A Boy, His Brain, and a Decades-Long Medical Controversy

The doctor's dismissal of the boy's condition ("That’s a made-up disease") is in the same key of some of the discussion yesterday in "When dying patients want unproven drugs" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393327

It is shameful that so much of the medical establishment rejects evidence that hasn't been peer reviewed and published. It's even more shameful when juxtaposed with the acceptance of evidence that has been peer-reviewed and published, but is nevertheless unreliable.

To say that inflammation from an infection is "made up" while also claiming that "psychiatric drugs and talk therapy are backed up by decades of robust scientific evidence," despite the replication failure—or just bad math—in so much of psych, is positively medieval.

> The tests kept coming back normal. Neurologists referred him to psychiatrists. Psychiatrists referred him back to neurologists. Pediatricians recommended therapists. Therapists suggested psychologists.

Oh boy are cycles like this familiar. I remember when a respirologist referred me to a psychologist for my inability to take good breaths. "Stress" (i.e. hypochondria probably)

Well eventually a gastroenterologist realized it was stomach acid bubbling up into my throat or something like that. I've been on Nexium for 15 years now, and I can breathe just fine.