Wessely Says: Even if XMRV Causes ME, "There's Nothing We're Going to Do About it"

[Gerwyn]

i think we have the same core illness but with different symptoms post exerional malaise being the common link.

The Oxford diagnostic criterea deliberately exclude neurological signs and actively recruits depressed patients.

What ever he diagnoses has no connection with our illness at all.

CFS is itself a stupid meaningless term and designed to be such

 

[Marco]

Whatever else he is, he is most definitely a player.

In my experience, those who succeed in any field, and by succeed I mean gain a position of influence, are those who have a degree of intelligence, work hard and know how to play the game.

The first two can get your foot in the door and a reasonable way up the ladder but I've found that those who attain positions of power excel in the latter. In the scientific field very few good scientists attain positions of influence. Most likely because they are committed to the science and don't have an interest in politicing, or are unwilling to compromise their scientific objectivity for positions of power. Those in positions are power are not the brightest or the hardest working, they are those who know what the game is and how to play it. If I recall correctly, Wessely, in one of his interviews, jokingly suggested that he wasn't a particularly good medic.

With the traditional scope of psychiatry being steadily eroded by advances, for example, in neurology, either by luck or design, he has found himself well placed amongst a combination of propitious circumstances e.g. :

rising dependency rates throughout the western world with governments' discretionary public spending increasingly disappearing to fund an ageing and ailing population;

rapid rises in 'complex environmental' illnesses such as ME/CFS; GWS, Autism, MCS etc that do not kill immediately but leave an expensive legacy of morbidity;

a government whose keystone social policy is to move people from 'welfare to work';

a 'biosocial' model of illness, partly developed by insurance companies in response to chronic illnesses, that downplays diagnosis in favour of the degree of functional capacity and the potential for rehabilitation (coincidentally -sic, New Labour have recently replaced Incapacity Benefit with the Employment Support Allowance which assesses not what you can't do - your illness - but what you can do - potential for rehabilitation);

add to this the deepest recession in 60 years and the financial imperative for 'rehabilitative' approaches is irresistable.

Players are easy to spot. They tend not to be too hung up on idealogical commitment. Rather they sniff the wind, go with the flow and jump on bandwagons. Note how the Wessley message has recently changed from somatoform 'par excellence' to post-viral but the exact virus doesn't matter, nor is it any barrier to 'recovery'. No doubt there's sufficient flexibility in his thinking to accommodate any future scientific findings.

Players also like to avoid getting tied down in details which might come back to haunt them. They tend to speak in bland generalities that others project meaning on. To the unbiased observer his words probably appear entirely reasonable, progressive, perhaps even sympathetic. To those with most to gain from the biosocial model of illness, his words probably sound like manna from heaven. We are the only ones offended by him and find it difficult if not impossible to explain why to outsiders. Hence we are seen as hysterical and fanatical in comparison to his reasonableness.

Finally players work well with other players, and politicians my friends are players 'par excellence'.


I think, at the end of the day, as CBT is rolled out across the NHS, he can be quietly confident of having played the game well.

 

[CJB]

Marco, you nailed it. What I've been trying to say all along re getting their "we can't find XMRV in CFS patients" paper out fast. It was a "player's" move.

 

[justinreilly]

I am sorry Prof. Wessely, but you are just a tool.

Note that he was a student at Cambridge and Oxford

But he was expelled from the Tool Academy.

 

[Gerwyn]

Marco, you nailed it. What I've been trying to say all along re getting their "we can't find XMRV in CFS patients" paper out fast. It was a "player's" move.

Yes we can see that it was a players move-why cant Vernon?

Players have weaknesses however.

Their game plans become predictable and can be countered by new young players entering the game.

Old champions become dethroned by smarter fitter more talented challengers.

This is what i think the WPI study is about.they have seen weisel and co coming

 

[Gerwyn]

Marco, you nailed it. What I've been trying to say all along re getting their "we can't find XMRV in CFS patients" paper out fast. It was a "player's" move.

Yes we can see that it was a players move-why cant Vernon?

Players have weaknesses however their game plans become predictable and can be countered by new young players entering the game.

Old champions become dethroned by smarter fitter more talented challengers.

This is what i think the WPI study is about.They have seen Weisel and cronies coming!

 

[Gerwyn]

Hello Gerwyn,

You remind me of the Dutch writer Simon Vestdijk (ignorance is here no loss to you) "who wrote faster than God could read" - which is not meant in criticism but to explain why I am a number of posts behind and you wrote:



Yes, I am also that sort of psychologist, or at least one with such interests. One of my general problems with psychiatry is that I have read a fair amount of it, and nearly all makes no sense to me, theoretically speaking. (Practically speaking, it must be more of an art than a science, and no doubt there are some good psychiatrists, as there are some good and intelligent people: in a minority.)

The only good book I know about general psychiatry (and when I say "good" I mean it is well-written, makes sense, and is not bad philosophy nor bad in terms of philosophy of science or logic) is:

-- Silvano P. Arieti: The Intrapsychic Self

He was - 40 years ago - the Dean of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) and specialized in schizophrenia, about which he wrote a major book (then), that is also good, as is his book about creativity. (All only second-hand available, I fear.)

Anyway... it does seem to me professor Simon Wessely has issues, about which I have learned guesses, but my main arguments why are commonsensical rather than psychiatric. To quote myself from an earlier post (I am, dear colleague, somewhat "fatigued"):\

-q

Either I, Simon Wessely Ph.D., am right about ME, and my government and insurance-companies will save money if they do as I say and will like me a lot or else I, Simon Wessely Ph.D., am wrong about ME, and tens of thousands of people in Great Britain alone will have their lives, health and social help ruined thoroughly and painfully for as many decades as my theories are used and allowed to mistreat genuinely ill people. (Happily, I, Simon Wessely Ph.D., am strong enough to support the ills and pains of others, thank God, if He exists.)

My own point of view is that no morally decent person plays such a game, especially if he is a medical doctor (Hippocratic oath etc.), for which reason there is definitely something wrong with him, but it is not easy to diagnose him properly, apart from the fact that a guy as intelligent as he is must know he is and has been lying about ME in a major way and for a long time (whatever his real reasons, that may be mostly hidden for him too).

-uq

Maarten.

Hi Again... I agree with all

My point is really simple because of his psychological construction he is so very convincing because he actually believes his own bullshit!

In his mind he could not possibly be mistaken in any way about anything

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

[...]
Either I, Simon Wessely Ph.D., am right about ME, and my government and insurance-companies will save money if they do as I say and will like me a lot or else I, Simon Wessely Ph.D., am wrong about ME, and tens of thousands of people in Great Britain alone will have their lives...

Hi Maarten,

Does Prof, Dr Simon Wessely have a PhD?

http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/staff/profile/default.aspx?go=10206

"Professor Simon Wessely MA, BM BCh, MSc, MD, FRCP, FRCPsych, F Med Sci."

 

[julius]

Martin Marteenz wrote;

...tens of thousands of people in Great Britain alone will have their lives, health and social help ruined thoroughly and painfully for as many decades as my theories are used and allowed to mistreat genuinely ill people.

I would add to that the fact that it is done for the sole purpose of fulfilling his own desires.

This world view is not unique to our good friend Wesseley. In fact, humanity is rife with these sick individuals. With this in mind we see that the problem reaches far beyond the world of ME/CFS.

What we eat, the air we breathe, how we feel about ourselves...indeed the very survival of the planet we live on is manipulated and controlled by many millions of people with the same world view. Our lives are attacked from every angle, at every moment by these sickos.

But is it a sickness really? Or is it part of human nature? I see it as the latter. We as humans, having billions of years of evolution behind us (ok, hundreds of millions if you discount the time we spent as single celled organisms) have a host of 'traits' to choose from. It is just as natural for a person to be kind and compassionate as it is for them to be selfish and ruthless.

The scariest part of it is that we probably are talking about 'healthy' people. 'Healthy' people who, for their own benefit would resort to such depravity. Who would rob innumerable individuals of their health, well being, home, planet......

What is a reasonable response to these type of people?

 

[Gerwyn]

Hi Maarten,

Does Prof, Dr Simon Wessely have a PhD?

http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/staff/profile/default.aspx?go=10206

"Professor Simon Wessely MA, BM BCh, MSc, MD, FRCP, FRCPsych, F Med Sci."

interesting a basic medical degree any idea about the Msc

 

[Gerwyn]

Thanks ME agenda

This is from the science media centre where the press get their science "information "from THIS IS HOW WESSELLY MANIPULATES THE MEDIA


Our science advisory panel is a prestigious group of scientists widely acknowledged as being at the top of their field, and who are committed to communicating science in the media. Their job is to advise the SMC when their area of science hits the headlines.
Professor Chris Leaver FRS
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford

Professor Mike Brady
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford

Professor Sir George Alberti
Department of Diabetes and Metabolism, University of Newcastle

Professor Peter Atkins DSc
Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford

Professor Brian Johnson
Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge

Professor Sir John Krebs FRS
Food Standards Agency and Department of Zoology, University of Oxford

Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE
Director of The Royal Institution of Great Britain
and Professor of Pharmacology, University of Oxford

Professor Richard Catlow FRS
Director of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory and Department of Chemistry, University College, London

Professor Steve Jones
Department of Biology, University College, London

PROFFESSOR SIMON WESSELLY
Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London

 

[Gerwyn]

more from the SCIENCE MEDIA CENTRE
Expert comments on new study casting doubt over ME virus link, as published in the BMJ

In addition to other recent research findings, this new study casts further doubt on previously identified links between a particular virus (known as XMRV) and chronic fatigue syndrome/ME.

Prof Myra McClure, Professor of Retrovirology & Honorary Consultant, Head of Section of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London, said:

"Three papers from three well-respected European laboratories have now independently and unambiguously failed to find XMRV in CFS patients. New results from other US laboratories will now be very interesting. It is unlikely that this virus is only found in US CFS patients, but it is possible that the cluster of patients studied in the original paper by Lombardi could be infected with XMRV, but that the virus has no role in CFS. This needs to be investigated."

To contact the above please contact the Science Media Centre on 020 7670 2980

Note for editors

The Science Media Centre (SMC) is an independent venture working to promote voices, stories and views from the scientific community to the news media when science is in the headlines. Over 50 sponsors including scientific institutions, media groups, corporate organisations and individuals fund the Centre, with donations capped at 5% of the running costs to preserve its independence. The team at the Centre is guided by a respected Scientific Panel and Board of Advisors. This press release contains the personal opinions of those acknowledged; which represent neither the views of the SMC nor any other organisation unless specifically stated.

For more details see our website www.sciencemediacentre.org, please e-mail the Science Media Centre with your comments.

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[Gerwyn]

Hello ME agenda,

a.k.a. Suzy, if I recall well (Thank you for all the work you did!). You wrote



and I stand corrected: The answer must be a resounding no. I assumed too much - reasoning by analogy to the rest of Europe, where university professors normally have the Ph.D. (which means that they have proved to Ph.D.s in their science that they can and have written a thesis that constitutes a real scientific contribution and have proved so publicly).

He also is no doctor, in the academical sense, except that he has a MSc in medicine.

Aahh well... but it is good to have the facts right, though my argument remains unaffected: Medical doctors with Simon Wessely's antics ought not be medical doctors.

Maarten.

is it a MSc in medicine I wonder

 

[MEKoan]

As to any claim to objectivity the BMJ may have, in general and their podcasts in particular, almost every question posed by Duncan Jarvis was a leading question and at no point was there even a hint of a challenge to the status quo nor was there any attempt at balance.

The establishment ranks are seamless.

 

[julius]

Thanks Maarten, (sorry I wrote your name totally wrong with my quote)

I will try to read the items you linked to. I have a particularly nasty brain fog, so I will have to read about a sentence a week. I'll let you know in a couple years how it went.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wessely

[...]

After attending King Edward VII School in Sheffield from 1968 to 1975, Wessely studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA 1978), University College, Oxford (BM BCh 1981), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MSc 1989). In 1993 the University of London conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Medicine.[2]

Wessely completed a medical rotation in Newcastle. After attaining medical membership he studied psychiatry (his primary interest) at the Maudsley in 1984. His 1993 doctoral thesis was on the relationship between crime and schizophrenia. Post-doctoral studies included a year at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and a year studying epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.[1] In 1999 he was elected fellow of the U.K. Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).[3]

 

[flex]

Below is a Wessely quote from the New Scientist which Knackered brought to our attention:

So do you think these syndrome labels are arbitrary?

"Each country has different syndromes. They don't have CFS in France; they have a strange one, spasmophilia, where a person has unexplained convulsions. In Sweden they have dental amalgam syndrome, which hasn't really caught on here. In Germany they believe low blood pressure is bad".

Any French or Swedish care to comment? Any Germans like to remark on the bizarre statement, "In Germany they believe low blood pressure is bad". Since low blood pressure can cause organ failure, what is even the point of that statement?

 

[natasa778]

As to any claim to objectivity the BMJ may have, in general and their podcasts in particular, almost every question posed by Duncan Jarvis was a leading question and at no point was there even a hint of a challenge to the status quo nor was there any attempt at balance.

Dr Cathy Sudlow, who was interviewed and had "strong doubts" about the Science study, is on the editorial board of BMJ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pages/profiles/profiles.asp?ProfileId=5 not sure if relevant but she is a Wellcome Trust funded scientist

 

[justinreilly]

Who DOESN'T love to have seizures?

Below is a Wessely quote from the New Scientist which Knackered brought to our attention:

So do you think these syndrome labels are arbitrary?

"Each country has different syndromes. They don't have CFS in France; they have a strange one, spasmophilia, where a person has unexplained convulsions. In Sweden they have dental amalgam syndrome, which hasn't really caught on here. In Germany they believe low blood pressure is bad".

Any French or Swedish care to comment? Any Germans like to remark on the bizarre statement, "In Germany they believe low blood pressure is bad". Since low blood pressure can cause organ failure, what is even the point of that statement?

Yes, I've wondered alot about this- comment from our continental brethren would be most appreciated. Some psychiatrists like to talk about 'culturally bounded' illnesses- basically these guys are totally hysterical- look these are weird illnesses confined to only one culture!. Like an African illness they like to characterize as some kind of fatiguing fever caused by studying too much.
Knowing how these psychiatrists operate, these are probably real diseases that are given trivializing names (sound familiar) and which they claim are 'bounded' by a culture thus 'proving' they are 'hysteria.' This french ME- spasmophilia; I guess in France their culture tells them to Love spasms. Not knowing anything about this I wouldn't be surprised if it were ME just given a retarded name so they can be denied health care and benefits.
I bet the Dutch XMRV- 'CFS' study guy is trying to get "Love of Secondary Gains Syndrome" declared a culturally bounded illness for Holland.

 

[justinreilly]

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wessely

[...]

Wessely's Post-doctoral studies includeda year studying epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

A year studying hygiene and he still can't tame his 'fro.