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Horrifying article in Sunday Times

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
The somatization / somatoform theories that Wessely and friends have dedicated their careers to are so clearly and obviously pseudoscience. For the life of me, I cannot understand why other medical professionals don't see it, the logical foundations of these theories are so patently flawed. They are an embarrassment to science, and one giant leap backward for mankind.

This critique of somatization / somatoform theories that someone wrote nicely sums it up:


The amazing thing is our intrepid journalist Michael Hanlon, who presents himself as an advocate and defender of science, has been duped by Wessely School pseudoscience. Hanlon has not yet realized that Wessely School theories are just the emperor's new clothes. The fact that these various Wessely School academics have published dozens and dozens of peer-review papers gives them apparent credence; but anyone with a decent scientific mind would will see right through that somatization / somatoform psychobabble mumbo-jumbo straight away.

A big section at the start of my book is looking at how to define pseudoscience. If somatization etc. do not fit, they are damned close. Every major hallmark of pseudoscience is represented. The only thing that stops this from being recognized is that the medical community usually still stand behind the psych claims.
 

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Esther12 said:
My guess...

Radical: goes through papers, pointing out when they misrepresent the evidence.

Active: visits a forum where people point out papers that have misrepresented the evidence.

You forgot...

Militant: submitting a FOI for unpublished data which PACE promised to publish when they received public funding.
 

PhoenixBurger

Senior Member
Messages
202
I havent read this whole thread. But there are *so many* autoimmune conditions out there which are well known to cause psychological and cognitive problems as an *effect* (not the cause) ... that it astounds me any doctor would have the audacity to claim that this one is somehow unique in that regard. These otherwise intelligent individuals go from being educated and aware of the endless shades of gray in medicine, to suddenly not being able to tell their ass from their elbow, and blurt out these nonsense theories that contradict everything they know. Completely the opposite. Suddenly the concept of an infection, or an autoimmune disease causing cognitive changes seems impossible?

Please everyone - hang in there as long as you can. The medical community is soon to undergo a drastic upheaval. And it is going to consist of the complete revamping of their entire idiotic culture, mentality, arrogance, and pompous ignorance. By taking the power from those who hold the power, and giving it to the patients. All thanks to myriads of new technologies on the very close horizon. Any time I get upset by articles like this, I remind myself of what is to come. We are on the verge of a technological revolution.
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
I would be very disappointed not to be on one of their lists.

However, cannot overlook that the way in which the lists are descriibed and the carelessness (deliberate) of the reporting which connects the list to the police/authorities is intended to scare and intimidate patients.

It has been reported in such a way to cause distress and fear to a group of disabled people who have committed no crime.
 

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
alex3619 said:
A big section at the start of my book is looking at how to define pseudoscience. If somatization etc. do not fit, they are damned close. Every major hallmark of pseudoscience is represented. The only thing that stops this from being recognized is that the medical community usually still stand behind the psych claims.

Writing a book on the subject is very naughty Alex! It cannot be helping you lose the patient label. ;)

Medical Establishment Approved Pseudoscience?

UK-approved.jpg


PS. Would this earn me a place or move me up on the list? :nerd:

PPS. Who does the above smiley face look like?
 

user9876

Senior Member
Messages
4,556
It also sounds like patient forums are being monitored (how closely?), although maybe if Hanlon kept an eye on the threads himself he could still learn a thing or two. According to the Phoenix Rising statistics, the most popular thread in the last 3 months (i.e. determined by the largest number of contributors) which was related to ME or CFS directly was the "Recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome after treatments given in the PACE trial" thread with 41 contributors who posted there. Would the list be so ridiculous as to include anyone who posts frustrated but legitimate concerns on such threads?

It would be interesting to look at the IP addresses of the viewers to see if any came from Kings/Queen Marys etc. Of course that doesn't identify individuals or even which bits of a very large institution were looking.
 

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
My impression was that the cover quote was a mix of the various quotes within the article rather than one in its own right - in which case it is very misleading. Also depending on the form of the threats take laying it out as a ransom note makes it look more sinister.

He doesn't say who maintains the list. If Wessely does as part of his job at kings then persumably it fits under the catagory of crime prevention within the register of data controllers. But given the lack of prosecutions I think it would be hard to argue that a list of activists really forms any part of a crime prevention strategy. I would have also thought it was a breach of individuals privacy rights to have that information disclosed to a journalist.

I agree with both points. They could have simply typed the wording of the 'threats'. It is very common for journalists to misrepresent people and facts. It has happened to me a few times.

As for the names being disclosed to a journalist - again, this is really bad. The police would not even give me the name of the man who made an abusive phone call to me, which did cause some anxiety as he had used very strong language and said that people like me (opposed to vivisection - a valid viewpoint) should be killed and tested.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Oh then again *remembers* I probably AM a militant!
why? because I humorously suggested that maybe if we peed in MPs' tea, they'd take this illness more seriously!
which of course will have MI5 flagging me as a "terrorist!"
YEAH, I AM OSAMA BIN LADEN'S POT BOY!!
Fear me as I jihadi politicians and psychiatrists with CHAMBERPOTS O' DOOM! :whistle: :eek: :confused:

*mad Scotsman runs up to bunch of Establishment figures, rips off his jacket showing he's covered in urine bags and leaps on 'em! *
"FREEEEEEEDOM!"
*SPLORCH !*
Take THAT, Oxbridge-Etonian elitist swine! :sluggish:

well knowing some of their proclivities they'd probably enjoy that.... :alien:

hey, as I'e said before SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS THE GREASE... ;)
If we want change, being "nicey nicey" will NOT do it. those arrayed against us are bullying, self-made sociopaths, they simply do not want change, they do not want their little bailiwick disturbed, their petty fiefdoms challenged or taxed
They MADE THE RULES OF THE GAME, so we *cannot* win it their way.
Doesn't mean you have to hurt folk or harass them personally, does mean we should treat them like the assholes they are (the real assholes, not ones who genuinely disagree, find different research findings etc)

Just wish the *real* loonies out there would learn you don't need bombs, or the most dangerous of all loonies, that "the ends do NOT justify the means" and their desire for power is the most terrible and murderous addiction the world has ever known.
ie, terrorists are bad but they are *nothing* compared the incredible hubris of people like Tony Blair "I made the right call in Iraq!"
I think half a million dead folk and perhaps HUNREDS of millions of dead/deformed Iraqi babies over the next millennia or two suggest otherwise.

PS the UK and USA *are* police states by most definitions.

UK police have been caught wasting incredibly expensive/difficult resources infiltrating middle class, FAMILY type environmental activists and then making their undercover cops act as agents provocateurs, which is highly illegal and completely batshit
it they they encouraged ordinary folk to do illegal things in their protest os they could stop the protest
what illegal things? bombs, guns etc? no, TRESPASS...sigh you couldn't make this crap up, but it's true.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/10/fine-line-undercover-officer
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/0...lice-agent-crossing-line-during-cuts-protest/
http://www.channel4.com/news/undercover-police-officer-was-agent-provocateur


Judges rule that undercover police officer Mark Kennedy unlawfully spied on climate change activists who were accused of planning to shut down the UK's second largest power station.

The damning ruling comes as 20 activists were told that their convictions for conspiracy to break into coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottingham had been quashed.
The three judges said there had been a miscarriage of justice as a result of prosecutors not disclosing to the defendants' vital evidence about the undercover officer, who used the alias Mark Stone while he was with the group for seven years.
They said that Kennedy "was involved in activities which went much further than the authorisation he was given, and appeared to show him as an enthusiastic supporter of the proposed occupation of the power station and, arguably, an agent provocateur".
The court said that there had been "significant" non-disclosure of material "which would have been supportive of the defence case" at trial. The material related to recordings and a statement made by Kennedy, who infiltrated the group.
Lord Judge said: "Something went seriously wrong with the trial. The prosecution's duties in relation to disclosure were not fulfilled.
"The result was that the appellants were convicted following a trial in which elementary principles which underpin the fairness of our trial processes were ignored.


and USA, Boston bombings led to an eye opener to those who didn't know this crap was going on

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/04/telephone-calls-recorded-fbi-boston

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case
cnn.png

Former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente, on CNN, discussing government's surveillance capabilities Photograph: CNN screegrab
The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.
Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.
On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could:
BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?​
CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.​
BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.​
CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."​
"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak".
On Thursday night, Clemente again appeared on CNN, this time with host Carol Costello, and she asked him about those remarks. He reiterated what he said the night before but added expressly that "all digital communications in the past" are recorded and stored:

Let's repeat that last part: "no digital communication is secure", by which he means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications - meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like - are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact. To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is.
There have been some previous indications that this is true. Former AT&T engineer Mark Klein revealed that AT&T and other telecoms had built a special network that allowed the National Security Agency full and unfettered access to data about the telephone calls and the content of email communications for all of their customers. Specifically, Klein explained "that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" and that "contrary to the government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists . . . much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic." But his amazing revelations were mostly ignored and, when Congress retroactively immunized the nation's telecom giants for their participation in the illegal Bush spying programs, Klein's claims (by design) were prevented from being adjudicated in court.
That every single telephone call is recorded and stored would also explain this extraordinary revelation by the Washington Post in 2010:
Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.​
It would also help explain the revelations of former NSA official William Binney, who resigned from the agency in protest over its systemic spying on the domestic communications of US citizens, that the US government has "assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about US citizens with other US citizens" (which counts only communications transactions and not financial and other transactions), and that "the data that's being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want."
Despite the extreme secrecy behind which these surveillance programs operate, there have been periodic reports of serious abuse. Two Democratic Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, have been warning for years that Americans would be "stunned" to learn what the US government is doing in terms of secret surveillance.
tia.png

Strangely, back in 2002 - when hysteria over the 9/11 attacks (and thus acquiescence to government power) was at its peak - the Pentagon's attempt to implement what it called the "Total Information Awareness" program (TIA) sparked so much public controversy that it had to be official scrapped. But it has been incrementally re-instituted - without the creepy (though honest) name and all-seeing-eye logo - with little controversy or even notice.
Back in 2010, worldwide controversy erupted when the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates banned the use of Blackberries because some communications were inaccessible to government intelligence agencies, and that could not be tolerated. The Obama administration condemned this move on the ground that it threatened core freedoms, only to turn around six weeks later and demand that all forms of digital communications allow the US government backdoor access to intercept them. Put another way, the US government embraced exactly the same rationale invoked by the UAE and Saudi agencies: that no communications can be off limits. Indeed, the UAE, when responding to condemnations from the Obama administration, noted that it was simply doing exactly that which the US government does:
"'In fact, the UAE is exercising its sovereign right and is asking for exactly the same regulatory compliance - and with the same principles of judicial and regulatory oversight - that Blackberry grants the US and other governments and nothing more,' [UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al] Otaiba said. 'Importantly, the UAE requires the same compliance as the US for the very same reasons: to protect national security and to assist in law enforcement.'"​
That no human communications can be allowed to take place without the scrutinizing eye of the US government is indeed the animating principle of the US Surveillance State. Still, this revelation, made in passing on CNN, that every single telephone call made by and among Americans is recorded and stored is something which most people undoubtedly do not know, even if the small group of people who focus on surveillance issues believed it to be true (clearly, both Burnett and Costello were shocked to hear this).
Some new polling suggests that Americans, even after the Boston attack, are growing increasingly concerned about erosions of civil liberties in the name of Terrorism. Even those people who claim it does not matter instinctively understand the value of personal privacy: they put locks on their bedroom doors and vigilantly safeguard their email passwords. That's why the US government so desperately maintains a wall of secrecy around their surveillance capabilities: because they fear that people will find their behavior unacceptably intrusive and threatening, as they did even back in 2002 when John Poindexter's TIA was unveiled.
Mass surveillance is the hallmark of a tyrannical political culture. But whatever one's views on that, the more that is known about what the US government and its surveillance agencies are doing, the better. This admission by this former FBI agent on CNN gives a very good sense for just how limitless these activities are.

those of us who've read up on such for ages know about VENONA and ECHELON

as a certain philosopher once said
"Those who fight monsters had best beware in case they become monsters.
And if you gaze too long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes back into YOU!"
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
I've never seen anyone more self satisfied than "smiley" above (SW or Sir SW) - get out. This is no Doc as I know it (4 specialists in my own family). SW is not medicine but entirely self seeking, self promoting, obvious personal problems to ensure his grandeur - is this man human in the fullest sense of the word.
 

Shell

Senior Member
Messages
477
Location
England
I've seen all this play out since I've been looking into what made me ill. I've read Osler's Web and I saw up close the bizarre approach to my friend's ME back in the '80s before I realised how much politics were at play. I just saw a friend who had been healthy, become very sick indeed and then find he couldn't get any medical help. Thankfully he got the bed rest he needed and he's in remission (mostly) these days.

What I can't get to, or understand at all is WHY this has happened. What was it that made the CDC refuse to investigate the outbreaks at Tahoe and other places? What were they afraid they were going to find?

I am sick to death of reading and hearing stories from very seriously ill people who were told "you're depressed" or "it's anxiety" from medics who obviously don't have a clue what depression and/or axiety is and don't seem to have a clue about basic medicine either.

Was anyone around on the inside in those days when this all started who has spoken out about what happened? Something allowed the likes of "Sir" to get his claws into us, but I can't work out what or how.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Up to 40% of patients with chronic back pain could be cured with a course of antibiotics rather than surgery, in a medical breakthrough that one spinal surgeon says is worthy of a Nobel prize.

That is an amazing new finding: that chronic back pain is often caused by infection in a spinal disc by the bacterium Propionibacterium acnes.

Yet another disease of hitherto unknown etiology has turned out to be caused by a hidden microbial infection. Brilliant work by the Danish team of scientists, the culmination of 10 years of research.

As biomedical research continues, I expect that science will find more and more diseases have infectious etiologies; I think that whole swathes of common diseases will turn out to be underpinned microbial infection. And in particular, I think the so-called somatoform disorders will turn out to be caused by microbial infections that are largely undetectable by current techniques.

I wrote the following on my website:
We are beginning to appreciate that the human body does not lapse into disease on its own, but rather, the body only tends develop disease when compromised by pathogenic microbes (and of course environmental toxins).

In a certain sense, this is very good news: it means that our bodies are far more robust than we have hitherto assumed.

It is also good news because if, in future, we manage to purge all these disease-causing microbes from our bodies, we should be able to eliminate the vast majority of common human diseases, such as clinical depression, anxiety disorder, nervous breakdowns, burnout at work, personality problems, anorexia, autism, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, bipolar, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, obesity, etc.
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Yep I agree Nielk - why are we paying attention to the c.... of the ignorant psychos (should try Neurology, Immunology etc but appear not bright enough). Long since lost any real respectability here. And if not too simple - no real science/medicine behind them. SW et al a complete bore.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Something allowed the likes of "Sir" to get his claws into us, but I can't work out what or how.

It's just my take on it, and I might be way off, but my thoughts on it are as follows...

Governments don't like any types of 'outbreaks', or other such unpredictable events, and they quickly move to put a lid on potentially escalating public relations disasters. Outbreaks or other such unpredictable events can quickly escalate into public alarm and panic, and very bad public relations disasters for governments. Governments don't like 'unknowns' and they like to keep a lid on alarming 'events', including health scares (unless the public 'alarm' helps them in facilitating their desired policies.)

So, when 'unknowns' occur, governments look towards people who can give them quick, simple but reassuring and convincing answers.
When a simple answer has been found (e.g. a health scare is due to 'hysteria'), then the media (and therefore the general public) are satisfied, because they have a story that they can run with, and then the whole story can closed with the simple answer of 'hysteria' etc.

Unfortunately, with ME/CFS, there has always been a vacuum of knowledge. There are no definite answers, and limited research has been carried out.
Where there is a vacuum, something tends to fill it.
Unfortunately, real meaningful research takes a long time to progress, so anyone who can come up with quick and easy answers (e.g. quacks, charmers and snake oil sellers) is able to fill the vacuum, and benefit personally from promoting themselves as an expert with regard to the issue at hand.
It's also just simple human laziness to accept the easiest and simple answers, if they seem adequate.

In this case, psychiatry has been able to fill the vacuum.

I think a number of players have enabled this to happen:
1. Government. As I said above, governments need simple and convincing 'answers', even if the answers aren't adequate or accurate. As long as the answer seems convincing, and there isn't any overwhelming evidence to contradict it, then it will do, and the government will buy into it, and use it. Increased complexity means bad public relations, uncertainty, and more financial cost or investment.
2. Health Care Services. Health care services need to be able to offer 'something' to patients, otherwise they will be accused of neglect. Along comes psychiatry and offers some simple 'answers' and 'treatments' that have some sort of 'evidence' behind them. However weak or distorted the evidence, health care services need peer-reviewed evidence upon which to base their services.
So, the health care services can now tell patients that they have a certain type of illness, and patients are offered a 'treatment'. If patients complain, the health care services just have to say that they have based their services on the best available evidence.
Psychiatry has given health care services the option of some easy and cheap answers and treatments.
3. Academia. Unfortunately, academia is very conservative. Although academia likes to pretend that it is anything but conservative, in reality it's run by an old boys network. The old boys network controls funding and promotions etc. Therefore it is difficult for researchers to break out of the established mould, and to publicly challenge established dogma. Careers can easily be ended if enemies are made. As in all 'old boys' networks, the 'old boys' protect each other, promote each other and defend each other, treating outsiders with suspicion and contempt. (Obviously not all of academia is like this, but there is an element of it which seems to have some influence. There is obviously a lot of good stuff going on in academia as well.)
4. Private insurance. There's a lot of money involved in health in the USA. As such, perhaps the private insurance industry has played a role in the illness in the US. My understanding is that insurance companies pay out far less if an illness is classified as a mental health issue, or similar. We know that some of the leading CFS psychiatrists in the UK work for the insurance industry. As such, there is a lot of money sloshing around to support the psychiatric position.

In the UK, psychiatry seems to have an enormous amount of influence in government, health care, and academia. I'm not so familiar with the US system. The UK CFS psychiatric 'industry' now has a large network of researchers, therapists, doctors, and NHS/private clinics. They do not want to loose their influence, status, or income. It's a big industry.

Things will change, and I personally believe things are now changing rapidly and radically. I think we are hearing so much (hysterical) noise from the psychiatric lobby because they are fearful of the current changes taking place, and what it means to them in terms of lost funding and status etc. I believe that the louder and more shrill they become, the better it is for us in the long run, because it means that things are definitely changing. Perhaps the situation will escalate somewhat before things become obviously better for us.

Counter-intuitively, I believe that if they were silent, then the situation would actually be worse for us.

I'm ever the optimist, but I really do see things changing. There's been such an enormous amount of good news recently, that this ridiculous article has totally failed to demoralise me, unlike past articles, despite me having experienced a minor relapse recently.

(Perhaps we should set up a good news thread, where all the good news can be collated.)

(Edit: I hope I haven't come across as too much of a conspiracy theorist here. I don't believe that the whole of society is run in the way I have described above, but things can go wrong in society, and it seems to have happened like this in the field of ME/CFS, as far as I understand it all.)
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Bob
Your above points 1 to 4 are an astute overall analysis of why the Wessely School pseudoscience has had so much influence. Your analysis shows that the dominance of Wessely School views are a result of an unfortunate confluence of factors, all of which have, for their own individual reasons, unfortunately supported these views.

Without this confluence of factors, Wessely School views would have remained as an obscure academic pursuit. But this confluence of factors has unfortunately seized upon these view and elevated them to primetime. Wessely School views have not dominated out of their own merit, but out of their convenience and utility to various other interests.