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Scientists trade insults over ME (JHP special issue)

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Barry53

Senior Member
Messages
2,391
Location
UK
Stewart said:
Given that The Times article includes the quotes "...the results are, at best, unreliable, and at worst manipulated to produce a positive-looking outcome", "...the PACE trial is a disgraceful confidence trick to reduce patient compensation payments and benefits" and that PACE "...did not justify the “extraordinary sum” charged to taxpayers" I have to say that I consider this a *spectacular* own goal by whoever made the decision to pass Coyne's emails to the press. That's some pretty blunt and damning criticism, delivered through the medium of a 'juicy gossip' article (that the public just love to read) in a serious mainstream newspaper that probably wouldn't have otherwise printed any anti-PACE sentiment today.
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Yes, I can buy that.
 
R

Robert 1973

Messages
60
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Apologies if this has already been posted but this is the commentary by Oliver Moody and Tom Whipple which was published next to the article.
 
Stewart

Stewart

Senior Member
Messages
291
snowathlete said:
We know it was the Times who contacted him, Coyne posted that on Facebook or wherever yesterday. So Times heard about this story from some other source. But I suspect that triggered Coyne to release the emails to the Times.
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My reading of Coyne's account on Facebook was that The Times contacted him to let him know they were writing a story about him, and that he might want the opportunity to explain his side before they published. That strongly suggests to me that they already had the emails before they contacted him.

Given that GDS is the only person involved in the story that they apparently didn't bother approaching to obtain a comment from, I suspect that he spoke to them off the record when he gave them the story in the first place.
 
snowathlete

snowathlete

Senior Member
Messages
5,374
Location
UK
Stewart said:
My reading of Coyne's account on Facebook was that The Times contacted him to let him know they were writing a story about him, and that he might want the opportunity to explain his side before they published. That strongly suggests to me that they already had the emails before they contacted him.

Given that GDS is the only person involved in the story that they apparently didn't bother approaching to obtain a comment from, I suspect that he spoke to them off the record when he gave them the story in the first place.
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Yeah, could be.

I do hope we get more details this week.
 
TiredSam

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
Demepivo said:
What I love about the article is that GDS was looking for sympathy but will be forever known as a

"disgusting old fart neoliberal hypocrite”

Warning: journalists are to be approached with caution :p
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Former trotskyite disgusting old fart neoliberal hypocrite, please. Coincidentally the SMC was set up by former Revolutionary Communist Party members now known as the LM Network. Originally I think they were supposed to infiltrate the establishment for the cause, but once there they decided that getting their snouts in the trough was more fun.

History
1970s – Trotskyist faction ejected from International Socialists, further splinters into the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)
late-80s – RCP establishes Living Marxism
early-90s – RCP begins infiltration of academic and media circles
mid-90s – Living Marxism title changed to LM
2000 – LM forced to close after it loses libel case
2000 – LM's ex-editor launches Spiked website
2000 – LM's co-publisher, Claire Fox, launches Institute of Ideas
2001 – Long-time LM contributor, and Claire Fox's sister, Fiona Fox becomes Director of the Science Media Centre
2002 – LM/Spiked/Institute of Ideas contributor becomes Director of Sense About Science
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http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=78

Even Alexei Sayle couldn't make up shit like this.

Georgie Porgie has quite happily referred to Marx in his epidemiological papers:

Theoretical origins
Many of the concepts underlying the use of SEP in epidemiological research have their origin in the work of two social theorists, Karl Marx and Max Weber. For Marx, SEP was entirely determined by “social class”, whereby an individual is defined by their relation to the “means of production” (for example, factories, land). Social class, and class relations, are characterised by the inherent conflict between exploited workers and the exploiting capitalists or those who control the means of production. Despite the palpable political weight of Marxist ideology in the 20th century we are aware of only two classifications used in epidemiological research that are based on Marx's theory of social class, these are Erik Olin Wright's classification13 and others developed in South America.14 In contrast with Marx, who viewed social stratification in capitalist societies as both source and outcome of the conflict between two necessarily opposed social groups, Weber's theory suggests that society is hierarchically stratified along many dimensions, creating groups whose members share a common market position leading to shared “life chances”. For Weber, market position is not necessarily only defined by Marx's class relations. For a more detailed summary of these sociological theories see Bartley.15
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465546/

Former reds everywhere looking for pies to stick their grubby little fingers in, and they just happen to have chosen our illness as the location for their piefest.
 
Y

Yogi

Senior Member
Messages
1,132
It is clear that Science Media Centre has spun the main crux of the story about a medical, scientific and financial fraud & scandal into a spat one about emails, resignations and insults.

It appears the SMC press release and behind the scenes briefings have crowded out our story.

It is public relations damage limitation what that they have done.

That they tried to block the JHP publishing and the damage caused to millions of patients doesn't appear in the story

I am not too happy about this. I don't think we should be too happy about this.

I think we need to get more journalists to look into the REAL story and not get sidetracked by SMC distraction narrative. Perhaps leave that as a comment.


Any more stories?
 
Stewart

Stewart

Senior Member
Messages
291
Yogi said:
It is clear that Science Media Centre has spun the main crux of the story about a medical, scientific and financial fraud & scandal into a spat one about emails, resignations and insults.

It appears the SMC press release and behind the scenes briefings have crowded out our story.

It is public relations damage limitation what that they have done.

That they tried to block the JHP publishing and the damage caused to millions of patients doesn't appear in the story

I am not too happy about this. I don't think we should be too happy about this.
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That's not my take on this at all - my take is that the SMC (or another PACE supporter) has (through carelessness or disorganisation) broken the first rule of media management. Namely if someone is trying to promote a negative story about you, do not - under any circumstances - do *anything* that would draw attention to it. It's far better to let a negative story die from a lack of publicity or interest than to try and get your retaliation in first and risk turning it into a bigger deal than it would otherwise be.

It's highly unlikely that the British press would have had any interest in he publication of a special issue of the JHP looking at the PACE trial. Until that is, someone handed The Times a series of emails revealing how tempers are fraying behind the scenes - at which point they had a story they felt was worth publishing. And now a second newspaper (The Mail) has also published it. And both articles have made it clear that it's scientists - not patients - that are at loggerheads over an expensive, controversial and deeply questionable piece of research.

This isn't SMC damage limitation. This is damage maximisation. Somebody has screwed up royally, and as a consequence there are two damaging news stories about PACE today where there could have been none. And the JHP special issue has had a *lot* of publicity that it was otherwise very unlikely to receive.
 
S

SamanthaJ

Senior Member
Messages
219
"disgusting old fart neoliberal hypocrite"
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Barry53 said:
Yes, it does come across as one of those old software programs that used to assemble random insults from semi-randomly selected words ... and just occasionally come up with something really cracking.
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I'm picturing John Cleese shouting it from the battlements in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
 
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SilverbladeTE

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
And this Scotsman shouts out in glee:

"GET IT UP YE, YA BASTARDS!" :p

Oh what joy it is to see our abusers getting shafted in Public, and I long for criminal trials for the vermin as their cosy little world of corruption and malign perversion of Science and treating the sick, comes down on their dammed evil heads.
*chortles in glee* ;)
 
T

thegodofpleasure

Player in a Greek Tragedy
Messages
207
Location
Matlock, Derbyshire, Uk
Jonathan Edwards said:
Davey Smith has made himself look small and grubby and not a suitable person to be on an editorial board.
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He has also demonstrated why it was entirely right to oppose the CMRC's trojan horse MEGA project, within which he appeared to be a leading light.

Please take note @charles shepherd
 
Seven7

Seven7

Seven
Messages
3,444
Location
USA
Can somebody please post on the NYT that the problem with the recommended therapy is that is not just CBT but denying that you are sick, So they part from the premises that it is all in your head and you can think CFS away, and when patients get worst they get blamed for not trying hard enough and so on...
I cannot post for some reason even though I registered, I think it is important to clarify this point and nobody has bring it up. Also ask for a follow up article with more detail on ME. TX!!!!!
 
JohnCB

JohnCB

Immoderate
Messages
351
Location
England
I think this is the best piece The Times has every written about our problem. Previously they have followed an establishment line. The Sunday Times gave Wessely a platform and The Times had the former head of the MRC (Colin Blakemore? I am having trouble recalling the name) was given an opinion piece where he was supportive of Wessely and slagged of militant patients.

They have made quite a shift. Of course they have taken on the story in their own terms but they are presenting it in a fundamentally different way. It is no presented as an issue in science and no longer as anti-science ungrateful patients. I think it is a shame that they didn't put in a sentence or two about Montoya's study that came out on the same day. I would have liked them to say there is clear evidence of biological pathology.

I am hoping that this will be followed by a double page spread in The Sunday Times in a week or two.
 
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