Have you looked through the articles on Spiked!? I'm not really sure what it is that you are looking for.
I am mainly looking for information that would throw light on the reasons why the Science Media Centre have this bias towards CBT/GET.
Actually, when I went through all the SMC publications, activities and talks on ME/CFS, the bias towards CBT/GET is not
that strong. The SMC has stuff about ME/CFS biomedical research too. But the preponderance of items on the SMC are about CBT/GET, as the following demonstrates:
Here is all the SMC stuff about
ME/CFS biomedical research (ie, research considering ME/CFS as a disease with
physical causes), a total of 5 items:
expert reaction to MRC funding round for research into the underlying biology of CFS/ME
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – unravelling the controversy
expert reaction to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and brain imaging as published in PLOS One
expert encounter: Prof Ian Lipkin, Columbia University
expert reaction to biomarkers for CFS/ME
And here is all the SMC stuff about
ME/CFS CBT/GET research (ie, research considering ME/CFS as a disease with
psychogenic causes), a total of 6 items:
CFS/ME trial
expert reaction to Lancet study looking at treatments for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME
expert reaction to internet-based cognitive behavioural treatments for adolescents with CFS
do the best treatments for CFS cost more?
expert reaction to new research into therapies for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME
CFS/ME: The next step in the controversy
(I am not including here SMC items commenting on the failed XMRV replication studies).
Certainly since the Wessely School researchers who believe ME/CFS is psychogenic disease and promote CBT/GET as a treatment are a small monitory in the sum total of ME/CFS researchers; and since I believe most other researchers view ME/CFS as a disease with physical causes, you would not expect CBT/GET to feature so prominently on the SMC website, and you would expect there to be more biomedical research.
Where for example is the SMC account of
Prof Montoya's 2012 research using the antiviral Valcyte to treat ME/CFS? Why is that not on the SMC site?
Such views often become entrenched, especially if someone acts upon them. In this case, she basically ridiculed her friend publicly.
I don't really see that myself. I think Fox's statement about her friend who developed ME/CFS is just a "there but for the grace of God go I" statement, and a folk psychology idea of how focusing on one's work may ward off conditions like ME/CFS.
I have heard many similar things from friends and family: people saying things to me like "do you think the reason you developed your condition is because you lost focus on career and work?" and so forth.
These again are just erroneous amateur folk psychology attempts of people to create a theory to explain what they see when someone they know develops ME/CFS. Folk psychology is often very wide of the mark, but human beings seem to have a need to create some sort of explanation, no matter how amateurish.
The entire Wessely School view on ME/CFS is really just amateurish folk psychology dressed up to make it look like science.
Certainly we must strive to make the fact that ME/CFS is a physical disease more widely known, so that the general public understand that ME/CFS is not a condition you have any mental control of, and cannot avoided by focusing on career.
However, I would not necessarily judge someone badly just because they made an incorrect throwaway folk psychology comment about a friend who developed ME/CFS. If we did, we would have to judge much of the world badly.
But now that Fox works with science rather the political activism she was involved with 20 years ago, you would expect her to have a far greater understanding of ME/CFS that just amateurish folk psychology ideas.
It would be interesting to hear her current views on ME/CFS.
For ease of reference, Fox's statement is here:
She wrote: "There are plenty more like Carol ... I often think 'there but for the grace of the RCP go I'. This secret thought is even present when I meet up with those mates who have dropped out of RCP politics. Slowly but surely they have lost their framework for understanding the world... I do feel that being one of the few people in the world who can really understand imposes a certain burden and a definite isolation. But I also feel it is a great privilidge [sic] and quite frankly, if it is [sic] choice between carrying the burden of RCP politics or ending up like my old friend Carol there's no choice involved!"
Source:
here.
Fiona Fox has a personal bias regarding with ME/SEID. It's not a matter of a corporate interest having bought the SMC's assistance, but could certainly tie in with SMC being more willing to seek ties with psych-leaning groups on the subject, and to portray it in a purely psychological framework.
I suppose it is possible that a personal leaning to psychogenic explanations of ME/CFS (if Fox indeed has this leaning) might predispose the SMC to Wessely School ideas.
However, if I had to guess why the SMC is biased towards the Wessely School "all in the mind" psychogenic view on ME/CFS and the CBT/GET treatments of ME/CFS, I would say it may be more down to the fact that CBT/GET is dressed up with garb of scientific respectability (very well funded large-scale studies, etc), even though Wessely School views are in essence glorified folk psychology.
It may also be because apparently Simon Wessely was at one stage on the science advisory panel of the SMC (he is listed as such in this
2002 SMC document). Either his legacy and/or an on-the-quiet continued informal relationship with the SMC might be influencing things there. He's not on the
current advisory panel.