Our Crowdfunding Groups
A crowdfunding campaign is challenging even when it doesn’t launch just as global markets collapse and funds for medical research public health are disappeared. But that’s where we are.
I launched Trial By Error in October, 2015, with a 15,000-word investigation of the fraudulent PACE trial, which tested cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy as curative treatments for what they were calling chronic fatigue syndrome. What I thought was a one-off somehow morphed into an extended project on psycho-behavioral research across a broad range of conditions, including what has become known as Long Covid.
The project will soon reach the 10-year mark. At this point, I’m planning to continue until I retire from Berkeley around October, 2026—the month I turn 70. (As previously, I retain the right to change my mind, but that’s my current thinking.) That means, after this campaign, there will be another one in the fall.
I have been busy since last October’s crowdfunding.
*I’ve written 30+ posts on Virology Blog, many of them explaining why awful papers about psycho-behavioral interventions for ME/CFS and Long Covid are, in fact, awful.
*I posted several videos, including one of the talk I gave in Ireland. I organized a letter to Cochrane signed by dozens of experts lambasting the organization’s decision to abandon its promised revised review of exercise therapy for ME/CFS.
*I wrote a piece about the Cochrane mess for The Sick Times, a terrific publication covering Long Covid with which I hope to stay engaged.
*I have sent multiple letters to journals, like The BMJ, requesting corrections to sub-par papers. The day before this campaign launched, The Lancet published a letter I co-authored with my friend and colleague Joan Crawford, a counseling psychologist, about a flawed trial involving “persistent physical symptoms.”
*I spent most of March in Australia. In Sydney, my colleague and friend Dr David Joffe and I gave a joint presentation at the Kirby Institute, a prominent research center at the University of New South Wales. Dr Joffe spoke about the pathophysiology and economic burden of Long Covid. I spoke about the deeply flawed research into psycho-behavioral treatments—specifically, the PACE trial for ME/CFS and last year’s REGAIN trial for Long Covid.
*In Perth, I spent time heading with the heroic Alem Matthees and his family. Alem is the patient whose successful but arduous effort to liberate the raw PACE trial data from the clutches of Queen Mary University of London ruined what remained of his health.
As I have always made clear, crowdfunding is the least favorite part of what I do. But I now find myself in a peculiar situation. Unlike many of my colleagues at Berkeley and elsewhere, I have a source of funding that can’t be cancelled by the federal government. I am heartsick at these developments, as is every sane person I know—both in the U.S. and elsewhere. It goes without saying that I am also extremely grateful to everyone whose generosity over the years has helped me continue with this project.
One Final Note
Berkeley takes a 7.5% share as the university's standard fee for gifts, plus 2.5% as a credit card fee. Therefore, adding 10% to your donation will ensure that the full amount you intend is going toward the project itself. The donation is tax-deductible (for US taxpayers).
Thanks so much for your support. I really, really appreciate it, especially at this time of global trauma.
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A link to my original Trial By Error series: https://trialbyerror.org/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/
A link to all of my posts on Virology Blog: https://trialbyerror.org/archives/
