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Wessely congratulates himself again

chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
“Neurologists used to say to me: ‘You seem like a nice enough chap, why are you doing psychiatry? None of your patients get better.’ That was rich coming from neurologists. But it was also not true. We have very good outcome rates. It was simply factually wrong.”

I agree that is factually wrong. Some do get worse.

“If you have been knocked over by a car in a hit-and-run accident, learning its number plate won’t help you,” he says.

yes but not trying to understand where the injury is doesn't help either.

So this is how medicine operates? I think this is how psychiatry works not medicine...
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
I don't feel like giving my address to the Indie (oh my god, I've just realised that I'm a paranoiac!), but I did post a comment, and I would encourage others to the same. The problem is that journos like this guy like to write articles that stir up 'controversy,' so this is not a good way to get them to stop writing about Wessely in regards to ME, but then I don't think a letter to the editor will have this effect either. If they are good crappy journalists, though, they should work out that they can stoke this fire by getting an opinion from the other side, which is what I suggested they do in my comment.
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
I just read the journo's bio: Jeremy Laurance is a writer on health issues. He is former health editor of The Independent and the i and has covered the specialism for more than 20 years. He thinks the harm medicine does is under-appreciated, the harm it prevents over-rated, and that cycling works better than most drugs. He was named Specialist Journalist of the Year in the 2011 British Press Awards.

I think he might be trying to get a job with Wessely, his brilliant mind is obviously wasted on journalism!

"the harm it prevents over-rated" - I have to agree with him here, death is certainly over-rated, in fact it can be cured by just going cycling!
 

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
I liked this comment:

Wessely is an important figure in the development of the British Government's now notorious neoliberal biopsychosocial disability denial policies, as used and practised on hapless defenceless patients by Atos medical professionals.

ME sufferers were one of the first patient groups to be used as guinea pigs in the development of ways for the state to deny there was anything physically wrong with sick patients and disabled people claiming welfare benefits.

No surprise that the infamous PACE trial study medical fraud (The Lancet, 2011), which claimed to be studying ME patients but didn't, was mostly subsidised by the DWP. This has been the only such time the DWP used taxpayers money on funding a medical experiment. PACE was supposed to justify the DWP's iatrogenic biopsychosocial quackology that forms the basis of its ESA regime. The ESA regime is a human rights atrocity if there ever was one which, I'm sure, I don't need to remind any of its victims of.

Wessley has dedicated most of his career to undermining the testimony of disabled people and patients such as those poisoned at Camelford, Gulf War Illness veterans and ME patients. Now he is going about claiming to anyone who will listen to him, but not disabled people, to be shocked that patients aren't being taken seriously.
 

chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
Wessely does not use the word, yet it was his concern for patients getting an unfair deal that drew him to the two groups on which he has built his career: people with chronic fatigue, and soldiers with Gulf War syndrome. In both cases, these were patients whose needs had been neglected by mainstream medicine but who, by dint of careful study, he was eventually able to help.

he was able to help by prescribing psychotherapy for serious chronic illness.

Not that he got much thanks. He became a hate figure in the chronic-fatigue community, which accused him of claiming that the condition was all in the mind, although he never had

Yes he did not claim it is all in the mind but treated it with behavioural therapy and he is a psychiatrist. But it is NOT in the mind and CBT is a physical therapy.
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
A great piece. I think that's it's a shame that this final, more personal passage had to be excised from the main text, but thanks to my connections within the scientific gutter press I can publish it now as the crowning glory of the article:
As the interview drew to a close, Professor Wessely walked out into the sunlight and over to the local public square, in order to commence the gift giving. Every year, Sir Simon gives out Christmas presents to underprivileged children in his area, and as part of the festivities, many of the patients who have been completely cured of their abnormal illness beliefs within his 'Chronic Fatigue Centres' up and down the country also gather to pay homage.

These centres, branded with the 'Smiling Simon' logo that, once controversial, has now become an important part of the therapy, have been an enormous success and patients like to have the opportunity to give something back, either in the form of silent worship, monetary donations or doing shifts as body-guard against the small number of psychotic patients who still, mystifyingly, dog his every step.

As I turned to walk away, a small girl who had been flicking with great interest through a copy of the DSM V manual that she had excitedly unwrapped just moments before, turned to Sir Simon and said 'God bless you, Sir Simon'. Professor Wessely looked on with thoughtful expression and simply muttered 'And God bless us, everyone!' As a warm glow suffused my heart, I stopped to think that, truly, he is The People's Psychiatrist.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Is pretending to fight against the same thing you're actually promoting a known propaganda tactic?

Pretending to be against stigma while promoting extremely stigmatizing ideas.
Pretending to be helping patients while promoting policies and treatments that cause harm.
Pretending to be on the side of science while ignoring the biomedical literature on ME/CFS.
 
Last edited:

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Wessely has used journalists to spread his propaganda before or after ME happenings before. For instance, he went public about the death threats 48 hours after publication of the MEICC back in 2011

i published a blogpost about it back then and highlighted his tactics.
This is a PR tactic to divert attention, this time around just following the P2P workshop.
http://x-tremedenial.blogspot.ca/2011/08/uk-goes-crazy-seemingly-after-new-me.html
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
A great piece. I think that's it's a shame that this final, more personal passage had to be excised from the main text, but thanks to my connections within the scientific gutter press I can publish it now as the crowning glory of the article:

Thank you - the laughter you provoked helped to defuse the anger the article aroused.
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
The title certainly fits very well, because. It is really like it is, isn't it?

Which journalist would adorn him and decide out of the blue to dedicate an article on a psychiatrist?

<crickets>

Thought so.
 

*GG*

senior member
Messages
6,389
Location
Concord, NH
Wessely has used journalists to spread his propaganda before or after ME happenings before. For instance, he went public about the death threats 48 hours after publication of the MEICC back in 2011

i published a blogpost about it back then and highlighted his tactics.

This is a PR tactic to divert attention, this time around just following the P2P workshop.
http://x-tremedenial.blogspot.ca/2011/08/uk-goes-crazy-seemingly-after-new-me.html

Hmm, interesting "coincidence"? LOL

GG
 

charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
MEA response sent to the Editor of The Independent

INTENDED FOR PUBLICATION

Re: 'If we treated people with diabetes the way we treat those with depression, there would be an outcry'Independent: December 14, 2014


Sir

Having worked in hospital psychiatry, I know that mental illness can be just as horrible as physical illness and that people with mental illness still face far too many barriers when it comes to obtaining the support and management they deserve.

However, as a doctor working in ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, I cannot agree with the way the cause and classification of this complex neuroimmune disease has been presented in this article as a mental illness.

There is now robust evidence of ME/CFS being triggered by a range of infections and perpetuated by significant abnormalities involving key parts of the the brain, the immune system, the endocrine (hormone producing) system, and mitochondria (energy producing organelles) in skeletal muscle. The most recent biomedical model of ME/CFS causation, presented at the ME/CFS Research Collaborative conference this year, involves infection and immune system activation leading to neuroinflammation in specific parts of the brain which control cognition, fatigue, pain, sleep etc.

ME/CFS is therefore included in the World Health Organisation International Classification of Diseases (ICD10 - G93:3) as a neurological disease - a position fully accepted by the Department of Health.

So the proper place for assessment, diagnosis and management of these patients is in hospital-based units run by physicians who understand the complexities of the illness, and who are supported by a multidisciplinary team of health professionals.

NHS referral services also have a duty to provide care and management for those at the severe (25%) end of the ME/CFS spectrum - people who are bedbound, housebound or wheelchair bound - and for children/adolescents, where this is one of the commonest causes of long term sickness absence from school.

If people with severe diabetes or multiple sclerosis were being denied hospital based services, or domiciliary (home visiting) services, there would be an outcry.

Yet this is what is happening on a daily basis to people with severe ME, where the availability of specialist referral services is even less than that for mental illness (reference).

Consequently, many of these patients enter a state of therapeutic neglect because their GPs do not have the knowledge or experience to manage their condition. The charity sector is left to pick up the pieces.

The scandal surrounding ME/CFS is far worse than the one involving mental illness.

Reference:
McDermott C et al. What is the current NHS service provision for patients severely affected by chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis? A national scoping exercise. BMJ Open, 2014, Jul 1;4 (6) e005083http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24984956

Dr Charles Shepherd
Hon Medical Adviser, ME Association

Address:
7 Apollo Office Court
Radclive Road
Gawcott
Buckingham MK18 4DF

Website: www.meassociation.org.uk