Dr David Tuller: Jennie Spotila Tracks Down–and Busts–an Old Tale About “Death Threats” from Patients

[Countrygirl]

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https://www.virology.ws/2021/04/14/...zEaPiQaBKyR8mLvtcK4RAY2ZQMDnt-cP37QmvE6yxSaEU

Trial By Error: Jennie Spotila Tracks Down–and Busts–an Old Tale About “Death Threats” from Patients
14 April 2021 by David Tuller 3 Comments

By David Tuller, DrPH

In early 2011, the first report of the PACE results in The Lancet drew widespread criticism from patients and advocates. Later that year, stories about unhinged, anti-science patients harassing and threatening leading researchers in the field appeared in high-profile UK outlets like BMJ and The Times. In the UK, this appears to have been orchestrated with the help of the so-called Science Media Centre, which has always backed the crap produced by the members of the biopsychosocial ideological brigades.
The rumors of “death threats” from ME/CFS patients were not, however, confined to the UK. In her blog Occupy M.E., Jennie Spotila last week excavated how the “death threats” meme traveled to the National Institutes of Health–and finally gets to the bottom of the story. You can read it here or below; I am re-posting it in full with her permission.
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The Death Threat Myth Exposed
Jennie Spotila
April 6, 2021
Update April 7, 2021: Further comment from Dr. Vicky Whittemore added to the end of this post.

 

[godlovesatrier]

Love David's tweets, he's got some really good stuff on the activism front.

And I've just found and followed you on twitter =)

 

[gbells]

It's part of an old public relations strategy to demonize the victims you want to rip off and protect biased grant reviewers so that the public sees them as the enemy. In this case it is being used to support the idea that NIH is being reasonable in underfunding ME because the patients are mentally unstable (more psychogenic theory nonsense). It is also done across the board with disability claims by cherry picking cases of fraud to imply that there is rampant fraud occurring which is factually incorrect (true fraud is only about 1%) where many legitimate disability claims are denied due to SSA bias (70% of initial claims are denied). SSA exploits the fact that ME is progressive to minimize the disease in its early stages so that patients are left without insurance support when it gets bad. There is so much corruption here PR really should set up a forum subsection about Government and Insurance Company anti ME propaganda for these posts.