Steven Lubet

Source:northwestern.edu

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where he specializes in professional responsibility and ethics. He has been living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) since 2006.

Debra Cassens Weiss wrote about Professor Lubet's CFS battle in ABA Journal: "Well-known law prof battles stigma of chronic fatigue syndrome by going public". Professor Lubet notes patients are "treated as malingerers and met with disbelief" with many "referred to psychiatrists" and that he 'outed' himself [about having ME/CFS] to broaden public understanding."

PACE trial criticism

PACE trial bias - quote from Steven Lubert, Investigator bias and the PACE trial. The PACE trial was based on the Cognitive Behavioral Model - the theory that ME/CFS was fully reversible with behavioral and psychological interventions (GET and CBT), and that no underlying disease process was at work. Patients were selected using the Oxford criteria developed by Sharpe, and recovery was assessed with Chalder's Chalder Fatigue Scale and other patient questionnaires.(Poster licensed for reuse: CC-BY-4.0)

Mr. Lubet is a critic of the PACE trial and has written pieces deconstructing its faults.

Education

• JD, University of California, Berkeley
• BA, Northwestern University

Open letters

• 2017, Mr. Lubert was one of the signatories of open letter requesting the journal, Psychological Medicine, to retract their paper about the inflated recovery rates of the PACE trial immediately.

Notable articles

Virology Blog

• July 3, 2017: "Trial by Error, Guest Post: Questions About Professor Sharpe’s ‘Special Ethics Seminar’"
• Apr 16, 2018: "Trial By Error, Guest Post: Crowdfunding David Tuller Is Not a Conflict of Interest"

Journal of Health Psychology

• March 7, 2017: "Investigator bias and the PACE trial"

  Abstract - The PACE investigators reject Geraghty’s suggestion that the cognitive behavior therapy/graded exercise therapy trial could have been better left to researchers with no stake in the theories under study. The potential sources and standards for determining researcher bias are considered, concluding that the PACE investigators “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

• June 14, 2017: "Defense of the PACE trial is based on argumentation fallacies"

  Abstract - In defense of the PACE trial, Petrie and Weinman employ a series of misleading or fallacious argumentation techniques, including circularity, blaming the victim, bait and switch, non-sequitur, setting up a straw person, guilt by association, red herring, and the parade of horribles. These are described and explained.

The Faculty Lounge

• Jan, 2015: "Laura Hillenbrand, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and me"
• Oct, 2015: "No, It Isn't All in Your Head"
• Nov, 2015: "ME/CFS and Law Schools"
• Aug, 2016: "An Appalling Episode in ME/CFS Research"
• Sep, 2016: "The PACE Study Results Exposed as Meaningless and Harmful"
• Nov, 2016: "An Open Letter to Dr. Simon Wessely, Defender of the PACE Study"
• Nov, 2016: "The PACE Study: Open Access and Conflicts of Interest" (UPDATED with a note to commenters)
• Nov, 2017: Turning the Corner on ME/CFS in the United Kingdom
• Jul, 2018: ME/CFS Patients vs. The Insurance Industry
• Jul, 2019: Do the Editors at BMJ Archives of Disease in Childhood Care about Conflicts of Interest? - on the SMILE trial

Learn more

• Wikipedia page for Steven Lubet
• Northwestern Law Faculty page

See also

• Ethical issues

• Intimidation of PACE critics

• PACE trial
• Stigma

See chronic fatigue syndrome.

See myalgic encephalomyelitis.

PACE trial A controversial study which claimed that CBT and GET were effective in treating "CFS/ME", despite the fact that its own data did not support this conclusion. Its results and methodology were widely disputed by patients, scientists, and the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Bias in research is "a systematic deviation of an observation from the true clinical state". (Learn more: me-pedia.org)

bias Bias in research is "a systematic deviation of an observation from the true clinical state". (Learn more: me-pedia.org)

cognition Thought processes, including attention, reasoning, and memory.

graded exercise therapy (GET) - A gradual increase in exercise or activity, according to a pre-defined plan. Focuses on overcoming the patient's alleged unhelpful illness beliefs that exertion can exacerbate symptoms, rather than on reversing physical deconditioning. Considered controversial, and possibly harmful, in the treatment or management of ME. One of the treatment arms of the controversial PACE trial.

See Graded exercise therapy.

cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) - A type of psychotherapy geared toward modifying alleged unhealthy thinking, behaviors or illness beliefs. One of the treatment arms used in the controversial PACE trial.

See cognitive behavioral therapy.

cognition Thought processes, including attention, reasoning, and memory.