Press release: "PACE Trial: The Making of a Medical Scandal" avail. to journalists. Please highlight
- Thread starter Tom Kindlon
- Start date
@Solstice
Your wish is my command!
It is done!
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...e-to-prevent-jofhp-publishing-tomorrow.53143/
I might tweak the title though.
Your wish is my command!
It is done!
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...e-to-prevent-jofhp-publishing-tomorrow.53143/
I might tweak the title though.
Already done by @Solstice http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...block-jhp-issue-dedicated-to-the-trial.53142/
eta: don't think Countrygirls link works anyway(?)
eta: don't think Countrygirls link works anyway(?)
Last edited:
It has been knobbled/disabled by a mod I assume 
as I found I couldn't edit it. Thought Wessbags had infiltrated our conversations for a moment, but he is probably too busy right now wondering who best to threaten (sweetly, of course) in the media to ensure there is no coverage of the PACE fiasco next week. I bet his phone is red hot. Actually, the 'threats' aren't so sweet as I know when personally involved with exposing his shenanigans in a magazine some years ago. The threats involved legal action and being sued for publishing an accurate report about his unsavoury and harmful antics. The person he silenced was then award an honorary fellowship in order to work at King's. Threats and bribery won the day.
as I found I couldn't edit it. Thought Wessbags had infiltrated our conversations for a moment, but he is probably too busy right now wondering who best to threaten (sweetly, of course) in the media to ensure there is no coverage of the PACE fiasco next week. I bet his phone is red hot. Actually, the 'threats' aren't so sweet as I know when personally involved with exposing his shenanigans in a magazine some years ago. The threats involved legal action and being sued for publishing an accurate report about his unsavoury and harmful antics. The person he silenced was then award an honorary fellowship in order to work at King's. Threats and bribery won the day.Absolutely. The closer exposure of their misdeeds gets, the more desperate, blatant, and obvious their flounderings become. These sort of people thrive by lurking in the deep shadows as they do their string pulling. When they start to reveal themselves in their efforts to manipulate, it's a sure sign they know they are in deep trouble.
I think he is probably panicking just a little in this regard (especially the 2020 date):-
I think he is probably panicking just a little in this regard (especially the 2020 date):-
Nonetheless, I would strongly discourage anyone from heckling him, because it would only detract from our advocacy efforts and effectively assist SW.
I am enjoying the irony of Peter White's comment (I think it was him, can't be bothered to look it up) - "a journal of which I was previously unaware".
So tomorrow we will have highly public disclosure of the PACE trial saga involving various social engineering chicanery, one of the major "social engineers" being the newly appointed president of The Royal Society of Medicine. To me that sounds like a major news story for the UK. I wonder if the BBC has any plans to report on it (likely not), and if they do have, how balanced it will be? Not holding my breath.
He seems a horror. Everything from here on down is a (sorry) fairly long passage from Corporate Collusion?, by Malcolm Hooper, Eileen Marshall and Margaret Williams, 2007. It ends with the journalist, Margaret Cook, losing her position:
In October 2003, an article in The Scotsman (Doctor’s Notes: ME sufferers have found an enemy in Wessely – so they need friends: The Scotsman, 6th October 2003) by Dr Margaret Cook, former wife of the late Robin Cook MP, accurately portrayed the significance of Wessely’s role in the misperception of ME/CFS. She referred to Wessely’s belief that ME does not exist at all; to his downplaying of the need for research into diagnostic markers; to his insistence that no state funding should be granted for research other than psychiatric studies and to the resultant closing down of the portals, thereby reducing the chance of the broad and open perspective needed to break through the barriers of prejudice and ignorance.
In her article, Dr Cook also referred to a revolutionary article in the BMJ (May 2003) about doctors’ lavishly-generous sponsors, the pharmaceutical companies, and how the medical profession now prostitutes itself for funding, and how both treatment and research are distorted as a result. She noted Wessely’s response to that article, in which he refused to countenance the possibility of his judgment being swayed by any such paymaster, about which Dr Cook commented: “You can tell from every sentence of his letter that he is used to dictating principles and having everyone in his orbit humbly accept his gospel. If I needed persuading that the ME community merited my support, this letter and its author would convince me. When you have enemies like him, you need a powerful lot of friends”.
It was indeed a remarkably frank article, but the point is that it was entirely factual and was fully supported by evidence.
On 8th October 2003 Wessely wrote a letter to the Scotsman in response, in which he said: “Margaret Cook’s article shows the real battle is not between myself and sufferers of ME but between your correspondent and the facts. I have never suggested that CFS does not exist. Unlike Margaret Cook, I have spent the last 15 years of my life looking after sufferers from this condition. Quite how Margaret Cook thinks that I could block research into this condition is beyond me, but if she had read the recent Lancet editorial I co-wrote with the chief executive of Action for ME, she would have seen a plea for more, not less, research into all aspects of CFS/ME”.
Many letters were sent to the Scotsman, all supporting Dr Cook and thanking The Scotsman for publishing her article. One of them, from Tom Kindlon (from the Irish ME Support Group), said: “As someone who has had ME for the last 14 years but was only diagnosed 9 years ago, I have devoted much of the last 9 years to reading the literature; based on this information, I feel breakthroughs are more likely if Prof Wessely (and other psychiatrists with similar views) had less influence on the area”.
Another response said: “Wessely claims to have spent the last 15 years of his life “looking after sufferers” from ME yet for the most part, he has denied the very existence of ME(CFS). How many other caring doctors do you know who amuse themselves by orchestrating a campaign in the BMJ about ‘non-diseases’ and who proposed ME as one of those ‘non-diseases’, as happened in April 2002? Wessely’s ubiquitous misrepresentation of ME/CFS as a psychiatric disorder rests on his own definition of the disorder, not on the facts: it has been endlessly pointed out to him (supported by hard evidence) that he is wrong, yet he is unmoved. Wessely’s long-term denial that these patients have an organic disorder – which flies in the face of the now massive evidence that they do – essentially means that he does not believe them. If Wessely persists in seeking the withdrawal of (the) article and an apology, the ME community would welcome the opportunity to bring everything out into the open, where Wessely might be shown to be a bully who ruthlessly attempts to silence the chronically sick who are so often powerless in the face of such power as that which he wields”.
A letter from DM Jones MSc said: “Such has been his ‘help’ to ME patients in his 15 years of almost supreme ‘reign over their fate’ that he has successfully poisoned the minds of GPs and other healthcare professionals against these patients. Take for example his ‘History of the postviral fatigue syndrome’ published in the prestigious British Medical Bulletin (BMB 1991:47:919-941) – in the text he emphasises the similarities between neurasthenia and ME, citing comments on neurasthenia sufferers which include the following: ‘always ailing, seldom ill’; ‘a useless, frivolous, noxious element of society’; ‘purely mental cases’; ‘laziness, indifference, weakness of mind and supersensitiveness characterise them all’; ‘the terror of the busy physician’. One can only deduce that Dr (now Professor) Wessely wished ME sufferers to be viewed in this way by these professionals. It was apparent then already that the interests of the pharmaceutical industry played a significant role; all one needed to do is read the small print acknowledgements to realise this. I know I speak on behalf of many ME sufferers when I express my thanks to Dr Cook for speaking up for ME patients”.
Another response pointed out: “Simon Wessely publicly claims that Margaret Cook’s article shows ‘the real battle is not between myself and sufferers of ME but between your correspondent and the facts’, so let the facts speak for themselves”.
An interesting development then occurred: on 11th October 2003 Wessely wrote to a journalist who had published articles on ME/CFS, asking the journalist’s opinion about Dr Cook’s article: “This was published in The Scotsman on Monday. Do you think this is fair comment? I don’t think I need to tell you my feelings. This seems to be rapidly spiralling out of control. Your views / advice?”
The journalist replied to Wessely, saying: “You are obviously a hate figure (and) it might be interesting to enquire as to whether hate figures have any responsibility for the way they are perceived. The inescapable take-home message (that has been reinforced by newspaper headlines) is that this condition has a large psychological component, that these people are imagining it, making it up, being hysterical, suffering from neurasthenia etc. And that is not only seen as downgrading the reality of their condition but also has practical implications as far as benefits go. Whilst I take your point that you have looked into the physiological side and found nothing, it does seem to be the case that a number of other equally erudite / careful scientists have looked there and found something that they do think is significant. I have to admit that when you set that body of work against the conclusion of the MRC that the biological area was not worth major funding, it is hard to escape the conclusion that you and the MRC are not taking the biological side seriously and that you do regard this as a psychological condition. You may say that you do take on board the biological aspect but the inescapable fact is that you are getting £2 million plus to research more aspects of the psychological side, a degree of funding that is not matched in any way by the funding from the MRC going to the biological side. The public perception of what is going on is that your actions on the issue of definition have tended to reinforce the psychosocial basis of the disorder rather than the biological one, which is at the heart of the reason why you have been so vilified. My opinion is that you would not improve anything by attempting to take any legal or other steps – you would be further seen as a major establishment figure attempting to silence / muzzle some poor powerless and chronically ill patients. A very simple step to change the perception of your position would be for you to give encouragement for a similarly sized grant to the one you have recently received, to look into some of the biological factors. It seems rather unlikely that there is something about CFS patients that makes them especially hostile and unreasonable, as opposed to people suffering from heart disease or multiple sclerosis (which) means the level of disagreement over CFS must reflect some underlying issue. I’m sure there is a lot of psychiatric literature on how denying another person’s reality triggers all sorts of deep hostile responses”.
In his response, Wessely entirely failed to address a single one of the legitimate points raised by the journalist, but what he did say, however, was astounding.
Wessely said he was prepared to sue The Scotsman. He asserted that he had looked, but had found no abnormalities; incredibly, he claimed that he had carried out the same tests as the Dundee team (ie. vascular endothelial experiments) and had found nothing. It was not hitherto known that Wessely had carried out studies on ME/CFS patients using a highly sophisticated scanning laser Doppler flowmeter such as that used by the Dundee team, the central point being that if a study has not been published, it effectively has not been done.
Wessely also said he had done work on genes and all his results were negative.
He said he was against the Canadian case definition and claimed the authors were not unbiased scientists (as he was); he said there was no need for any more poor quality science.
He said the whole field had moved forward and that the “radicals” were left fighting yesterday’s battles and there was now a remarkable rapprochement between the psychiatrists and the ME charities. Wessely said that it was only a coterie around the Countess of Mar who do not support his views, and that the cause that the radicals are fighting is over. He said the radicals needed a reality check and their behaviour was outrageous; he said that the radicals were crazy and were engaged in fantasies, lies and gross distortions.
The opinion of the journalist was that what Wessely was saying was “bizarre”.
The reaction of the “radicals” around the Countess of Mar was this was pretty frightening stuff, because it was such a denial of reality.
As Dr John Greensmith from Bristol pointed out in a letter to The Scotsman: “It is instructive to examine how Professor Wessely has raised passions to this level of fervour by, perhaps more than any other single individual, being responsible for making the area so controversial as it is”.
Wessely demanded a retraction of Dr Cook’s article and an apology, and under the onslaught of his threats, The Scotsman capitulated and the article was withdrawn. On 5th January 2004 The Scotsman afforded Wessely the right of reply to Dr Cook and stated: “On 6th October we published an article on the controversial subject of chronic fatigue syndrome. The article contained assertions concerning Professor Simon Wessely of King’s College, London. We accept that these assertions were without foundation”, and Dr Margaret Cook was sacked by The Scotsman from her position as regular columnist.
In October 2003, an article in The Scotsman (Doctor’s Notes: ME sufferers have found an enemy in Wessely – so they need friends: The Scotsman, 6th October 2003) by Dr Margaret Cook, former wife of the late Robin Cook MP, accurately portrayed the significance of Wessely’s role in the misperception of ME/CFS. She referred to Wessely’s belief that ME does not exist at all; to his downplaying of the need for research into diagnostic markers; to his insistence that no state funding should be granted for research other than psychiatric studies and to the resultant closing down of the portals, thereby reducing the chance of the broad and open perspective needed to break through the barriers of prejudice and ignorance.
In her article, Dr Cook also referred to a revolutionary article in the BMJ (May 2003) about doctors’ lavishly-generous sponsors, the pharmaceutical companies, and how the medical profession now prostitutes itself for funding, and how both treatment and research are distorted as a result. She noted Wessely’s response to that article, in which he refused to countenance the possibility of his judgment being swayed by any such paymaster, about which Dr Cook commented: “You can tell from every sentence of his letter that he is used to dictating principles and having everyone in his orbit humbly accept his gospel. If I needed persuading that the ME community merited my support, this letter and its author would convince me. When you have enemies like him, you need a powerful lot of friends”.
It was indeed a remarkably frank article, but the point is that it was entirely factual and was fully supported by evidence.
On 8th October 2003 Wessely wrote a letter to the Scotsman in response, in which he said: “Margaret Cook’s article shows the real battle is not between myself and sufferers of ME but between your correspondent and the facts. I have never suggested that CFS does not exist. Unlike Margaret Cook, I have spent the last 15 years of my life looking after sufferers from this condition. Quite how Margaret Cook thinks that I could block research into this condition is beyond me, but if she had read the recent Lancet editorial I co-wrote with the chief executive of Action for ME, she would have seen a plea for more, not less, research into all aspects of CFS/ME”.
Many letters were sent to the Scotsman, all supporting Dr Cook and thanking The Scotsman for publishing her article. One of them, from Tom Kindlon (from the Irish ME Support Group), said: “As someone who has had ME for the last 14 years but was only diagnosed 9 years ago, I have devoted much of the last 9 years to reading the literature; based on this information, I feel breakthroughs are more likely if Prof Wessely (and other psychiatrists with similar views) had less influence on the area”.
Another response said: “Wessely claims to have spent the last 15 years of his life “looking after sufferers” from ME yet for the most part, he has denied the very existence of ME(CFS). How many other caring doctors do you know who amuse themselves by orchestrating a campaign in the BMJ about ‘non-diseases’ and who proposed ME as one of those ‘non-diseases’, as happened in April 2002? Wessely’s ubiquitous misrepresentation of ME/CFS as a psychiatric disorder rests on his own definition of the disorder, not on the facts: it has been endlessly pointed out to him (supported by hard evidence) that he is wrong, yet he is unmoved. Wessely’s long-term denial that these patients have an organic disorder – which flies in the face of the now massive evidence that they do – essentially means that he does not believe them. If Wessely persists in seeking the withdrawal of (the) article and an apology, the ME community would welcome the opportunity to bring everything out into the open, where Wessely might be shown to be a bully who ruthlessly attempts to silence the chronically sick who are so often powerless in the face of such power as that which he wields”.
A letter from DM Jones MSc said: “Such has been his ‘help’ to ME patients in his 15 years of almost supreme ‘reign over their fate’ that he has successfully poisoned the minds of GPs and other healthcare professionals against these patients. Take for example his ‘History of the postviral fatigue syndrome’ published in the prestigious British Medical Bulletin (BMB 1991:47:919-941) – in the text he emphasises the similarities between neurasthenia and ME, citing comments on neurasthenia sufferers which include the following: ‘always ailing, seldom ill’; ‘a useless, frivolous, noxious element of society’; ‘purely mental cases’; ‘laziness, indifference, weakness of mind and supersensitiveness characterise them all’; ‘the terror of the busy physician’. One can only deduce that Dr (now Professor) Wessely wished ME sufferers to be viewed in this way by these professionals. It was apparent then already that the interests of the pharmaceutical industry played a significant role; all one needed to do is read the small print acknowledgements to realise this. I know I speak on behalf of many ME sufferers when I express my thanks to Dr Cook for speaking up for ME patients”.
Another response pointed out: “Simon Wessely publicly claims that Margaret Cook’s article shows ‘the real battle is not between myself and sufferers of ME but between your correspondent and the facts’, so let the facts speak for themselves”.
An interesting development then occurred: on 11th October 2003 Wessely wrote to a journalist who had published articles on ME/CFS, asking the journalist’s opinion about Dr Cook’s article: “This was published in The Scotsman on Monday. Do you think this is fair comment? I don’t think I need to tell you my feelings. This seems to be rapidly spiralling out of control. Your views / advice?”
The journalist replied to Wessely, saying: “You are obviously a hate figure (and) it might be interesting to enquire as to whether hate figures have any responsibility for the way they are perceived. The inescapable take-home message (that has been reinforced by newspaper headlines) is that this condition has a large psychological component, that these people are imagining it, making it up, being hysterical, suffering from neurasthenia etc. And that is not only seen as downgrading the reality of their condition but also has practical implications as far as benefits go. Whilst I take your point that you have looked into the physiological side and found nothing, it does seem to be the case that a number of other equally erudite / careful scientists have looked there and found something that they do think is significant. I have to admit that when you set that body of work against the conclusion of the MRC that the biological area was not worth major funding, it is hard to escape the conclusion that you and the MRC are not taking the biological side seriously and that you do regard this as a psychological condition. You may say that you do take on board the biological aspect but the inescapable fact is that you are getting £2 million plus to research more aspects of the psychological side, a degree of funding that is not matched in any way by the funding from the MRC going to the biological side. The public perception of what is going on is that your actions on the issue of definition have tended to reinforce the psychosocial basis of the disorder rather than the biological one, which is at the heart of the reason why you have been so vilified. My opinion is that you would not improve anything by attempting to take any legal or other steps – you would be further seen as a major establishment figure attempting to silence / muzzle some poor powerless and chronically ill patients. A very simple step to change the perception of your position would be for you to give encouragement for a similarly sized grant to the one you have recently received, to look into some of the biological factors. It seems rather unlikely that there is something about CFS patients that makes them especially hostile and unreasonable, as opposed to people suffering from heart disease or multiple sclerosis (which) means the level of disagreement over CFS must reflect some underlying issue. I’m sure there is a lot of psychiatric literature on how denying another person’s reality triggers all sorts of deep hostile responses”.
In his response, Wessely entirely failed to address a single one of the legitimate points raised by the journalist, but what he did say, however, was astounding.
Wessely said he was prepared to sue The Scotsman. He asserted that he had looked, but had found no abnormalities; incredibly, he claimed that he had carried out the same tests as the Dundee team (ie. vascular endothelial experiments) and had found nothing. It was not hitherto known that Wessely had carried out studies on ME/CFS patients using a highly sophisticated scanning laser Doppler flowmeter such as that used by the Dundee team, the central point being that if a study has not been published, it effectively has not been done.
Wessely also said he had done work on genes and all his results were negative.
He said he was against the Canadian case definition and claimed the authors were not unbiased scientists (as he was); he said there was no need for any more poor quality science.
He said the whole field had moved forward and that the “radicals” were left fighting yesterday’s battles and there was now a remarkable rapprochement between the psychiatrists and the ME charities. Wessely said that it was only a coterie around the Countess of Mar who do not support his views, and that the cause that the radicals are fighting is over. He said the radicals needed a reality check and their behaviour was outrageous; he said that the radicals were crazy and were engaged in fantasies, lies and gross distortions.
The opinion of the journalist was that what Wessely was saying was “bizarre”.
The reaction of the “radicals” around the Countess of Mar was this was pretty frightening stuff, because it was such a denial of reality.
As Dr John Greensmith from Bristol pointed out in a letter to The Scotsman: “It is instructive to examine how Professor Wessely has raised passions to this level of fervour by, perhaps more than any other single individual, being responsible for making the area so controversial as it is”.
Wessely demanded a retraction of Dr Cook’s article and an apology, and under the onslaught of his threats, The Scotsman capitulated and the article was withdrawn. On 5th January 2004 The Scotsman afforded Wessely the right of reply to Dr Cook and stated: “On 6th October we published an article on the controversial subject of chronic fatigue syndrome. The article contained assertions concerning Professor Simon Wessely of King’s College, London. We accept that these assertions were without foundation”, and Dr Margaret Cook was sacked by The Scotsman from her position as regular columnist.
Ultimately Wessely will be condemned by his own words and actions, of which there is no shortage on record, much of it on the formal record where it cannot be so easily altered.
Once the people he has kicked feel safe to speak out, I predict that there will be a flood of stories about the real Simon Wessely, including from within medicine.
Once the people he has kicked feel safe to speak out, I predict that there will be a flood of stories about the real Simon Wessely, including from within medicine.
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His is the (dare I say it) Jimmy Saville approach to avoiding public censure; bully, threaten and bribe to maintain power and control, crushing those that dare to dissent.
He has his own website:
http://www.simonwessely.com/
"Welcome to my home page. My name is Simon Wessely and I am a clinical academic at King’s College London. I am the Professor of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience which is a School within King’s. I am a Consultant Psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, all of which are part of our Academic Health Sciences Centre, and where I practice what is known as liaison psychiatry, which is all about the boundaries and overlaps between physical and mental health. Finally, I am currently the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists."
modest soul isn't he
http://www.simonwessely.com/
"Welcome to my home page. My name is Simon Wessely and I am a clinical academic at King’s College London. I am the Professor of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience which is a School within King’s. I am a Consultant Psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, all of which are part of our Academic Health Sciences Centre, and where I practice what is known as liaison psychiatry, which is all about the boundaries and overlaps between physical and mental health. Finally, I am currently the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists."
modest soul isn't he
I was just looking at that... did you see the page CFS Personal Story.
I think he is trying to rewrite history.
A list of 15 "contributions", plenty of talk about biology and immunology, you have to wait until item 12 before he mentions psychology.
No mention of exercise or GET.
Finishes with :
During that decade we showed that you could even get good results in the most severely disabled patients (either in wheel chairs or bed bound) using the same principles, although it was never possible to do an RCT.
I think he is trying to rewrite history.
A list of 15 "contributions", plenty of talk about biology and immunology, you have to wait until item 12 before he mentions psychology.
No mention of exercise or GET.
Finishes with :
During that decade we showed that you could even get good results in the most severely disabled patients (either in wheel chairs or bed bound) using the same principles, although it was never possible to do an RCT.
I wrote a blog responding to that:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?entries/simon-wesselys-personal-story-annotated.1054/
Over five years ago... would have been harsher now tbh.
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?entries/simon-wesselys-personal-story-annotated.1054/
Over five years ago... would have been harsher now tbh.
Blimey, it looks like it's all been a big misunderstanding, but thankfully Wessely explains everything here:
http://www.simonwessely.com/index.php/misunderstandings-misperceptions/
http://www.simonwessely.com/index.php/misunderstandings-misperceptions/