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Latest update on our petition calling for Cochrane to withdraw their harmful and flawed 'Exercise Therapy for CFS' review.
Over 8,5k individuals and over 40 patient organisations worldwide support our petition and associated open letter.
It is also the 4th anniversary of Cochrane's Dr Soares-Weiser acknowledging that the review is not fit for purpose and committing to a process to deliver a new review in two years - something that we still wait for.
More at
Change.org8 October - Global solidarityLast week we passed the 4th anniversary of the publication of the flawed 2019 version of the Cochrane review 'Exercise Therapy for CFS' by Larun, Brurberg, Odgaard-Jensen and Price. It is also the 4th anniversary of Dr Karla Soares-Weiser acknowledging that the review is not fit for purpose and committing to a process to deliver a new review in two years.
Four years on, and there is no new review. The flawed one, with its recommendation for Graded Exercise Therapy (GET), still remains. We continue to see the review used to support guidelines recommending GET, we are still seeing people with post-exertional malaise told that GET can cure them. This is despite there being no credible studies finding that GET is useful for ME/CFS and despite authorities such as UK NICE and US CDC, after reviewing the evidence, advising against GET for ME/CFS.
Advocates, often at substantial cost to their health, have actually been pointing out the flaws in this Cochrane review since the first version of the review was published in early 2015. Now, the best part of a decade on, we are hearing rumours of Cochrane 're-starting' the new review process, but the harmful review still remains in place.
Since the last update, seven more ME/CFS organisations have added their support to the campaign:
Japan ME AssociationDanish ME AssociationMillions Missing DenmarkMECFS Canterbury (New Zealand)Emerge Australia#ME Action ScotlandIrish ME/CFS Association
Thank you very much to all of the 41 organisations, from 19 countries as well as international and regional peak bodies, for supporting the open letter. The President of the Japan ME Association noted that her association has been fighting against GET for years, and hopes for immediate action by Cochrane. We, the petition organisers, hope that the demonstration of global solidarity from ME/CFS organisations in this campaign provides some strength to people who feel that they have been fighting against GET for too long on their own.
If you can, please help to promote this petition, and encourage more ME/CFS or Long Covid organisations to support the open letter. Organisations wishing to add their support can contact us at moderators@s4me.info.
You can join the discussion about the campaign on the Science for ME forum, at Petition: S4ME 2023 - Cochrane: Withdraw the harmful 2019 Exercise therapy for CFS review. The forum has a range of resources for ME/CFS advocates - it is run entirely by volunteers and membership is free. If you have ME/CFS or advocate for people who do, especially if you live in a country that does not have a national ME/CFS group, the forum is there to support you.