Simon Wessely wins prize for "Standing Up For Science."

[Simon]

[Re Simon Wessely's postinfectious fatigue study]

What an excellent piece of research that was. Did they decide to begin their investigations with those viral infections, like glandular fever (EBV), which had been widely reported to lead on to CFS? No, they just lumped everything in together, and ended up with another misleading result that led to patients being treated as if their accurate claims that their fatigue began with an infection were treated as being part of an attempt to escape responsibility, and the recognition of the emotional origins of their symptoms....

There's a critque of the viral fatigue study you mention here:

Serious flaw in study showing 'common infections don't lead to CFS'

Postinfectious fatigue: prospective cohort study in primary care, 1995 (pdf), Wessely S, Chalder T, Hirsch S, Pawlikowska T, Wallace P, Wright DJ.

This study compared a cohort of around 1,000 patients who went to see their doctor with a viral illness with a matched cohort of patients seeing their doctor for other reasons - and found no difference in their rate of CFS 6 months later:

Unfortunately, it appears that the study failed to exclude any existing cases of CFS in both cohorts - it wasn't looking at NEW cases after infection, it was looking at total cases (of which new cases would only be a small proportion). So it's unsurprising there was little difference between the 2 cohorts.

[MY NOTE: actually, there were more NEW cases of CFS in the viral cohort, but the difference wasn't significant, unsurprisingly the study was by some way too small to detect a low rate of CFS after common viral infections.]
...
In short, there's nothing you can conclude from this study about the link between common acute infections and subsequent develoopment of CFS

 

[Desdinova]

“Wessely has had to suffer continued abuse and obstruction from a powerful minority of people who, under the guise of self-help organizations, have sought to promote an extreme and narrow version of the disorder.

Yes how dare we the powerful minority be our own advocates and express our opinions in relation to the very health issues that afflict us under the guise of (aka fake) support groups. Yes how dare we indeed, Bad ME/CFS patients Bad Bad.

Hostile letters, e-mails and even death threats have been directed at Professor Wessely over two decades.

Good Lord, laying it on thick ain't they. Listening to them you'd think Wessely was receiving mail bags full of hostile threatening letters addressed to him. Kind of like the scene from the movie Miracle on 34th street.

 

[Enid]

I recall various models for this sort of behaviour in psychology - all lacking any reason. "Under the guise of self-help organisations" - sounds straight out of a John Le Carre novel......spooky.

 

[Min]

Comments can be left on the facebook page, but will probably be somehow interpreted as 'death threats':

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sense-About-Science/182689751780179

 

[Nielk]

Unfortunately he is probably going to go to his grave with not having to be held officially responsible for all the harm he's caused patients etc with all the warped research he's done.

Does anyone know if it is true that both his parents were holocaust survivors? (I wouldnt put it past him to mislead then allow the media to keep on making statements without correction).

I found this quote regarding his father being a Holocaust survivor:

"I've never made a secret of the fact that I greatly admire our armed services and feel we don't value them enough. Those feelings have no doubt been influenced by my father's background." As a teenager his dad travelled alone on the Kindertransport from Prague to Britain to escape the Nazis. He was fostered then adopted by a family in Cottingham, near Hull and went on to serve in the Royal Navy before becoming a teacher.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...ht-to-explain-our-casualties-of-war-1-2354350

 

[In Vitro Infidelium]

I'd urge everyone to abandon this thread, saying nothing serves us far better than venting our feelings in this way. The only purpose our comments can serve is in the hands of a critic trying to convince others we are all irrational, spite filled and bordering on violence.

Sorry I couldn't resist the irony of going against your advice, by er ...agreeing with you

IVI

 

[Tito]

I found this quote regarding his father being a Holocaust survivor:

"I've never made a secret of the fact that I greatly admire our armed services and feel we don't value them enough. Those feelings have no doubt been influenced by my father's background." As a teenager his dad travelled alone on the Kindertransport from Prague to Britain to escape the Nazis. He was fostered then adopted by a family in Cottingham, near Hull and went on to serve in the Royal Navy before becoming a teacher.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...ht-to-explain-our-casualties-of-war-1-2354350

It's more the sort of comment a 'celeb' would make rather than a scientist. I've never heard KDM, Bell, Peterson, ... making that sort of statement.

 

[Merry]

Comments can be left on the facebook page, but will probably be somehow interpreted as 'death threats':

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sense-About-Science/182689751780179

Done. What's the address of Brenda Maddox?

 

[Nielk]

Please watch this video at your own risk.

 

[Merry]

In a way, Simon Wessely receiving the John Maddox Prize is fitting because here's what Wikipedia has to say about John Maddox's view of AIDS:

"Maddox penned an editorial in April 1983 entitled 'No Need for Panic about AIDS' that voiced the then-common thinking that 'male homosexuals should be persuaded to change their ways' of' 'pathetic promiscuity' and described AIDS as a 'perhaps non-existent condition'."

 

[notinfinite]

In a way, Simon Wessely receiving the John Maddox Prize is fitting because here's what Wikipedia has to say about John Maddox's view of AIDS:

"Maddox penned an editorial in April 1983 entitled 'No Need for Panic about AIDS' that voiced the then-common thinking that 'male homosexuals should be persuaded to change their ways' of'"pathetic promiscuity' and described AIDS as a 'perhaps non-existent condition'."

Brilliant and yet strangely familiar.

 

[biophile]

Oh the irony ...

Ask for Evidence:

Sense About Science's campaign to get people asking advertisers, government bodies, companies and other organisations to set out evidence for the claims they make.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ask-for-Evidence/293954017306443

I guess asking for the evidence is different than evaluating it.

Some brief churnalism from New Scientist magazine:

http://www.newscientist.com/article...d-psychiatrist-awarded-prize-for-bravery.html

Journalist and psychiatrist awarded prize for bravery

20:00 06 November 2012 by Andy Coghlan

Death threats and libel suits are not usually the stuff of a career in science. But this week two people who have faced violence and intimidation simply for trying to uphold scientific values became the first recipients of the John Maddox Prize, an award that recognises exceptional courage and bravery in science anywhere in the world.

The award was given to Shi-min Fang, a biochemist and freelance science journalist in Beijing, who survived an attack by an assailant with a hammer after exposing bogus medical treatments and fraudulent scientific practices in China, and Simon Wessely of King's College London. He received death threats and professional smears for offering people with chronic fatigue syndrome a psychiatric treatment at a time when a mouse leukaemia virus had been implicated as the cause. The virus link has since been discredited.

Fang and Wessely beat 47 other nominated individuals, and each was awarded a prize of £2000.

Sile Lane of Sense About Science, the UK watchdog that combined with Nature to set up the award, said Wessely and Fang stood out as being "exceptional".

Some concerning background to Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/dec/09/highereducation.uk2

Invasion of the entryists

How did a cultish political network become the public face of the scientific establishment?

 

[Bob]

Coincidently, I've exchanged communications with Sense About Science before.
They have an active (quite aggressive) pro-GM stance, and have recently been involved in promoting GM in the UK, whilst claiming to be neutrally pro-science.
I asked them to respond to a number of concerns that I have about GM. The response failed to properly address or acknowledge most of my concerns. (They acknowledged the reality of one or two of my concerns, in their response, but then dismissed them as unimportant.)

Here is Sense About Science's Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/senseaboutsci

 

[taniaaust1]

I found this quote regarding his father being a Holocaust survivor:

"I've never made a secret of the fact that I greatly admire our armed services and feel we don't value them enough. Those feelings have no doubt been influenced by my father's background." As a teenager his dad travelled alone on the Kindertransport from Prague to Britain to escape the Nazis. He was fostered then adopted by a family in Cottingham, near Hull and went on to serve in the Royal Navy before becoming a teacher.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...ht-to-explain-our-casualties-of-war-1-2354350

thanks.. by the actual article, as they said son of holocaust "survivors".. it made it sound as both his parents were (seems by the above as both parents werent mentioned in the quote Nielk posted.. only one of his parents were).

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

http://www.ajr.org.uk/journal/issue.Mar03/article.419

Association of Jewish Refuges

Mar 2003 Journal

[...]

...Among the children who gave their recollections to Esther Rantzen were Lord Alf Dubs, Vera Schaufeld, Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, Käthe Strenitz (last month’s AJR Journal profilee), Vera Gissing and Rudy Wessely, a 77-year-old retired university lecturer with whom Esther returned to Prague, a city he had last seen at the age of 14.

[...]

...Sitting with Esther in the Wessely family’s former flat, in which he had spent his last day with his parents, Rudy confessed that there were memories too much to bear and “too many ghosts” for him to return to Prague once again. From the Czech Jewish community’s archives he learned that his father, a judge who was imprisoned in the small fortress in Theresienstadt, and his mother, had been reunited for their final journey to Auschwitz.

 

[taniaaust1]

Thanks Dx Revision for finding the facts for us. At least we now know he isnt making that up to draw attention to himself.

 

[Enid]

Yes it is genuine - but my husband and family went through like circumstances, but does not dwell on it - it is far too sad. And then of course so very many too.....not special to SW.

 

[Min]

Statement from the UK charity Invest in ME:

"No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power"
- Jacob Bronowski

We'll make just one comment on the Sense About Science discussion

Sense About Science states that it is "a charitable trust that equips people to make sense of scientific and medical claims in public discussion"

Yet it gives an award to a person who, in our experience and our opinion, has done nothing to assist people suffering from this disease.

Yet would one expect more from a judging panel that includes people like Colin Blakemore - who, in our opinion as far as ME was concerned, presided over barren and unproductive years in charge of the Medical Research Council?

Would one expect more from Sense About Science - a sibling of the Science Media Centre?

On the Advisory panel of Sense About Science sits - guess who - Professor Simon Wessely.

Here are extracts from from – CORPORATE COLLUSION? By Professor Malcolm Hooper, Eileen Marshall and Margaret Williams
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Corporate_Collusion_2.htm

• “At the launch on 11th January 2002 of his Working Group’s Report, the Chief Medical Officer, by then Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, went on record saying: “CFS/ME should be classed as a chronic condition with long-term effects on health, alongside other illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease” (BBC News /Health, Friday 11th January 2002).

“The Chief Medical Officer was at once derided by a GP known for presenting and promoting the views of Simon Wessely, for his perverse and immoderate attacks on those with ME/CFS and for his association with Sense about Science, a sibling of the Science Media Centre, who wrote: “The CFS/ME compromise reflects a surrender of medical authority to irrationality. The scale of this capitulation is apparent when Professor Donaldson claims that CFS/ME should be classified together with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease” (ME: the making of a new disease online at http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000002D3B6.htm ).”

and

• “News reached the ME/CFS community that Professor Colin Blakemore, CEO of the MRC, regarded all the efforts to halt the PACE trials as “water off a duck’s back”; that he was defending the MRC referees who had approved the PACE trials; that he took the view that “CFS/ME” was not his concern and that he was simply amused by the situation.

The Countess of Mar was so concerned at the damaging and destructive influence of the Wessely School that she requested a meeting with Professor Blakemore. This took place at the House of Lords on 20th April 2004 and lasted for two hours. Earl (Freddie) Howe was also present. Both the Countess of Mar and Earl Howe were seasoned debaters in the House of Lords and both were profoundly disturbed at what occurred at that meeting, the outcome of which was fruitless.

Professor Blakemore was accompanied by Elizabeth Mitchell of the MRC and she did most of the talking. It was apparent that as far as the MRC was concerned, Professor Wessely is greatly revered and what he says about “CFS/ME” will be accepted. It was also apparent that the MRC’s mind had been made up and was firmly closed. There was to be no consideration of the biomedical evidence that proved Wessely et al to be wrong.”

and

• “Of relevance to the ME/CFS issue is that apart from Tracey Brown, other members of the Sense about Science Working Group included Professor Colin Blakemore, currently Chief Executive of the MRC that is supporting and funding the psychiatric PACE trials on “CFS/ME” (with which AfME has joined forces with Simon Wessely, Peter White, Michael Sharpe and Trudie Chalder) and Fiona Fox, Director of the Science Media Centre, whose Science Advisory Panel includes Professor Simon Wessely.“

Sense About Science's ethos -
• We help people make sense of current discussions rather than taking them back to school
• We stand up for scientific inquiry, free from stigma, intimidation, hysteria or censorship
• We want everyone, whatever their experience, to stand up for evidence in public life

Fine words – one can read similar sentiments for the Lancet, Science Media Centre – even the MRC. On paper they read well - in practice these organisations fail and their words reek of hypocrisy.

This award shames real science.

How ironic that the other John Maddox award goes to somebody who would "uncover clinics promoting unproven treatments, and to bring a wide public readership to the importance of looking for evidence."mentioned"

Sense about Science - perhaps a better slogan would be "equipping people to make non sense out of science".

Meaningless awards - alongside fatuous and insignificant “research” - distort the landscape of proper science and do nothing to help people suffering from this disease.

The Saville case will hopefully show the full scale of corruption in the establishment.
We can hope that a similar wave will eventually reveal the real story, and motives, behind those who have been in positions of influence with regard to ME and who have helped destroy the lives of ME patients.
We hope they will not be immune from accountability.
Their actions will be evaluated and judged in the same way as is now occurring with Savllle.

This is just more spin in the continuing fantasy which has so characterised UK establishment's false and flawed approach to research into ME.
http://www.investinme.org/Article348 COERCION AS CURE.htm

We advise people to ignore Sense About Science and this irrelevance.

Let's concentrate on what we can do.
http://www.investinme.org/medianewspapers-2012-10-01.htm

 

[Min]

response from: angliameaction.org.uk Subject: [CO-CURE] ACT: PLEASE CAN WE SEE OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF THREATS AGAINST PROFESSOR WESSELY?

PLEASE CAN WE SEE THE OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF WIDESPREAD M.E. PATIENT
"THREATS" AGAINST PROFESSOR SIMON WESSELY?

To whom it may concern,

Re the recent award of the John Maddox Prize to Professor Simon Wessely
for 'standing up for science': /*"*/Simon Wessely, Professor of
Psychological Medicine at Kings College London, is awarded the Prize for
his ambition and courage in the field of ME (chronic fatigue syndrome)
and Gulf War syndrome, and the way he has dealt bravely with
intimidation and harassment when speaking about his work and that of
colleagues./*"*/[1]

Professor Wessely, and sections of the media, have previously claimed
that he has been the object of death threats[2]. The widespread press
coverage of which in 2011 just happened to coincide with the publication
of an International Expert Consensus Panel document[3]. That ME
International Consensus Criteria (ME-ICC) document eruditely refuted
much of what Professor Wessely has claimed with regard to both the
nature of and the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of the
serious neurological disease that is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).

One of the authors of the ME-ICC document, Dr Terry Mitchell, was until
recently one of the most experienced consultant NHS ME specialists in
the UK - having cared for tens of thousands of ME patients over many
years. He had previously expressed grave concerns about Professor
Wessely's favoured CBT/GET 'treatments', the unrepresentative nature of
the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
guideline development group on 'CFS/ME' and its apparent skewed
appraisal of the scientific evidence base[4]. Along with other
documentation[5], objective study of material produced by said
international panel would, I believe, considerably undermine the case
for Professor Wessely being awarded a prize for scientific excellence
with regard to "ME (chronic fatigue syndrome)".

Turning to the matter of alleged threats against Professor Wessely and
given the associated grave accusations of widespread abuse from the ME
community. Is it not time that questions were asked in parliament and
elsewhere demanding conclusive proof of these alleged threats against
him? Have such matters been investigated by the Police and been shown to
have any substantial basis to them? Is there for example actual evidence
of Police issuing warnings to individuals from the ME community? Has the
Crown Prosecution Service ever issued court proceedings against any such
individual from the ME community? If independent evidence of individuals
threatening violence does exist, are they many in number and can they be
fairly described as being representative of the ME community?

Claims of such threats, are not only thus far Iacking publicly
verifiable supportive evidence to my knowledge, they are lacking
perspective. It feels to me like Professor Wessely and sections of the
media are effectively daemonising an entire generation of unfortunate
people with serious WHO-classified (ICD-10-G93.3) neurological
illness[6]. All because, as far as I am aware, perhaps a few so far
unnamed, unrepresentative individuals have allegedly issued threats
against his personal safety.

There most certainly is however to my knowledge evidence available for
public scrutiny that Professor Wessely has misrepresented both the
nature of the disease that is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and its
World Health Organisation (WHO) classification and nomenclature[7].
There is also serious evidence that the kind of psychosocial views on
"ME (chronic fatigue syndrome)" advocated by Professor Wessely and his
colleagues have had very unfortunate consequences for patients[8].

It would clearly be wrong for any person with ME to issue a credible
threat of bodily harm to anyone. Is it not however understandable that
vulnerable patients will express different orders of frustration if
irresponsible misrepresentation has in fact been done by someone who has
a professional duty of care and scientific accuracy? Moreover, there is
a world of difference between patients venting understandable
frustration and patients actually issuing threats of bodily harm. Do we
not need objective evidence to show that Professor Wessely's claims of
"intimidation" properly differentiates between the two? We also clearly
need assurance that Professor Wessely and his media friends
differentiate between abusive threats and legitimate erudite complaints
regarding alleged professional and scientific misconduct[9]. Do not all
medical professionals, particularly those receiving substantial public
funding, need to be properly accountable to professional and public bodies?

In summary, if there is any hard evidence that ME patients have actually
gone beyond venting frustration and have issued actual "threats"
regarding Professor Wessely's personal safety then the extent and
objectivity of that evidence needs to be independently verified and put
into proper context and perspective? It is not right that tens of
thousands of innocent and vulnerable patients are associated with the
alleged misdemeanors of a few and denied appropriate biomedical care
that is increasingly justified by good science[10].

Anglia ME Action [UK], 7 November 2012.
contact@angliameaction.org.uk
REFERENCES:

[1] Source, Sense about Science, November 6, 2012:
http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/2012-maddox-prize.html
[2] On BBC Radio 4, Friday, 29 July 2011, for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9550000/9550947.stm

[3] Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria
[ME-ICC], Carruthers et al, Journal of Internal Medicine, 2011. Doi:
10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428x:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x/pdf
Also see the important 2012 follow-up document from the
International Consensus Panel:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis -- Adult & Paediatric: International Consensus
Primer for Medical Practitioners, Carruthers et al, International
Consensus Panel, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9739335-3-6:
www.angliameaction.org.uk/docs/ME-ICC-Primer-2012.pdf

[4] Dr Terry Mitchell, witness statement to the UK High Court, 23 June 2008:
http://www.angliameaction.org.uk/NICEJRdocs/Terry_Mitchell_WS.pdf

[5] See, for example, documentation at the 'ME Action UK' website:
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/

[6] 'ME/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (benign)' is classified along with
'PVFS/Postviral Fatigue Syndrome' by the World Health Organization (WHO)
in the tenth revision of 'The International Statistical Classification
of Diseases and Related Health Problems' (ICD-10) in chapter VI,
diseases of the nervous system, other disorders of the nervous system,
other disorders of the brain (G93.3) - ICD-10-G93.3. See:
http://apps.who.int.classifications/icd10/browse/2010/en

[7] See for example the many documented reports and sources of Professor
Wessely's statements and claims at the 'ME Action UK' website:
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/

[8] See for example the case of Sophia Mirza in 2005, a young ME patient
who was accused of exaggerating and misattributing her illness, was
forcibly removed into psychiatric 'care' and died shortly after from
renal failure. The subsequent autopsy revealed considerable damage to
her central nervous system along with other serious physical pathologies
long associated with ME:
http://www.sophiaandme.org.uk/
http://www.sophiaandme.org.uk/docsindex/212.jpg

[9] Such as, for example, Professor Malcolm Hooper's concerns with the
widely criticised MRC-funded 'PACE Trial into CFS/ME' - see:
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/COMPLAINT-to-Lancet-re-PACE.htm
http://meactionuk.org.uk/Update-on-the-PACE-Trial-110712.htm
http://meactionuk.org.uk/Further_Articles.htm

[10] See for example the Website of 'Invest in ME' a national UK charity
running fully accredited annual scientific conferences in Westminster:
http://www.investinme.org/index.htm
And see:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria [ME-ICC],
Carruthers et al, Journal of Internal Medicine, 2011. Doi:
10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428x:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x/pdf
Also see the important 2012 follow-up document from the
International Consensus Panel:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis -- Adult & Paediatric: International Consensus
Primer for Medical Practitioners, Carruthers et al, International
Consensus Panel, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9739335-3-6:
www.angliameaction.org.uk/docs/ME-ICC-Primer-2012.pdf

[ PERMISSION TO REPOST].

 

[Merry]

Thanks, Min. Yesterday I wondered if Sense About Science was connected to the Science Media Centre, but I forgot to check. So scatter-brained. I shouldn't have bothered giving Sense About Science a piece of my mind.

I already knew about Simon Wessely's conection to Science Media Centre and Spiked. Incestuous, all of this.

What is the history of connections, if any, between John and Brenda Maddox and Nature to Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre?