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GMC suspends Nigel Speight

Cheshire

Senior Member
Messages
1,129
It's utterly nonsensical that he's been deemed perfectly fit to treat children for all manner of illnesses, no doubt making critical decisions as a consultant, but he can't treat them for ME. That's bonkers.

From what I get, he is now retired, and only involved with the defence of young ME patients. So preventing him from getting anywhere near one is a de facto stop to his practice.

I watched again his lecture in Sweden this afternoon. He is really a compasionate and caring person. Not at all involved in anything close to snake oil treatment, but firmly opposed to GET. And he may have got a lot of ennemies in doctors and social workers he had to oppose to help sufferers.
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
From what I get, he is now retired, and only involved with the defence of young ME patients. So preventing him from getting anywhere near one is a de facto stop to his practice.

Ah, okay. And he can now only work in NHS consultant posts (like being made to sit next to teacher), which presumably he wouldn't get even if he wanted them. Catch 22 stuff.
 

Chrisb

Senior Member
Messages
1,051
Are these suspensions (I include the one from two or three weeks ago) intended to send a message to other practitioners that if they take a view which differs from the official line their careers will be put in jeopardy? What does that mean for people with controversial illnesses in times of budgetary limits?

We used to mock the Church and its dealings with Galileo. No one is laughing now in these post enlightenment times. No one expected the Roman Inquisition.....to misquote a phrase.

I do not wish to appear indifferent to Dr Speight with whom I commiserate and whom I wish well. I get the impression that the view is taken that the case should not be directly discussed.
 

Invisible Woman

Senior Member
Messages
1,267
This is a reminder maybe of being careful when speaking about practitioners online, and their treatment protocols. It seems to me that there are 'predators' out there to go after them. It's sad that we need to be mindful of that. :(

Yes it is. It's even sadder that these "predators" feel the need to do this rather than put their patients first. If a healthcare practitioner cannot help patients themselves then they should be grateful for their patients' sake that there are other avenues to explore.

In my opinion, people only shut others down when they are afraid of close scrutiny themselves and of comparisons with the achievements of others.
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
Are these suspensions (I include the one from two or three weeks ago) intended to send a message to other practitioners that if they take a view which differs from the official line their careers will be put in jeopardy? What does that mean for people with controversial illnesses in times of budgetary limits?

Seems to me a sort of evidence-based fundamentalism. This may work quite well for a majority of people and reduce certain kinds of risk, but it leaves all those suffering from poorly understood and complex conditions stuck in limbo (or, perhaps, purgatory).

It's a corporate tendency, and reminiscent of what happens in 'customer service' in the modern corporate world. We all know how that goes: customer service will be really helpful just so long as your problem fits with their flow chart. If not, they'll give you maybe 5 minutes of supervisor time. If your problem still isn't solved, you're shit out of luck. And any customer service rep giving too long to a particular customer is reprimanded and put on the supervisor's monitoring list.
 

Research 1st

Severe ME, POTS & MCAS.
Messages
768
It's utterly nonsensical that he's been deemed perfectly fit to treat children for all manner of illnesses, no doubt making critical decisions as a consultant, but he can't treat them for ME. That's bonkers.

Hi Sarah. Yes, I agree entirely with out reasoning, but you are thinking rationally. my friend.

To understand sociopathic bean-counters in charge of the NHS entrapping millions of patients with infections and autoimmune disease (ME) into a misdiagnosis of F48,0 Chronic Fatigue (PACE criteria) you have to think selfishly. What is best for me the individual who wields power, not what is best for 'us' as a nation and it's sick children and adults with ME who would then take some of that power from me if I gave up my power to people with an opposite view point of my 'theory'...

All powerful systems work by dominance, and governments of any form, must keep power. In medico-politics, power can be seen in the context of influence. This is why the media message of ME, is mental and behavioural and not full of 'expose' stories on life with severe ME. You will also notice that the SMC (Science Media Centre) who advise UK journalists on what 'ME' is, just happen, by complete chance, to be associated to the Wessley School. So the UK message is ME = CFS = Chronic Fatigue of unexplained cause. This is also the message of the American CDC also, who created the CFS story themselves. So it's a global phenomena of public deception to place infectious and autoimmune related ME, within 'Chronic Fatigue'. We all know this of course, but it's worth remembering how this ties in, and links into UK doctors who speak out and are brave enough to do so, people like Dr Speit,and Dr Myhill (who's beliefs never harmed a patient).

Conversely....Notice in the UK, the pro PACE psych lobby members who's beliefs and theories do get patients abused by other doctors and staff members in UK Hospitals (who don't believe the patients symptoms are organic because of what they read about CBT/GET being effective), are never themselves reprimanded and hauled infront of the GMC). A most curious phenomena I thought.

So where does this all get us? It gets the state full control back and total influence back into the court of BPS Mind-Body theories of ME = CFS = Chronic Fatigue.

Dr Speit's removal from contact with children with ME, allows for certain people to go ahead with already funded GET studies in children. The MRC benefits from this, because they historically chose this path of research (mental and behavioural for a non mental disorder). More recently, the MRC's Professor Holgate contacted Wessely (Who denies ME exists!) to ask him to select who he thought would be good researchers for the MRC's CFS/ME research collaborative, and it is Esther Crawley who Dr Holgate called a brilliant researcher in the recent conference (or words to the effect).

Now....
If the head of the MRC's research collaborative genuinely believes Esther Crawley is a ''brilliant'' researcher (or words to the effect) then that is their view to have, and thus they logically fully support the Wessely School, who believes ME is a myth also. (BPS psych lobby theory of CFS ejects outright that ME exists separately from CFS, thus BPS believe ME = CFS and CFS = Chronic Fatigue). This is why, whatever the MRC do research wise, it is always about 'Fatigue', even though fatigue isn't often the primary symptom of Myalgic Encephalomyeltiis. (ME). This doesn't matter to them, because the MRC don't believe ME exists in isolation of CFS, hence they created a 'CFS/ME research collaborative' a name to placate the patients, and removed the ME part in practice by simply focussing on ''Fatigue''. We all know this, and it's all over their conference spiel.

If the state support Wessely's views (The states best UK minds on 'CFS' (Dr Holgate) invited Wessely to ''collaborate'' without telling the patients of course) then the state cannot possibly allow a doctor to get in the way of the BPS lobby succeeding with the POST PACE research on Graded Exercise in children, that they influence. Hence Dr Speit, needs to go.

It is arguable, Dr Speit is a direct ideological threat to the state's management of 'CFS/ME' as he is of the biomedical camp view of ME, not the biopsychosocial view (BPS). However, more relevantly, he is also unique, because he is probably the only ME biomedical viewed paediatrician specialist in the UK, who specialists from saving children being stolen from their parents (caused by the state's policy on CFS/ME) and possibly tthese kids then face abuse by NHS staff (via Doctors and Nurses attitudes). So in the UK, (as in other countries) we see children and young people with ME, and without mental illness, taken from their parents for the felony crime of becoming disabled by an infection that disables them!!!

With Dr Speit out of the way, there is no resistance from within of the state policy of fpromoting fraud (CBT/GET as science based medical intervention for ME). The medical fraud (promoted in the NICE guidelines) can thus remain to be further promoted in the press, research and the wider NHS as 'the method' of treatment in 2016 and beyond, with no effective criticism in paediatric medical circles. Think who benefits from this financially - the state.

That's what this is about, power and control of the message that CBT + GET is ''safe and effective''. The UK NHS is broke and the NHS needs to save money. The NHS cannot afford in a million years to put MS patients on antiretrovirals for activated HERV's never mind fund Rituximab/Methotrexate/Cyclophosphamide for 'CFS' in 2018 and beyond.

Outside of tax-payer-funded, health care (UK NHS) CBT + GET for 'CFS/ME' is sold to private health care systems in the UK. Certain people do NOT want parents seeing (reading) or hearing about children locked up in psych wards, anecdotally or otherwise, or they'd not walk into a private hospital with their kids to 'cure them' of CFS.

By reprimanding the doctor with an official sanction, you firstly isolate, then reduce the LEGITIMACY of his supporters, the parents and families who Dr Speit helped, and PWME PWCFS in general.

The state allowing for exposure that PACE is scientific fraud will reduce profit margins in the private sector health care services. By getting Dr Speit OUT of the sphere of paediatric ME influence, the ONLY message left is one of unified opinion that children with CFS/ME are mentally ill, and that CBT/GET therapy is thus not only appropriate, but also safe and effective, and little Sarah and Billy can be told this in a doctor's office with utmost assurances to the parents that their children won't be harmed by the 'therapy'. This is what worries the people who live off the cattle (patients), remember, private patients are a commodity, their parents pay MONEY to see psychiatrists.

This can now happen in a more managed way, and the people who make MONEY from selling these harmful therapies will be overjoyed that Dr Speit is out the picture. As tragic as it is, once you think in a deranged manner (regarding how PWME have been neglected for 30 years under the ruse of CDC CFS - which British psychiatrists helped created alongside Fukuda and Strauss) then it's very easy to understand their confused minds. (They believe ME is a mental behavioural disorder, yet patients die of CFS and ME and develop autoimmune disease and cancers long term and are prohibited from donating blood, organs and bone marrow in the UK).

The people feasting on power can't stop now. They will only stop when antibiotic resistant Lyme is proven (Chronic Lyme) and that HERV's spreading prions that infect and affect human tissue is proven. That might take another 40 years, by which time the people who were infected and killed off will be dead (patients) and the people responsible for this will have passed away from old age. (The UK have a proven track record with this, neglect regarding Haemophiliacs who contracted HIV from infected NHS blood). PWME who contracted 'ME' from infected blood, vaccines, or their sexual partners will never be helped. It's simply too expensive when on a massive scale (millions infected). It's much much more cost effective to allow the patient and their ''natural history'' to take place - the ageing process.

THAT is how you manage the 'situation', politically. Hence we have what we have. It may be repugnant and immoral, but this is politics and politics is a dirty business.

Zombie Science as 'evidence based', and biomedical science as 'controversial, unproven, and too expensive'. Dr Speit challenged this view in chidren, and the neo marxists don't like it.

And so we have prescribed self harm (GET) and as its ideology based, what harm could that possibly to do patients ''fearful''of exercise? Nothing. And so it's voted in, all ways, every year, and will never stop until the science changes. The science won't change in large scale studies, if no one funds it. :(

By preventing research funding, you can control any disease you want by tampering with the evidence. For that, you need useless biomedical research and lots of effective psychiatry and theories on patients minds maintaining symptoms due to ''fear avoidance''. Hence we go this and still have this to this day.

Remember when Britons were dying of AIDS in the 1980's we got sent flyers through the post that said '''Don't die of ignorance''. (e.g. have unprotected sex and risk death). What it should have said was, don't die of a retrovirus that we can't explain how it got into humans, and er, so don't reproduce please - thanks.

Spin doctors were needed for covering up the scale of HIV (blaming gays in the mass media) and then spin doctors were needed for masking the true scale of non HIV AIDS (ME CFS) by blaming white middle class mothers. (They also blamed mothers with Autistic children).

For this you require an ideology, not science, so psychiatry must survive at all costs in 'ME CFS' to enable the ruse to continue eternally. Dr Speit helped parents re-consider, if psychiatry was the best option. That is seen as undermining the state, and the state will not tolerate anyone who ruins a nicely concocted plan.

CBT/GET or goodbye. What the CDC created, promoted and exported - collaborating with the British psychiatrists.

Job done as they say.
 
Last edited:

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournh...uggests-nhs-fees-but-is-it-really-independent

Further to my previous post regarding the possible link between the DoH and the Kings Fund, from which the GMC apparently acquired its CEO, this reference is to the article from which the quotation regarding the funding was taken. It is something of an eye opener, written, as it is, by a former insider.
That looks pretty horrific, but I am unsure of the remit of the site, not least due to the involvement of the dreaded Clare Gerada.
 

charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
Not surprisingly, I have received several requests during the day from people who want to pass on a personal message of support to Dr Nigel Speight

While I am happy to do this, I think the best way from now on would be to forward any messages to Gill or Helen at the MEA head office via:
admin@meassociation.org.uk

- because I am going to be away for a few days from tomorrow morning without e-communication

Dr Charles Shepherd
Hon Medical Adviser, MEA
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Not surprisingly, I have received several requests during the day from people who want to pass on a personal message of support to Dr Nigel Speight

While I am happy to do this, I think the best way from now on would be to forward any messages to Gill or Helen at the MEA head office via:
admin@meassociation.org.uk

- because I am going to be away for a few days from tomorrow morning without e-communication

Dr Charles Shepherd
Hon Medical Adviser, MEA
will organize a group card and address it to this email so it can be forwarded to him. There will be a new thread on the forum so it can be widely seen.
 

charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
Nigel has given permission for this letter to his friends and supporters to be released:

Update on my case before the GMC - 22/4/16



Dear friend/supporter


I am sorry to have to tell you of the result of my hearing before an Interim Orders Tribunal of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service on 20 April 2016. Most of you will be familiar with the sequence of events that led up to this case and the current GMC investigation.


At the hearing, my barrister offered that I should voluntarily withdraw from all ME related activity pending further investigation by the GMC. The panel did not accept this offer, but have imposed interim conditions on my registration mirroring the voluntary restrictions I had offered for a period 15 months. The conditions prevent me from carrying out any work in relation to ME in either a paid or unpaid capacity.



The IOT Panel concluded that my practice in the field of ME/CFS may be deficient, and that it was necessary to impose an interim order for the protection of members of the public and to maintain public confidence.



On the positive side, apart from these conditions, the IOT has not restricted my practice in paediatrics in general. The IOT has not made any findings of fact and the order will be reviewed after 6 months. The IOT is not the forum in which to challenge the substance of the complaint made to the GMC.


To those of you who represent charities, I am afraid that I must with immediate effect withdraw my services as a medical/paediatric adviser. I wish you luck in finding someone to fill the gap. I will direct all patients and families with whom I have had prior contact back to your charity for advice.

Please also understand that these restrictions even extend to preventing me speaking or lecturing on the subject of ME.


To my fellow members of the authoring committee of the International Consensus report on paediatric ME/CFS, I am afraid I also have to withdraw from future contributions.

To my friends in Norway and Germany, I am afraid this means that I am unable to continue to support the three families I have already met, either informally or in legal proceedings.


Thanks for very much for all your support. Wish me luck


Best Wishes to you all in your continuing struggles to support patients and families


Nigel
 

Gingergrrl

Senior Member
Messages
16,171
Wow! What the hell is going on inside of the UK re: ME/CFS? This sounds like the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism rolled into one. I am horrified to read of this turn of events. How can this take place in a modern society, isn't this illegal? Sorry if being naive? Isn't his freedom of speech being taken away if he cannot even lecture?