Jeannette wrote in her blog post that she was writing it in response to members of the community's questions about her absence from ME advocacy.
She brought the following tweet as an example:
In reply to these inquiries, Jeannette wrote a series of tweets and posted them on her blog post.
In her tweets, Jeannette acknowledged that Coyne’s abuse and the reaction from those who supported him have “decimated the little health I had”.
Much of the abusive posts by Coyne and those who piggybacked on him have been sanitized – as Jeannette posted. But, here is a screenshot of a post by Cort Johnson which has since been ‘erased”.
I know that this is hard to read but, it basically bashes Jeannette. This was just the start of a long thread where others joined in – in the bashing Jeannette and a specific group of advocates.
This is just one small example of what has been going on. Coyne started on a course of abuse and others have continued. Since many key voices in the ME community did not come out to publically deride these actions nor to demand a public apology from Coyne, it set the stage for others to continue this type of character assassinations of ME advocates who take a strong stand against the malfeasance of the government health agencies.
I have personally experienced this and I have witnessed this with other advocates as well. I have personally seen abusive and derogatory messages from Coyne to ME advocates who have tried to engage him in order to make peace. Like this one -
I have written the following in my comment on Jeannette’s blog post –
“This is all about the perversion of power in order to intimidate and silence a group of activists.
Coyne has a history within and outside of the ME community for being an abusive narcissist. He entered the ME community as an “authority” figure – an academic who will champion for this community that has been continually abused for decades.
Instead, it turns out that Coyne himself is the abuser. But, make no mistake about it, this is not random abuse. Coyne, very carefully and without any provocation, decided to pick on one of the most vocal advocates who used her excellent skills as an attorney to repeatedly and successfully hold the government health agencies accountable for their 30 years of malfeasance and neglect of millions of ME patients. She singlehandedly sued HHS and NIH in court for their violations of FOIA laws and not only won the case but the judge reprimanded HHS and NIH for their misbehavior in the way they conducted themselves.
Coyne did not just pick on Jeannette. He also bullied other exceptional advocates like Suzy Chapman and Angela Kennedy who have done invaluable work on PACE and other crucial matters for many years. These advocates, some of which are patients – other carers of patients – have been brave, loyal and successful ME advocates who were not afraid to call the government out for their gross misconduct.
Coyne’s pick of advocates to abuse is telling and it points to a classic method of intimidation of a group in order to silence that specific voice. This method was honed by Ron Duchin, a research analyst at Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin Inc. who devised and used specific methods to break up activists’ groups who were fighting for social justice. The famous case being the fight against activists fighting the tobacco industry.
Duchin’s methods included the use of character assassination to discredit the most vocal activists with the use of exaggerations, lies, trumped up charges in order to marginalize them. This initial method was crucial because with the marginalization of the most vocal and effective activists, the setting was then ripe to engage the others with the aim of getting them to work and comply with the system (make an example of a few – and the others will be intimidated and will fall in line).
What I find very sad is that members of the ME community have enabled Coyne and even jumped on the bandwagon with him – as if a floodgate had just opened to excuse the behavior of ‘abusing ME advocates’. This has been a very sad time in the history of ME advocacy. The Coyne et al abuse has been either swept under the rug or much worse – condoned and replicated – without much resistance from the community.
Shockingly, some in the community still champion this victimizer. They still regard his opinion and appeal for his input!
The silence by many in the ME community and the cooperation by some have enabled this perversion of power to continue and the intimidation and silencing of a group of ME activists.”
Jeannette
announced her formal retirement from ME advocacy yesterday. Other advocates have done the same – some are still deciding. Many feel demoralized.
I wonder how far Act Up HIV/AIDS advocacy would have gotten if their most vocal advocates would have been abused, debased and hung out to dry from within - the way it is happening here.
