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Psychology Today Opinion piece regarding the IOM release

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Maybe Shorter was embarrassed by all of your fabulous rebuttals and pulled his post to save face.

In trying to regain access to Shorter's post I found yet a 3rd post on ME/CFS here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...02/no-you-don-t-have-chronic-fatigue-syndrome
It ends with the line "Maybe the SEID patient will now not only start to be diagnosed, but also heard."
I remember the name, Borigini he may have posted some controversial stuff in the past (no energy to search the forum at the moment)
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
I am working on a response I shall send to him at his university email address--and perhaps one can hope that the IOM will consider going t law about his misrepresentation of their process--he makes it sound as if the committee was loaded with patients and advocates, which of course it was not--though I think Lily Chu is a patient as well as clinician and researcher.
 

Chris

Senior Member
Messages
845
Location
Victoria, BC
I checked him out--he is actually a historian of medicine, but not an M.D. So the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons have no responsibility in the matter. But he is cross-appointed as a Professor of Psychiatry, so that Dept. might be concerned. He has written a 2 vol history of psychosomatic illness, "From Paralysis to Fatigue" 1992 and "From the Mind into the Body" 1994. He has an essay on the website "America's Depression Diagnosis Epidemic and How to Fix it" which makes some sense. An odd case, to say the least--any responsible academic should not have made plain errors as he does, quite apart from the sexist viciousness of the piece. I am not going to volunteer to read that first book!
 

acer2000

Senior Member
Messages
818
Looks like they either put it behind a paywall or pulled it. The link on the first page goes to a login page now.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Looks like they either put it behind a paywall or pulled it. The link on the first page goes to a login page now.
I commented on this earlier. Someone who is signed up needs to check. I might try to sign up later, but I do not know what barriers are in place. Its not a simple login registration. Its not a paywall I think, but private membership.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
This guy has to be a troll. I've never seen such blatant BS printed about nearly anything. It reads like the comment section on Youtube.

That is truely how some psychriastrists are towards us. I came across one just like this guy only about 3-4 weeks ago now when I was in hospital (note only the day after I'd actually tried to suicide).

The psychristrist abused me, insulted me, belittled me and bullied me over me having ME/CFS and the fact I'd tried to suicide. He even tried to tell me I cant have any friends and those at these sites cant be my friends. If Id got the things he said to me on tape, Im sure he would of been kicked out of the medical profession.

He even when I got confused and couldnt answer his questions cause of my memory issues, he accused me of faking mind fog and memory issues...and then he topped that off by putting in the hospital report that I didnt have any issues in those areas.

Unfortunately I think some of those bad psychs out there are about to get even badder out of anger towards the ME/CFS community as they dont like what is going on currently. We need to be stamping down on them and complaining whenever we come across these bullies or such childish behaviour.
 
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Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
It looks like they pulled the offensive blog entry. It's probably still there, but returned to the author instead of open to the public, since a login prompt comes up when trying to view it now. It's not listed on their recent blogs page, nor on Shorter's page.
If this is the case....................well done peeps............well done! You guys rock!
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Well. Instead of going private, I went public, from my Facebook page. I tried to post on the Uof T page but it didn't appear. So I tagged them instead. I will write a blogpost and tweet that as well.

University of Toronto professor writes hate blogpost, insults Institute of Medicine.

Yesterday Dr Edward Shorter, PHD wrote a piece on chronic fatigue syndrome in magazine 'Psychology Today'. It made it to my google alert. Shortly afterwards it was shared to thousands of horrified patients sufferers, most if not all of whom are currently receiving nlittle to no medical care.

Recently the disease chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis has been renamed SEID, or Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease by an IOM working group who decided after revieweing over 9000 papers on the disease that the terminology that has been used for this disease was demeaning for the patients and non-conducive to receive adequate health care for their condition. The IOM committee came up with a diagnostic criteria which would facilitate diagnosis and identification of these patients who are literally been left behind by the health care system.

In Canada, there are over 411,500 of us, as per the 2010 Canadian Community Health Survey. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is funding abysmal research for this disease, at a rate of less than 5 cents per patient per year, for the last 10 years. Just to compare, Parkinson's Disease is funded at a rate of 420$ per patient per year.

Such blogpost was unbelievably insulting and derogatory for the patient population. I am requesting that the University of Toronto reads this blogpost and consider whether this individual aligns with their values. I am posting the blog post because it disappeared from online circulation, but the damage has been done.

If you review the extensive 300+ page IOM report you will find out that patients suffer much injustice, much stigma and much contempt from society and from the medical community. It is time that it changes. Here is the link to the free download: http://www.iom.edu/reports/2015/me-cfs.aspx

The power lays in social media. Power to the patients. :balanced:
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Unfortunately I think some of those bad psychs out there are about to get even badder out of anger towards the ME/CFS community as they dont like what is going on currently. We need to be stamping down on them and complaining whenever we come across these bullies or such childish behaviour.
Zero tolerance is necessary now. The time for quietly accepting abuse is over. We need to expose all of them as we discover them.
 

DanME

Senior Member
Messages
289
Zero tolerance is necessary now. The time for quietly accepting abuse is over. We need to expose all of them as we discover them.

I totally agree. Enough is enough. And well done, folks! We did it and this hate piece has been retracted. We should go on and fight every unscientific and judgemental article and comment. Inculding a formal complaint to the author's universities, journals, newspapers or whatever. They should see, we have the evidence behind us (and the IOM report with some remarkable statements) and won't go silent anymore.

I am proud of our response, all commets were very well written and informed. We responded with dignity and knowledge. :) Let's go on!
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
I caught a rumour circulating on the 'net which claims that just before the article was pulled a new comment appeared stating that Dr Shorter's blog insulted not only the patients but the also the researchers into this condition.......................it was signed............... Prof Simon Wessely....................allegedly. :D
 

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
He is in a very strange position, since he does not have a medical degree, yet is a full professor on the faculty teaching psychiatry, which requires a medical degree.

Hi @anciendaze. Having an MD is not required to be a professor in a psychiatry department. People from other relevant disciplines like neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, molecular biology, genetics etc. with a research degree (PhD) and relevant postdoctoral research experience in psychiatry can be appointed too. In Shorter's case, he's a historian who's spent his whole career writing pseudohistorical diatribes on medicine and psychiatry so there's that.
 
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