except ...

It's one thing to wait an hour before heading to the pay phone to confirm you've been blown off. I can imagine myself doing just that. But it's another thing entirely to wait an hour before reaching for a phone that is attached to your person. Change "pay phone" to "cell phone" in the hypothetical scenario, and any sane human being would wait 15 minutes at most before calling to ask what's up. Change "pay phone" to "cell phone" in the song and it says something about our narrator's character that I hadn't intended to say.

Oh geez. I hadn't thought of this until right now, but the answering machine bit is dated too. You wouldn't call the friend's house first. You'd call the friend's cell.

Maybe I should just leave it alone ...

Our Glass Onion debut

You know what's cool? When you play an atmosphere gig at a coffeehouse and people actually listen. When you can tell they're listening because they're not only applauding, but nodding along to the beat.

And smiling.

And, in some cases, signing up for your mailing list and buying your CD.

Yeah.

A late bloomer makes good

Chances are you've already seen the video of Susan Boyle's audition for Britains Got Talent. But if you haven't, you should watch. Right now. I'll wait.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

If that didn't make you grin, I don't know what will.

Funny thing, though. All those people in the audience assumed she'd make a fool of herself. More than that, they were looking forward to laughing at her for it. Yet, a half-second in, when it became apparent that she was really, really good, the crowd went wild. Every person there became her new best friend.

Maybe any hardened, mean-spirited cynic will turn into a marshmallow after hearing somebody sing like that.

Wherefore Twitter?

In a recent post, fellow songstress Jannie Funster seeks enlightenment on everyone's favorite Interwebs phenom:

I’m frightened by Twitter.
Don’t really understand it,
neither the why nor how.
Several blogging friends
have tried to explain but I
just don’t get it. Am I the
only one missing the boat?
@janniefunster, that’s me.
Seeking any and all advice
on why and how to tweet.

I was right there with Jannie up until a few months ago. The first time someone described Twitter to me, my reaction was, "Why would anyone want to do that?" I didn't get the appeal of posting 140 characters at a time, or reading 140-character posts. Still, I gave it a try. I set up a Twitter account for cinderkeys. I found people to follow and micro-chatted with them. I tweeted random thoughts. I announced what I was doing. And it still felt like I was missing something.

Until I created a work account. Then I got it.

See, the purpose of doing Twitter at work is spreading goodwill about your organization. You find people who need help with stuff you specialize in, and then you help them. And they love you for it.

It's way fun.

Twittering at work, I'm an expert with useful things to say. Twittering from home in musician mode, I got nuthin'. I don't think there are too many tweeples out there looking for advice about songwriting.

My corporate persona is more interesting than my band persona. So sad.