Re: Doctors hate mail is sent by the people he tried to cure, The Times, 6 August 2011
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Sir,
Substantial parts of Stefanie Marsh's piece with Professor Simon Wessely (Doctors hate mail is sent by the people he tried to cure, The Times, 6 August 2011 --- ME Asociation link
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/?p=7552) have been recycled from several previous sources, already distilled into an exemplar interview (When illness is mostly in the mind, New Scientist, 11 March 2009 -- only available by subscription), which attracted over 700 comments, the vast majority not hate-fuelled at all but intelligent observations and questions from independent research scientists, from various fields, which remain unanswered to this day.
I remember asking, for example, which, "ambiguous territory, somewhere between medicine and psychiatry," could Professor Wessely be thinking of as a suitable speciality. Isn't psychiatry a branch of medicine? I also pointed out that his assertion that, "ME is virtually unknown in France, Italy and Spain ... " will come as a bit of a shock to those running the thriving support groups in every one of these countries. It is also surprising that Professor Wessely is giving this interview today, despite having claimed to have retired 10 years ago. One wouldn't expect his name to appear on papers after 2001, or for him to be involved in treatment of any kind and yet here he is again.
He issues, as axiomatic, a peculiarly personal philosophy, "Like it or not, CFS is not simply an illness but a cultural phenomenon and metaphor for our times," in a way that suggests one would be foolish or defiant to demur from it. It isn't Professor Wessely, personally, his critics do not like but the fundamentally flawed research from which his conclusions are drawn. M.E. and CFS are not the same at all, or equally qualified research scientists, in every country in the world are all wrong and only his is the right way. Whether Professor Wessely likes to hear it or not, CFS is a polluted sample of patients with a variety of illnesses, having different causes and findings cannot be extrapolated to M.E. sufferers. Yet he persists in doing so.
Selective in his choice of literature, Professor Wessely did not direct Stefanie to a paper by Twisk & Maes (September 2009), which shows that all research to date, supported by anecdotal evidence from M.E. sufferers, proves that Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is ineffective and Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) makes a majority worse. If taking CBT and GET, a third of patients make a full recovery, he didn't offer and Stefanie didn't ask, what happens to the other two-thirds and why is there not a substantial reduction in the number of people remaining ill for decades. It is not a statistic that I would regard as successful, especially if this third might have recovered, over time, with no treatment or some other treatment, perhaps drugs, taken concurrently. Professor Wessely may not have tried any "alternative" treatments at all but his opposite numbers at similar clinics, around the UK, have suggested patients try such things as Acupuncture, Emotional Freedom Techniques and Tai Chi, thus muddying the research waters even further and Dr Esther Crawley is currently assessing the unproven Lightning Process on children.
Perhaps the main reason why some people's frustration boils over into anger is that Professor Wessely and those of his school of thought and practice continue in this unjustified way, hogging all the money and distracting funding from promising biomedical research but I suggest that this energy would be better channelled into privately funded (because no public money is forthcoming) research of a quality that would allow Professor Wessely to retire and hang up his whatever psychiatrists hang up.
Yours sincerely
drjohngreensmith@mecommunitytrust.org
Dr John H Greensmith
ME Community Trust.org