TV News LIES

It’s the greatest medical scandal of the 21st century. For decades, patients with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) have been told they can make themselves better by changing their attitudes. This devastating condition, which afflicts about 250,000 people in the UK, was psychologised by many doctors and scientists, adding to the burden of a terrible physiological illness.

Long after this approach was debunked in scientific literature, clinicians who championed it have refused to let go. They continue to influence healthcare systems, governments and health insurers. And patients still suffer as a result.

ME/CFS saps sufferers of energy and basic physical and cognitive functions, confining many to their homes or even their beds, often shutting down their working lives, social lives and family lives. The extreme seriousness of this condition, and the fact that there is neither a diagnostic test nor a validated treatment, places a special duty of rigour on doctors and researchers. But patient care has been compromised, and useful research inhibited, by the lingering conviction of many practitioners that ME/CFS is “psychosocial”: driven by patients’ beliefs and behaviour.

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In 1979, a report from the Surgeon General inspired Jon Kabat-Zinn to action. The U.S. "Healthy People" report chronicled Americans' struggles with chronic diseases, connecting poor health with harmful social conditions like poverty, as well as unhealthy habits.

"It was an extremely powerful articulation that no matter how many billions of dollars we throw at the problems of health in the American population, no amount of money can do the job," says Kabat-Zinn, who at the time was a researcher at University of Massachusetts Medical School and taught yoga and meditation on the side. "We have to ignite passion in people for taking care of themselves."

So Kabat-Zinn started a clinic to teach what he called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – or MBSR – at UMass Medical School. The eight-week course offered a structured, secular approach to meditation – which involves learning to maintain awareness in the body in the present moment. The goal, says Kabat-Zinn was to teach people "how to take better care of yourself – not instead of medicine, but as a complement to whatever medicine can do."

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The latest trial over claims that Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ.N) talc products cause cancer ended in a mistrial on Tuesday, as a Florida state court jury said it could not agree on a verdict.

Shortly before Joseph Ladapo was sworn in as Florida’s surgeon general in 2022, the New Yorker ran a short column welcoming the vaccine-skeptic doctor to his new role, and highlighting his advocacy for the use of leeches in public health.

It was satire of course, a teasing of the Harvard-educated physician for his unorthodox medical views, which include a steadfast belief that life-saving Covid shots are the work of the devil, and that opening a window is the preferred treatment for the inhalation of toxic fumes from gas stoves.

A Texas judge on Friday temporarily blocked state Attorney General Ken Paxton from forcing an LGBTQ+ advocacy group to hand over information about transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

A ransomware attack is disrupting pharmacies and hospitals nationwide, leaving patients with problems filling prescriptions or seeking medical treatment.

On Thursday, UnitedHealth Group accused a notorious ransomware gang known as Black Cat, or AlphV, of hacking health care payment systems across the country.

Last week, the top health insurance company disclosed that its subsidiary, Optum, was impacted by a "cybersecurity issue," leading to its digital health care payment platform, known as Change Healthcare, being knocked offline.