I hope this means Esther Crawley will be asked to step down from the CMRC. If not, perhaps it's time for the MEA to withdraw from that tainted organisation. Since you started this thread,
@charles shepherd perhaps you'd like to comment.
As I/we have stated many times before, the MEA has no current intention of leaving our position as a charity representative on the Board of the CMRC
Belonging to a group such as this, which consists of a very wide spectrum of clinical and research opinion on both cause and management of ME/CFS, is obviously a very challenging and difficult task at times
But I/we believe it is far more important to be 'inside the tent' of an organisation such as this, especially when it has a considerable influence over the direction that research into ME/CFS is moving forward here in the UK
This means that I/we will agree with my colleagues on the CMRC Board at times
And I/we will disagree at other times
I/we apply exactly the same principle of being willing to sit down with people we may disagree with in relation to the work that we do on behalf of people with ME/CFS at the DWP (on benefits) and with NICE (on the 2007 NICE guideline) and elsewhere
In relation to the subject under discussion, I know and like David Tuller (I invited him to come down to stay with us in the Cotswolds in December last year) and I have been in contact with David over the past few days
I also wrote to Stephen Holgate and my colleagues on the Board of the CMRC yesterday to raise a number of concerns and objections about the presentation AND to make it clear that I/we fully support members of the patient community who have made constructive use of Freedom of Information Act to obtain unpublished data from the PACE trial.
Questioning the validity of the PACE trial data has nothing to do with either harassment or behaving in a vexatious manner
CS