Simon Wessely in New Scientist

[Yogi]

This is a post for all comments regarding Simon Wessely's quote in New Scientist. It deserves its own post.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-fatigue-syndrome.html?full=true#.VZaX8stwZSC

"The belief that [CFS] is all in the mind has been around since the beginning," he says. "It's tragic that it might take a study like this to take sufferers seriously."

It is important that Simon isn't able to rewrite history about him creating the narrative about ME as in the mind over decades since the 1980s and now reposition himself as an advocate for biomedical as his psychological school of thought crumbles!

 

[msf]

I don't know what this kind of delusion is called - Hitler in the bunker syndrome?

 

[redaxe]

Maybe he didn't feel so safe in Afghanistan or Iraq after all...

 

[Yogi]

Here are links about what he said about the illness previously.
Contrast this what he is saying now. There has been so much hard work by many people such as Fluge and Mella and the charity that funded the trial and the wonderful InvestinMe to make this Rituximab research happen despite what he has done. It makes me sick!


http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/simon-wessely-quotes.12098/



www.meactionuk.org.uk/Quotable_Quotes_Updated.pdf



http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/wessely.html

 

[Esther12]

@Yogi I think that some of the quotes posted in them can be misleading out of context, and I vaguely remember some even being inaccurate.

Valentijn has done a thread with lots of quotes from Wessely and included links to the papers they were taken from for people to be able to read for themselves (where they're publicly available).

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/simon-wessely-quotes.21025/

Great work Val!

 

[SOC]

I'm waiting to hear Wessely and crew start in with, "Oh, but we weren't talking about THOSE patients, the ones with pathogens, immune dysfunctions, and neurological symptoms. THEY certainly have a clear biomedical illness. We were talking about those OTHER ME/CFS patients, the ones without those symptoms."

They'll completely ignore the fact that they hijacked the names ME and CFS, applied their own definitions (Oxford, CDC Empirical), lumped us all together under the psychosomatic umbrella, and then threw the whole lot of us under the bus.

 

[Aurator]

Here are links about what he said about the illness previously.
Contrast this what he is saying now.

We need to watch out. He's probably exploring and negotiating new roles for himself as we speak, though what they are going to be is hard to say at the moment.

Let's have a think:

• Global co-ordinator for the collation and dissemination of Rituximab trial data?
• Taskforce manager, patient selection supervisor and media spokesperson for the projected UK multi-centre phase 3 Rituximab trials? (A role that will of course entail full public accountability - to certain hand-picked individuals from NICE and the DWP, that is.)

 

[Yogi]

@Yogi I think that some of the quotes posted in them can be misleading out of context, and I vaguely remember some even being inaccurate.

Valentijn has done a thread with lots of quotes from Wessely and included links to the papers they were taken from for people to be able to read for themselves (where they're publicly available).

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/simon-wessely-quotes.21025/

Great work Val!

Thanks will have a look at this. However there is so much BS in there that I don't think I will be able to stomach to read his articles in full.

 

[Valentijn]

Thanks will have a look at this. However there is so much BS in there that I don't think I will be able to stomach to read his articles in full.

Yeah, reading Wessely's work is a great way to raise the blood pressure

 

[Yogi]

Great work Val putting this together!!

Maybe the Weasel's decades of research has a use as treatment for patients with low blood pressure!

 

[Effi]

Yeah, reading Wessely's work is a great way to raise the blood pressure

You see? He IS helping us after all!

 

[msf]

I think the very least the ME community should ask for from Wessely is an apology/an admission that his theories caused a lot of suffering with some very bad science.

If I cared about knighthoods I would suggest we ask for it to be rescinded too.

 

[msf]

Alternatively, we could just call him names for a bit.

 

[Effi]

If I cared about knighthoods I would suggest we ask for it to be rescinded too.

We don't care, but he probably does.

Alternatively, we could just call him names for a bit.

That does take the pressure off a little bit.

 

[msf]

I'm going with 'the king of psychobabble' or just 'stupid.'

 

[Effi]

We'll crown him 'King of Stupid'. Anyone got a spare crown?

 

[leela]

You know, I think we should take the good where we can get it, and let him "save face" or whatever he needs to do to uphold his so-called dignity
if that's his preference.

That he is reversing his position is nothing short of miraculous, (I admit to fearing it's a trick!) and I don't see the merit in pointing out
the fact that he's changed as if it's a bad thing. If he's not capable or prepared to say, "Holy blinders, was I wrong before!" so be it.
Not everyone has that particular kind of self-assurance.

I know he's been horrid, but let's not hold him to that. Let's give him room to walk around in new shoes and see if he breaks them in.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

He's a poseur, a "button man" for the Establishment.
if he was that great as he says, he'd have queues miles long of folk desperate to be helped...since he doesn't it's pretty obvious he's a "legend in his own mind"

History of science and especially medicine is full of men like him, he will be ridiculed and condemned in histories that will be written centuries ahead.
His smarminess etc makes him especially loathsome.
Maybe he meant well at one time, but...sigh.

 

[SOC]

You know, I think we should take the good where we can get it, and let him "save face" or whatever he needs to do to uphold his so-called dignity
if that's his preference.

Sorry, I'm not that generous. It's not like he made a bad judgement about what color to paint the waiting room. People have died because of what he's said and the policies he pushed to put in place. Tens of thousands of others have suffered physically, lost their health, careers, families, and goodness knows what else because of him He needs to be held accountable. People like him who are in positions of authority need to understand that they will be held accountable for their deliberate actions in destroying people's lives. I'm in no way inclined to allow him to get off by playing CYA games after the fact. Protecting his dignity is the farthest thing from my mind.

 

[lastgasp]

There's no evidence in the above he's "reversing his position" - he's been maintaining for years that it's "not all in the mind" but with the implication that it's only the effects of it being in the mind which are then experienced in the body (see his old New Scientist piece). So his above quote is just him again claiming, oh, I'm not one of these extreme people either way, and it's a shame that so few take it seriously, like I always have!