Peter White gets set to speak at Swiss Re Insurance Medicine Summit 2017

[Londinium]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" (Upton Sinclair, 1935)

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" (Upton Sinclair, 1935)

Also:

You can always tell a Bart's man, but you cannot tell him anything.
Anonymous

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Doctors who profit form such collaborations with private health insurers, or pharmaceutical corporations, should automatically be struck off the medical register, because it IS an extremely dangerous and insidious conflict of interest.
FIRST, DO NO HARM...it doesn't say FIRST, MAKE A BUCK!

 

[A.B.]

Sounds like POTS is going to be targeted soon. From memory, POTS is defined as marked increase in heart rate when the patient stands up. How are they going to psychologize something like that? Perhaps by downplaying the objective tests (for example by insisting that POTS is rare), the interpretation (by insisting it just means deconditioning) or by promoting misdiagnosis with deliberately misleading diagnostic criteria, or just going the PACE route and fabricating evidence that CBT/GET can reverse POTS.

 

[me/cfs 27931]

In fact it is in the insurance companies' interest for health care costs to be as high as the public will tolerate. The higher the cost th more likely people are to feel they need insurance. The higher the costs the higher the value the companies can add a percentage to when charging premiums.

Reminiscent of the the NIH quote from Dr. Davis, as well.

"Trying to reduce the cost of health care is not our priority," an NIH official told him, Davis recalled.

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news...hlights-new-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-research

 

[Snow Leopard]

No doubt insurance companies have to keep rogue physicians under control who charge out of line fees but it is in there interest for the approved fee to be as high as people will pay. Apparently, within the medical travel insurance area there is major behind the scenes collusion between big insurers and rip-off private clinics. Gatekeepers have to learn that certain 'friends' are allowed to slip their invoices through. And threatening phone calls are not uncommon. All good John Le Carré stuff by the sound of it.

Always surprises me that a hospital stay that costs a foreigner $100-200 in a Chinese hospital has been known to cost $50,000+ in the USA (example: a broken bone after a motorcycle accident).

 

[NelliePledge]

Mercenary

 

[Barry53]

Peter White
Professor Emeritus in Psychological Medicine at BARTS and the London School of Medicine, and Chief Medical Officer, Swiss Re

Peter White is Professor Emeritus of Psychological Medicine at Barts and the London Medical School and a CMO at Swiss Re Life and Health in London, advising on psychiatric conditions and functional somatic syndromes. He has recently retired as a consultant liaison (general hospital) psychiatrist at Bart’s hospital, and led the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) service there.

[My bold]

When did PW adopt his role at Swiss Re, and when did he stop leading the CFS service at Bart's hospital, providing "treatments" his trial recommended years ago?

 

[Gday]

So many conflicts of interest and personal gain at the expense of ME patients. A court case is needed to bring all of those involved in scientific fraud to justice!!

 

[cyclamen]

Sounds like POTS is going to be targeted soon. From memory, POTS is defined as marked increase in heart rate when the patient stands up. How are they going to psychologize something like that? Perhaps by downplaying the objective tests (for example by insisting that POTS is rare), the interpretation (by insisting it just means deconditioning) or by promoting misdiagnosis with deliberately misleading diagnostic criteria, or just going the PACE route and fabricating evidence that CBT/GET can reverse POTS.

All of this gets already done - at least by many german doctors-

 

[Londinium]

Sounds like POTS is going to be targeted soon. From memory, POTS is defined as marked increase in heart rate when the patient stands up. How are they going to psychologize something like that? Perhaps by downplaying the objective tests (for example by insisting that POTS is rare), the interpretation (by insisting it just means deconditioning) or by promoting misdiagnosis with deliberately misleading diagnostic criteria, or just going the PACE route and fabricating evidence that CBT/GET can reverse POTS.

First thing will be to claim that the heightened heart rate is a stress response to the patient's unfounded fears at being upright, I would imagine.

 

[cyclamen]

First thing will be to claim that the heightened heart rate is a stress response to the patient's unfounded fears at being upright, I would imagine.

Sadly, You are correct here.

 

[Hip]

This post details what Prof Peter White said at a previous speaking event at Swiss Re: in that event, White is basically explaining to these insurers how they can exploit the differences in the ICD disease classification of ME and CFS, in order to escape having to provide ME/CFS patients with disability support, which saves these insurers a lot of money, but leaves ME/CFS patients high and dry.

The unscrupulous trick used by these insurers is the mental health exclusion: CFS — but not ME — can be considered a mental health condition according to the ICD classification of CFS, and I understand that disability insurance rules usually stipulate that they do not have to provide long term disability payments for mental health disorders. So unscrupulously and erroneously making ME/CFS look like a mental health condition is the get out trick used by insurers.


This is why the creation of the CFS disease category by the CDC in 1988 may well have been done in collusion with the disability insurance companies. In the 1980s, there was an apparent 5 to 8-fold increase in ME/CFS incidence (this data comes from several sources, including the disability insurer UNUM, who reported that claims for disability caused by ME/CFS had increased 500% from 1989 to 1993).

So the insurance companies at that time were desperate to figure out an underhand way to avoid having to make disability payouts to all these new ME/CFS patients. The creation of the new disease category of CFS appeared to be the answer to their prayers, but a disaster for ME/CFS patients.

More info on this here: Fivefold to eightfold increase in the incidence of ME from 1980 to 1989, and also in this post.

 

[Wonko]

It looks like these "insurance" companies may have not understood what the word insurance means?

 

[JaimeS]

POTS is defined as marked increase in heart rate when the patient stands up. How are they going to psychologize something like that?

First thing will be to claim that the heightened heart rate is a stress response to the patient's unfounded fears at being upright, I would imagine.

Spot-on. IMO, that's where the 'phobic' model of exercise came from. Rise in epi & norepi on standing, HR increases, adrenaline shakes? Clearly you have a deep-seated fear of being vertical.

 

[Forbin]

"A claims epidemic waiting to happen?"

Oh, dear. This sounds like catastrophizing. Notice how a phobia about increased claims has been medicalized into an "epidemic." My, my, my... Perhaps a course of CBT....

 

[Dolphin]

[My bold]

When did PW adopt his role at Swiss Re, and when did he stop leading the CFS service at Bart's hospital, providing "treatments" his trial recommended years ago?

He retired from QMUL and/or Barts on September 8, 2016 and the PACE Trial data was released to Alem Matthees the following day.

It looks like he has been a chief medical officer for a long time. See:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2356683

 

[Dolphin]

I have been frustrated that Peter White simply says that he has done paid work for a re-insurance company in his conflicts of interest statements. People might interpret that as the odd assessment. To my mind being a chief medical officer is something more substantial and the statements should be clearer on this.

I recall something in the US where physicians sometimes have to declare quantitatively the size of their conflicts of interest e.g. declare the value of shares they own in any relevant company. It would be very interesting to know how much per year Peter White earns from his insurance work.

By the way, before the PACE Trial Peter White only sporadically mentioned his conflicts of interest at all.

 

[Kati]

It would be very interesting to know how much per year Peter White earns from his insurance work

Is there any way of finding out, @Dolphin ?

 

[Art Vandelay]

Sounds like POTS is going to be targeted soon. From memory, POTS is defined as marked increase in heart rate when the patient stands up. How are they going to psychologize something like that?

They just label it 'anxiety'. It's happened to me a number of times.