On 2013 Oct 24, Tom Kindlon commented:

In 2011, I was accused by Professors Lloyd & van der Meer of an unscientific and personal attack in a published letter of mine.^1,2 The accusation was made without any explanation, and they never replied when I e-mailed them about this issue. I believe the accusation was clearly false on both counts. Now I find that Prof. Lloyd (while apologising to Stouten et al. for having wrongly claimed that their letter was an unscientific and personal attack, no less) has re-iterated the claim that this was an apt characterization for my letter, as well as letters written by others.³ I would like to take this opportunity to correct the record.

In the letter in question, I challenged the PACE Trial authors’ claims about the safety of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), distilling my points into 250 words, the maximum allowed by the journal.² At no point do I attack individuals. As is common in letters to the editor, I challenge points made in the original paper—it has been recognised that such correspondence can be an important part of the scientific process. I subsequently expanded on the points about that particular trial, and the reporting of harms for these interventions in general, in a peer-reviewed paper.⁴ I have had several letters published, before and since, on the subject of CBT and GET interventions in reply to different research groups in a variety of journals.⁵

Incidentally, I do not believe the description is suitable or appropriate for the other letters that the Lancet published either.

References:

1 van der Meer JW, Lloyd AR. A controversial consensus--comment on article by Broderick et al. J Intern Med. 2012;271:29-31. Epub 2011 Nov 11.

2 Kindlon T. The PACE trial in chronic fatigue syndrome. Lancet 2011;377:1833; author reply 4–5.

3 Lloyd AR. Apology. J Intern Med. 2013;273:628.

4 Kindlon T. Reporting of Harms Associated with Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Bulletin of the IACFS/ME. 2011;19:59-111.

5 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom_Kindlon2/publications/

On 2013 Oct 24, Tom Kindlon commented:

In 2011, I was accused by Professors Lloyd & van der Meer of an unscientific and personal attack in a published letter of mine.^1,2 The accusation was made without any explanation, and they never replied when I e-mailed them about this issue. I believe the accusation was clearly false on both counts. Now I find that Prof. Lloyd (while apologising to Stouten et al. for having wrongly claimed that their letter was an unscientific and personal attack, no less) has re-iterated the claim that this was an apt characterization for my letter, as well as letters written by others.³ I would like to take this opportunity to correct the record.

In the letter in question, I challenged the PACE Trial authors’ claims about the safety of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), distilling my points into 250 words, the maximum allowed by the journal.² At no point do I attack individuals. As is common in letters to the editor, I challenge points made in the original paper—it has been recognised that such correspondence can be an important part of the scientific process. I subsequently expanded on the points about that particular trial, and the reporting of harms for these interventions in general, in a peer-reviewed paper.⁴ I have had several letters published, before and since, on the subject of CBT and GET interventions in reply to different research groups in a variety of journals.⁵

Incidentally, I do not believe the description is suitable or appropriate for the other letters that the Lancet published either.

References:

1 van der Meer JW, Lloyd AR. A controversial consensus--comment on article by Broderick et al. J Intern Med. 2012;271:29-31. Epub 2011 Nov 11.

2 Kindlon T. The PACE trial in chronic fatigue syndrome. Lancet 2011;377:1833; author reply 4–5.

3 Lloyd AR. Apology. J Intern Med. 2013;273:628.

4 Kindlon T. Reporting of Harms Associated with Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Bulletin of the IACFS/ME. 2011;19:59-111.

5 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom_Kindlon2/publications/