S. Wessely - Death threats, abuse, smear campaigns - Standing up for Science: 29 March

[Solstice]

Had a laugh about that Andy Lewis character. Such a critical thinker :') .

Anyway, i'm enjoying the hole Wessely is digging for himself.

 

[TiredSam]

I seem to have started a hare running which can now go back to its nest. Apols for the confusion

The old "nothing to see here, move along" card. He's played that so often it's getting a little frayed around the edges.

I wonder when he's going to realise that he's the hare, and that more and more people are able to see through his hare-brained nonsense. Is that a pack of I hear in the distance?

 

[RogerBlack]

I'm just waiting till he lives up to the title and starts issuing death threats, to finish up the list of abuse and smear campaigns.

 

[Gijs]

Wessely wants to be Bozo the clown but that is an insult for Bozo isn't it?

 

[slysaint]

 

[Undisclosed]

I assume that the photo here is from the SAS lecture? If you zoom in to the slide projection - and search for each 'abusive' statement, then you find that they all come from just one perhaps dubious online site - uk.people.support.cfs-me.narkive.com/.../dr-simon-wessely-the-next-dr-shipman . Did anybody at the lecture notice if SW made it clear that this was the case, or did he (by omission) imply that they were from different people?

The posts were also dated 11 years ago -- 2006 made by one person. I am aware of some other comments on a blog by another individual that compared Wessely to a nazi. So that's a grand total of two. That hardly consists of a 'campaign' of abuse. I don't know how he can expect that the internet will remain free of this kind of stuff. It's the internet. He is using these things way out of proportion to reality. You would think by the way he carries on that there are legions of patients writing these things, threatening his life. How about we get down to reality here -- the PACE research should be retracted and those involved with it should have to answer to what they did and Wessley should stop trying to use one example of what he calls 'abuse' to publicly denigrate a whole community and take the focus off the PACE research. It's the internet. If people don't like what you represent, you will be on the end of some nastiness at some point. I don't condone people being abusive towards others but perspective is key. It's like when somebody says the 'whole world is against them' and in turns out somebody might have insulted them at work.

This following video was posted in 2011. Wessely said in the video and around 1 min 55 sec -- "I have never been a target of violence but I have been the target of threats of violence". There is a huge difference and I think he plants the suggestion that it is much more than a 'threat'. I have seen some posts that he suggested were a 'threat' to his well-being -- they were not in any manner.

Simon Wessely is using isolated occurrences to continually prejudice and bias others against the ME/CFS community and he uses the press as a vehicle. Who is carrying out the smear campaign here and why is this kind of behaviour condoned.

GMC --

• Be honest and open and act with integrity.
• Never discriminate unfairly against patients or colleagues.
• Never abuse your patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession.

You are personally accountable for your professional practice and must always be prepared to justify your decisions and actions.

Enough said. I think any complaint to the GMC should be treated with utter seriousness.

 

[keenly]

Prof M Sharpes, Wessely and Chris Bass seem to be mentally unstable. Maybe they need psychiatric help?

 

[Large Donner]

Prof M Sharpes, Wessely and Chris Bass seem to be mentally unstable. Maybe they need psychiatric help?

I think they will refuse it and thereby stigmatize mental health and display their anti psychiatry stance.

 

[Snowdrop]

As a huge community of ME people we could discuss the possibility of crafting a careful and thoughtful letter that denounces anything that would be considered hate related messages sent to SW from someone with ME while also elucidating the possible reasons why someone was so desperate as to engage in such mail.

Would like to take the air out of SW's 99 (big red) Luft Balloons.

 

[Sean]

Sir Simon certainly is a delicate little snowflake, isn't he.

 

[ME_guy]

The first two definitions of the term recover in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary follow:

----from illness
1. "recover (from something) to get well again after being ill/sick, hurt, etc."

----from something unpleasant
2. "recover (from something) to return to a normal state after an unpleasant or unusual experience or a period of difficulty"

Online source. (Retrieved April 19, 2017)
http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/recover?q=recover

Question: Did the past and current patients in the PACE and MAGENTA studies know that the researchers have been using their own, private, and unexpected definition of the term recover when discussing therapies?

 

[Barry53]

"If you don't find a cure for me soon it will be too late ..."

 

[Yogi]

Thanks to Janet Eastham (I think she is on the forum but do not recall her username ) and @harveythecat for going along and attending and asking some good questions.

Cheers girls for doing that!!! It looks like that it wasn't a genuine debate but just a lot of Wessely's chums self congratulating and rehashing the imaginary death threat story again.

Do we have a link to the recorded talk?

I saw on twitter that one of you took a transcript or a recording of it. It would be good to have a copy of it perhaps put it up on the internet and MEPedia for the record?

Also I am intrigued by this post.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/846729169916563456

 

[Yogi]

The first two definitions of the term recover in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary follow:

----from illness
1. "recover (from something) to get well again after being ill/sick, hurt, etc."

----from something unpleasant
2. "recover (from something) to return to a normal state after an unpleasant or unusual experience or a period of difficulty"

Online source. (Retrieved April 19, 2017)
http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/recover?q=recover

Question: Did the past and current patients in the PACE and MAGENTA studies know that the researchers have been using their own, private, and unexpected definition of the term recover when discussing therapies?

Interesting see the medical definition. This reinforces that PACE is scientific fraud.

 

[Barry53]

I don’t mind people disagreeing on measures of recovery. They changed the recovery measure because they realized they had gone too extreme and they would have the problem that nobody would recover.

Does strongly suggest that if SW is ever put in front of a formal/public enquiry, he will drop himself (and the rest of PACE) in it time and time again .

 

[harveythecat]

Thanks to Janet Eastham (I think she is on the forum but do not recall her username ) and @harveythecat for going along and attending and asking some good questions.

Cheers girls for doing that!!! It looks like that it wasn't a genuine debate but just a lot of Wessely's chums self congratulating and rehashing the imaginary death threat story again.

Do we have a link to the recorded talk?

I saw on twitter that one of you took a transcript or a recording of it. It would be good to have a copy of it perhaps put it up on the internet and MEPedia for the record?

Also I am intrigued by this post.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/846729169916563456

not yet - we're both q busy right now but am sure can get it up soon

 

[Chrisb]

The posts were also dated 11 years ago -- 2006 made by one person.

A significant event in 2006 was the Gresham College protest over SW's GWS lecture. Were these posts made at that time?

If they were, there is a rather pleasing symmetry, but a dark irony, in the affair. I believe that one of the protesters involved also claimed to have received threats to herself and children, and that her phone was hacked. Given what we now know about undercover policing methods of protest groups nothing seems implausible. It also seems likely that anyone making serious threats of such a nature would have been identified by the authorities.

One of the protesters wrote about the temporary involuntary loss of her liberty at the hands of the psychiatric "profession" (not, it must be said, SW) subsequent to these protests, and how she was freed by the relevant tribunal at the first hearing of the matter. Make of that what one will.

 

[Yogi]

not yet - we're both q busy right now but am sure can get it up soon

Thanks @harveythecat for replying.

Look forward to hearing whenever it is put online.

Cheers!