Video on individuals at a UK Malingering and Illness Deception Meeting

[Dolphin]

Lots have commented about CFS, Gulf war illness, etc. as you can see.

Published on 10 Jul 2015
Malingering and Illness Deception Meeting
6th-8th November 2001
Woodstock, Oxford

 

[sarah darwins]

Can't bring myself to 'like' that — too busy trying to control the nausea — but thanks, Dolphin.

 

[duncan]

Not sure why, but for some reason I am reminded of a picture of the hotel staff from The Shining.

 

[A.B.]

The irony is that they are deceiving themselves (if they genuinely believe this stuff, and it's not just a narrative to justify discrimination and morally repugnant behaviour). With these people there is a consistent pattern of flawed logic, poor study design, and what can only be described as magical thinking. For example, the correlation between illness severity and whether the person is member of a support group for people with this disease can be interpreted in different ways. They do not make an effort to find out which interpretation is correct. They also ignore the obvious explanation, ie. that sicker people have greater need for support groups.

Another thing is that they are seemingly unable to design a study that properly controls for patient and researcher bias. Without this, the results can either mean what they conclude, or it could just document the placebo effect in action, or describe the researchers biases. In other areas of medicine it has long been accepted that bias must be controlled or the results will probably be misleading. Without controling for biass, it's just pseudoscience. It looks a lot like science but misses a crucial element.

The recent study on emotional suppression did not demonstrate that patients with CFS actually suppress emotions. It is not clear what the results mean since the observer was an unblinded researcher. I'm absolutely certain that will not stop them from acting as if they (sort of, at least a bit) demonstrated emotional suppression and build on this narrative, coming up with more studies and eventually testing treatments. And they will always find a way to pretend that they have something real.

 

[Large Donner]

This is photo shopped isn't it with sourced actual quotes added in?

 

[Dolphin]

This is photo shopped isn't it with sourced actual quotes added in?

Not sure what you mean. There was an actual meeting with all these people at it as far as I know.

This video wasn't made by somebody who was at the meeting or connected with the meeting.

 

[Large Donner]

Its not a video though and doesn't have any presentations. Its just the opening picture all the way through with speech bubbles added in with attributed quotes for 5 minutes.

Are you saying that all of those quotes etc are directly from one meeting in 2001 in Oxford? Is there a transcript of such a meeting or full audio recording.

 

[Snowdrop]

The Magical Thinking Society has a long and disturbed history.

Nice archival evidence of some of the key players that still promote this harmful ideology even today.

 

[Dolphin]

Are you saying that all of those quotes etc are directly from one meeting in 2001 in Oxford?.

No

Is there a transcript of such a meeting or full audio recording.

Don't know

 

[Asa]

Just when I thought I'd heard it all... 2.22 (paraphrasing) CFS(ME?) is fabricated in order to avoid having sex??! (--Dr. Christopher Bass)

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All of this was terrible... cruel, sad... Thank you to whoever documented it though.

 

[Esther12]

A pdf from the meeting is available here: http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Malingering_and_Illness_Deception.pdf

 

[Large Donner]

A pdf from the meeting is available here: http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Malingering_and_Illness_Deception.pdf

Thanks but no thanks, even though I asked if there was a transcript of the meeting I don't think I could stomach it.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Imagine taking that photo, and making it look like an old one from the 1930s

Evil is an Equal Opportunity Employer
same woes time after time after time
the race religion whatever, don't matter
always some group gets to use the stick, another gets to be hit with the stick.
It flip-flops throughout history.
Nearly always there is some ulterior motive, and quite often the thugs, psychopaths or misguided and compassionless jackasses who do the harm, are merely tools to effect an end for bigger nastier SOBs.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

they never do

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Babylon5 has such insights....

 

[Ben H]

I had to check whether this was even real. Why I am so suprised?

This is so wrong, in so many ways (let alone the refusal or more likely denial it seems for the psych lobby to read or comprehend any research on M.E to protect their vested interests). This was only last year. Keep playing that card guys 'M.E is real but reversible by their own efforts'. Ha ha ha.

Davis is going to destroy this, soon.

 

[snowathlete]

Lots have commented about CFS, Gulf war illness, etc. as you can see.

Published on 10 Jul 2015
Malingering and Illness Deception Meeting
6th-8th November 2001
Woodstock, Oxford

We need more people in the wider scientific/medical communities to stand up for patients because anyone can see this group of people have some very disturbing beliefs about the disease, backed up by a whole load of conflicts of interest, and are doing a lot of harm as a result.

 

[Wildcat]

.
The quotes in the speech Bubbles are actual quotes from published material by each of those individuals. The quotes are not from a transcript of the Woodstock meeting, but are from material published previously or susequently by the individuals they are attributed to in the video.

.

 

[Mrs Sowester]

What's the chap in the mac, front row, doing with his hands?

 

[Snow Leopard]

From the aforementioned PDF

Somatoform disorders, conversion, dissociation, and functional somatic syndromes
A substantial proportion of attenders at medical clinics have symptoms that are not explained by disease. They are often given a diagnosis of a functional somatic syndrome. The psychiatric classifications offer a parallel scheme in which many patients with such conditions are diagnosed as suffering from somatoform disorders. If there is loss of physical function the diagnosis may be conversion disorder, and if loss of mental function one of dissociative disorder. All these diagnoses require that there is no adequate explanation for the symptoms in terms of physical pathology. The fact that these conditions usually present to medical services, used to patients having diseases, makes an allegation of malingering in such cases much more likely. The diagnosis of conversion or dissociation hangs on the clinician making a judgement that the mechanism is unconscious. Gross inconsistency (e.g. the patients who staggers into the consultation but runs for the bus) is often used to make this distinction, but even that may be inconclusive.

Case example
A 35-year-old woman was seen in the clinic saying that she had ‘ME’ and requesting a report for the benefits agency. She gave a history of severe disabling fatigue for 5 years following a viral infection. She said that she had not worked and admitted that she had found her previous employment as a teacher very stressful. She was now receiving substantial state benefits and her partner had given up his work to look after her. The mental state and physical examinations were unremarkable. The patient walked very slowly to the waiting room and was collected by her partner who pushed her to the car park in a wheel chair. A diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome was made based on the history. Subsequent to the assessment one of the nursing staff reported that she had seen the patient walking out to the shops appearing unaffected by fatigue. When the patient was challenged about this on a future appointment, she said that she had ‘good and bad days’. The fluctuation was accepted but the possibility of exaggeration of symptoms noted. This case illustrates the importance of seeking evidence of inconsistency over time and that the issue of exaggeration is a vexed one in conditions that may fluctuate from day to day.

That V-word again!

Underestimation of illness
The opposite of ignoring exaggerating is excessive scepticism about the veracity of the patient’s complaints. This may result from a personal attitude of scepticism toward suffering and disability of patients who have illnesses that are defined only by symptoms. This issue has been especially salient in the controversy over the nature of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (Ware 1992). Doctors employed by defence lawyers to perform independent reports may be also influenced by the lawyers’ agenda and be sceptical of the patient’s reported disability even when the evidence for it may be strong.

Just as one consequence of the doctor adopting the role of gate keeper for the new systems was that the doctor became convinced that he was the only defence against a legion of claimants out to deceive and defraud, for the patient came the opposite perspective—of a doctor who did not believe you whatever you said or did. ‘If it was true, as employers seemed to think, that self interest and self-aggrandizement were the engines of society and the individual, then how could the testimony of claimants be believed?’ (Eghigian 2000). And they were not.

The result was that the profession began to be held in contempt. ‘Sensitivity to disbelief also helps explain the particular contempt in which workers held the certifying physicians of accident insurance boards. Insured workers saw these doctors as little more than “hired guns” of employers, intent only on finding a way to release insurers from their obligations’ (Eghigian 2000). In the unequal struggle between patient and doctor, the only weapon left for the patient was dislike and contempt, a legacy which certainly continues to the present. One might say that every psychiatrist or physician who has been insulted or harried by patients with symptoms or syndromes such as chronic back pain or chronic fatigue is reaping the legacy of the insurance doctors.