On Twitter: It’s mind-boggling that someone like Per Fink has control over #ME and #LongCovid treatment in Denmark.

[SWAlexander]

It's so disturbing when poorly informed individuals have such personal influence over healthcare services, esp with #LongCovid. Peer-reviewed medical science offers little protection to patients if it is just ignored by physicians-who-feel-they-know-better.

He denies bio research, refers to debunked PACE trial and has seriously harmed patients (Karina case). The man should not have any influence at all. 1/4
His horror clinic is literally called: “Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics“. Their outdated view on M.E. is right there in the name. Of course he sent complaints to NICE. He based his entire clinic on something NICE has found to be nonscientific. 2/4
More at:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1438094143042039808

 

[Hip]

Many of these snake oil salesman psychiatrists like Per Fink, who promote the psychosomatic / somatization / biopsychosocial views on ME/CFS, have links to the disability insurance industry.

Disability insurance companies can save billions if they portray ME/CFS as an "all in the mind" condition, as they then do not have to pay long term disability support to patients. Insurance companies only provide long term disability support to those with physical disabilities.

So if you make the medical world believe ME/CFS is psychologically-caused, you save billions in disability payouts. ME/CFS is particularly expensive for insurance companies, as those damn ME/CFS patients are too ill to work, but they do not die, so require lifetime disability support.

We do not know how much psychiatrists like Per Fink get paid by disability insurance companies, but many do consultancy work for these companies.

In the case of Per Fink, he has associations with the Tryg insurance company:

Insurance companies also stand to save a lot of money from this approach. In Denmark, Fink’s clinic and its research projects are massively supported by the insurance company, Tryg, and the drug company Lundbeck. Tryg also paid for a media consultant to sell the concept of treating ME and other illnesses as functional disorders.

In the UK, insurance companies like Unum and Swiss Re have lobbied for a biopsychosocial (BPS) model of ME/CFS, which promotes talk and exercise therapy as treatment options, as a way to save money. In 2017, Fink made a presentation for Swiss Re where he claimed his treatments would save money.

Ref: here

 

[SWAlexander]

"We do not know how much psychiatrists like Per Fink get paid by disability insurance companies..."
An investigative journalist could lay such manipulation wide open.