Alan Dove: Pot calling the kettle black
Alan Dove quotes on XMRV and CFS patients in general found at
http://dovdox.com/content/2010/08/xmrv-cfs-and-the-nature-of-science/
On the last episode of TWiV, we talked about XMRV, a retrovirus that appears to infect some people.
It has potentially infected 10 million Americans Alan, is that just ''some''?
we got a lot of comments on the TWiV blog and on alandove.com from CFS patients, some of them quite vehement (prostate cancer patients didn’t get nearly as riled up
Comparing the emotional 'reaction' of a life long chronic disabling disease (often CFS onset is in childhood/teen years) that is IGNORED BY THE GOVERNMENT and puts 1 in 4 people in a wheelchair/bed ridden (some paralysed), to Prostate cancer is ignorant Alan. Why type this comment other than to purposefuly goad more of a distressed reaction from the physically and socially neglected and disabled? Due to the age of onset, Prostate Cancer victims have had decades of living life before they develop the conditon unlike teens with CFS who have had their life stopped before graduating and now require 24/7 care.
I elaborated on the show, pointing out that there is evidence both for and against infectious, environmental, and psychiatric causes for this disease
There is no evidence for psychiatric causes of CFS which is not classified as a psychiatric illness (very important). There is evidence, however, that CFS diagnostic criteria over the decades has been weakned to the extent that people with psychiatric illnesses are now diagnosed with the CFS label meaning that people with neuro immune disease (who share the label CFS) are not taken seriously. You failed to explain this Alan. Why?
They’re ill – often debilitatingly so – and want clear answers and a cure immediately, if not sooner.
Total semantics. One cannot have a cure sooner than immediately, unless a person is mentally unstable or an unrealistically demanding person. Which is what the reader imbibes from the language used by you writing this. Again accidently on purpose Alan? What a poor way to conduct yourself I must say.
I’m not ill (thankfully), and I think like a scientist. And that’s the real problem.
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More trash talk Alan. You imply that people who are 'ill' cannot be scientists and/or understand your very restricted knowledge on CFS. Many severe ill (and dying) people are scientists, understand science and have a high IQ. A very offensive comment I feel. Importantly one does NOT have to be a scientist to understand scientific research, which voids your comments and exposes them as simply rude. Rudeness is not part of a scientists remit I might add....
Similarly, saying that CFS could have infectious, environmental, and/or psychiatric causes presents a list of possible truths. The current science has not ruled out any of those possibilities, which aren’t even mutually exclusive.
No Alan you are incorrect. By finding XMRV in a well definded cohort of CFS with neuro immune disease at the WPI, (who do not have any psychiatric illness) then one has found XMRV (infectious retrovirus) in this group of people, period. This rules out psychiatric causes of CFS If not, when a person is found to be HIV+ are they also told they HIV may be caused by psychiatric causes? No.
Unfortunately, the word “psychiatric” carries heavy freight. Our society stigmatizes mental illness, and the current treatments for most psychiatric conditions range from mediocre to nonexistent. Saying that a disease could be psychiatric is saying that it could be ostracizing and incurable. That’s not something a CFS patient wants to hear. Many of them probably stopped reading after the previous paragraph.
Again inflammatory rhetoric that shows blatent prejudiced attitudes to the type of person you presume to have CFS. It's akin to a racist presuming someone of a certain ethinic background is prone to violence or being mean with their money because you heard it on a school bus one afternoon after a victorious ball game. How can you possibly know that 'many' people with CFS will refuse to read your article proposing that the illness may be psychiatric any more than someone with HIV or Parkinson's disease may refuse to read their disease is psychiatric too? I will repeat,
CFS is not classified as a mental illness and persons with neuro immune disease have CFS. You cannot dodge this fact by throw away comments based on supposition or an excuse that you read from bigots in the psychiatric profession that CFS could be caused by psychiatric illness. There is no evidence whatsoever any more than any other discriminatory construct.
CFS has over 5,000 published articles showing organic pathology and had never been classified as mental illness. Accept this. Deal with it, and move on.
If as a CFS patient you cannot listen to us bad tempered CFS patients, maybe listen to American Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine Dr Anthony Komaroff. Years ago he has stated years that the time for CFS being thought of as a mental condition ''is over''. Got that? Your views Alan are outdated, at best.
As a scientist, bigoted views are not meant to be of any relevance to science. CFS is classified in ICD-9-CM Diagnosis Code 780.71, and ME (Myalgic Encephalomyeltis) in ICD-10 G93.3 both which are not a psychiatric illness coding classification. CFS patients would therefore rightly explode at your lack of knowledge by suggesting otherwise, especially at someone in ownership of a Phd who should know to check facts before making judgements that are academically truant.
An extraordinarily bad article Alan. Bad show. You aren't a MD. If a Phd isn't enough maybe go to medical school and learn about the disabling illness that CFS is before passing judgement on 1 million Americans you have never met, and presume all think the same, which only someone ill-informed with pre set views on CFS sufferers would do. Yet how is this possible? You might not be able to admit you have cognitive issues regarding people with CFS due to the 'heavy freight' and the fact ''our society stigmatizes mental illness'', huh?
Your comments on CFS have just ampified this stigma and heavy freight. Well done.
:Retro mad:
with them. If our points are more solid than theirs, we will win. And if we make statements that we can't back up well enough, it makes us look bad.
