The Fight is on...Imperial College XMRV Study

[Dr. Yes]

Holmsey says he has been in touch with Wessely. Holmsey, would you be willing to pass a question from us along to Dr. Wessely? *But please don't do so until we have finalized our wording!* :Retro smile:

FE, I think we better make sure this one occurs on the public record, rather than in private correspondence. That is, I think we should submit it to him in a less private manner, and make clear that this is intended to be public information.

(And that the same question is likely pending from the CAA).

Anyway -- FE, Teej, anybody else ... game to start a draft?

 

[starryeyes]

You are a very kind Gibbon. Your clear and thoughtful posts are much appreciated.

Answering my own question, here:

From the Imperial College London Press Release:

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsande...wssummary/news_6-1-2010-15-34-39?newsid=80061

"After reading the US study, clinical researchers from King's College London sent
blood samples from 186 CFS patients to the Imperial Retrovirology Laboratory
team. King's has been running an NHS service for CFS patients for nearly twenty
years, and the previously stored samples came from patients had been fully
investigated and examined, meaning that CFS was the correct diagnosis...

I had posted before I'd gotten this far. Thanks for finding the answer for us ME agenda.

Dr. Yes and FE I don't think we need to ask now, do you?

kwietsol wrote:
My understanding of the HHS study is that it incorporates the CDC study which is testing samples from the Witchita and Georgia cohorts (as well as samples provided by the WPI).

If all that is true, I'm uncomfortable with setting up the HHS's forthcoming study as the "gold standard."

Thank you for catching that kwietsol. I'm very concerned about this too now that you've excerpted it.

 

[Orla]

Hi Spit, thanks for your comments. It is interesting to hear from people who have experience in science.

About motivation you wrote:

And I'd personally guess that the rush to get these results out was more about publicity and a sort of "getting into the game", more than anything. It's a lot better for one's reputation to get into the mix of studies as quickly as possible, become a big player early in the research. Beyond that, I'm not going to even try to guess about motivations or whatnot -- I assume that this team wanted to run a good study and find solid evidence either way, honestly, I just also think they went about it hastily and with poor cross-checking of their procedures.

I think the would be different motivations from different members of the team, but McClure's comment in the Discovery magazine were interesting:

Though McClure and her colleagues can't say for sure how they and
the Americans came to such different results, they wanted to put a
stop to the rush of patients who started seeking antiretroviral
treatments for chronic fatigue after the Science paper came out in
October (XMRV is a retrovirus, like HIV). They say potent
antiretroviral drugs should not be used to treat CFS because there
is not enough evidence that this is necessary or helpful. The drugs
may do more harm than good, they say [BBC News

--

I doubt any patient in the UK was getting antiretrovirals on the NHS, and most probaly weren't even asking for them. It is interesting that this seems to have been their motivation in rushing the thing through. I wonder had they been expecting negative results, before they started? (this can't necessarily be read from that statement)

I feel that the team could have issued a statement about anti-retrovirals at any time if they had wanted, seperate from any study. If the results of their study had been positive there still would be no treatment without trials.

Some of the comments made to the press seem to imply that they wanted to dampen down patient enthusiasm as quickly as possible, rather than have a more open-ended enquiry into whether XMRV was significant in ME/CF or not? Would this explain the strength of the comments to the press? Oddly, to me, some of Wessely's public comments were more moderate than McClure's.

To some extent of course motivations wouldn't matter if they study was done well, but if they rushed the study and publication for the above reasons, then it is very frustrating,
Orla

 

[spit]

Orla -- good points. I'd seen that excerpt, but then had forgotten about it again; it's an interesting one. I'm not really sure how to read it -- was their rush to get the study out based on this feeling of wanting to quell patients' searches for antiretrovirals, or was that an additional point they were making once they published the results? It's just really unclear from the article, and it does make a difference.

I absolutely agree that some of their statements to the press lack any sense of moderation at all, and they do make me question motives a bit, though of course that's unanswerable. I'm sure it is really threatening to people who doubt the XMRV link, who have sometimes spent years coming up with other explanations, to see the patient community jump at a study that still needs solid replication. But there's a huge difference between saying "we still don't know yet, our study failed to find XMRV, and patients should be cautious about new treatments while research is ongoing" and saying "it isn't XMRV, everybody! Chill out and stop getting all worked up!" or whatever. The first is a solid, accurate statement, but they do seem, at least in media reports, to have been geared toward the second.

I don't know how much of that to blame on the media, and how much of it was the scientists either being insufficiently careful in their statements or being fundamentally biased in their approach. It's impossible to know, really -- I tend to give people the benefit of any doubt, but it is interesting, and if some quick-put-a-lid-on-it attitude toward patient enthusiasm was allowed to seep into their science, that would be a very bad thing.

I wish news outlets would either be much clearer about quotes and paraphrasing or just put up the transcripts. Did the reporter ask about antiretrovirals, and then write it up this way? We can't tell.

 

[Holmsey]

Alice, thanks for that, I think it's important that we get the full picture and as you say it is puzzling why they would'nt just go inhouse. Is there anyone you can ask at Imperial now that you know that they made the approach to another establishment?

 

[Holmsey]

I think it's likely that they wanted to be as quick as possible. If that caused problems, more careful studies should pick it up.

Combined with them saying that the WPI were irresponsible to release results, I wouldn't be surprised if they did think that the XMRV news would encourage patients to medicalise their symptoms, and be less accepting of the GET/CBT they think is useful. I don't think that this would lead to them fabricating results, but it might explain their tone and desire to get their conflicting results out as quickly as possible, perhaps without being as thorough as we'd like.

Good thinking, I've aware from reading many papers co-authored by Simon Wessely that the thinking is we make our symptoms worse by to much testing, by visiting alternate medicine sites, by these forums and books, if that is a heart felt conviction by what we call the 'Wessely school' then it would explain both the haste and the methodology, i.e. not taking fresh samples.

 

[Holmsey]

Eric from I&I Hi,
I wish I could tell you, I wish I knew what you were asking, I asked in an earlier mail if it was possible for you or Spit to ask some of your questions directly to guys involved at Imperial, again it wouldn't mean much to me but your take on their answers would sure tell me / us a lot. Any hope? As I answer this I've not gotten as far as where I gave 'full disclosure' of where my account came from, hopefully it won't be a storm but it's why I just recanted and didn't give opinions on what I'd been told, having said that it all sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Holmsey]

I have a problem with it Esther12. You are leaving yourself open to ridicule, and more seriously, legal action. I have given money to WPI, and they rely on donations like mine to further their research.
Please think more carefully before you make the comments you make.

Lets not get to serious on this, I think if we have to worry about law suits it'll be from either the Psyc lobby or the Imperial college who we seem to have renamed the Psyc lobby as if they're one and the same.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

UNUM CMO''s Annual Report 2007 and "UNUM United" by Marshall and Williams, Oct 07

Good thinking, I've aware from reading many papers co-authored by Simon Wessely that the thinking is we make our symptoms worse by to much testing, by visiting alternate medicine sites, by these forums and books, if that is a heart felt conviction by what we call the 'Wessely school' then it would explain both the haste and the methodology, i.e. not taking fresh samples.

Unum Chief Medical Officers Annual Report 2007

The October 2007 Marshall and Williams article "Unum United?"

( Full copy at this URL: http://meagenda.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/unum-united-eileen-marshall-margaret-williams-october-2007/ )

considers quotes from Dr Chris Bass [formerly King's College Hospital, London, now Consultant in Liaison Psychiatry, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford] and Prof Simon Wessely [Director King's Centre for Military Health Research] from articles in the Unum Chief Medical Officers Annual Report 2007.

Marshall and Williams write: Importantly for the UK ME/CFS community, the Unum Report provides yet more proof of the incestuous relationship between Wessely School psychiatrists and the insurance industry

The PDF version of the Unum Annual Report 2007 can be downloaded here:

http://www.unum.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/C22C5183-95E7-468D-8D72-785867135C7F/0/CMOreport2007_UP1431.pdf

PDF is approx. 2.4MB.

An html version of the Unum Annual Report 2007 can be accessed here

http://www.unum.co.uk/Home/AccessiblePDF/CMOReport2007.htm?UPCC=True

UNUM
Mind over Matter Exploring the issues of Mental Ill Health.

Chief Medical Officers Report 2007

Index to Sections.

Introduction Professor Michael ODonnell
Mental Ill Health and Employment Paul Corry
Top Tips for dealing with Mental Illness James Wooldridge
Good Therapy and How to Recognise it Ruth Harrison
The Interface Between Psychiatric and Physical Disorders Dr. Chris Bass
Why and When do Doctors Collude with Patients? Professor Simon Wessely

These two section of the UNUM 2007 CEO's Annual Report are worth a skim.

Extract from the Marshall and Williams article:

Wesselys article in the Unum Report is entitled Why and When do Doctors Collude with Patients?. It starts by affirming that doctors do indeed collude with patients, sometimes out of self-interest, but more commonly in the genuine belief that to do so is in the best interests of patients, because what the patient doesnt know wont hurt.

Does such a view indicate that paternalism in medicine remains alive and well in the UK? How does such a view accord with the Governments Expert Patient initiative, which requires a partnership approach to the management of chronic illness throughout the entire NHS? (The Expert Patient: A New Approach to Chronic Disease Management for the 21st Century, published by The Department of Health, reference 25216 1p 10k Sep 01).

Wessely does not mention the terms ME or CFS specifically, but instead says:

Sometimes a little collusion can go a long way. Take the example of hysteria. Despite being so often described as on the decline, it is instead alive and kicking. Slaters view that a diagnosis of hysteria merely reflected ignorance, and that most cases would turn out to have diagnosable disease if they were properly investigated or followed up for long enough, has been repeatedly disproved.

(Whilst favoured by psychiatrists, such an assertion is not universally accepted by other medical disciplines).

So when the scans, EEGs and nerve conduction tests are back, and the diagnosis clear, what happens next? Does our ethically trained doctor share this information with the patient? Sir/Madam, there is no neurological reason why you cannot walk. You have what psychiatrists call conversion disorder, but everyone else calls hysteria. You can bet your bottom dollar that they do not.

In another study nearly every UK neurologist admitted seeing patients for whom the diagnosis of hysteria and/or conversion disorder was appropriate, but hardly any used that label in front of the patient.

In one of those papers one wishes one had written oneself, Stone et al (the et al included Wesselys colleague Michael Sharpe) showed the importance of labels (What should we say to patients with symptoms unexplained by disease? The number needed to offend . BMJ Dec 21st, 2002). You have to tell 43 patients who cannot walk that they have multiple sclerosis before one becomes offended, a mere 9 if you say its functional but two is sufficient if you call it hysteria. Lets hear it for collusion.

Using labels can trigger a battle of diagnosis, from which the patient themselves is the loser, determined to prove the doctor wrong in the only way possible by staying ill.

Finding a label that will not offend the patient whilst enabling them to engage in sensible treatment can be a good strategy. I know a number of neurologists who manage patients whom others might call somatising under a variety of labels such as fibromyalgia.

Whatever your problem, several establishments near the modern Harley Street have the solution. Every test they do is always positive. They replace hormones that dont need replacing giving thyroxine to people with normal thyroid function is currently popular. These medical entrepreneurs have a talent for converting the latest scares into opportunities.

We dont see much hypoglycaemia these days, and chronic brucellosis has gone the way of all flesh, but candida, food allergy and multiple chemical sensitivity continue to flourish.

Wesselys disdain for suffering humanity is inescapable, and his assertion about brucellosis is curious in the light of what is to be found about brucellosis on PubMed documenting Britains biological weapons research programme (EA Willis: Med Confl Surviv.2003 Oct-Dec; 19(4):285-302).

Wessely continues:

The exact label is not the issue what is important is that they provide an explanation for the stresses, strains and symptoms of life that avoids any of the possible self-blame, stigma and guilt of those diagnoses that more conventionally minded doctors use.

Perhaps it is just too painful to realise that the kindly, polite, charming doctor with the smart consulting room, the latest gadgets, and the utter conviction that he or she really does understand the cause of your problems is really giving you things you dont need for problems you dont have.

The swings that you gain on having your complaints listened to are lost on the roundabouts of continuing ill-health and dependency on doctors.

I doubt there are few occasions in which doctors are more pressurised to collude with their patients (than) when the latter pushes across the desk a form that needs to be signed. If I dont sign, the chances are they will complain, so its anything for the quiet life.

So doctors collude with their patients all the time. Its not such a bad thing after all.

What has happened to respect for the sick and the suffering? What has happened to compassion? What has happened to truth?

End Extract "UNUM United"​

 

[dipic]

Good thinking, I've aware from reading many papers co-authored by Simon Wessely that the thinking is we make our symptoms worse by to much testing, by visiting alternate medicine sites, by these forums and books, if that is a heart felt conviction by what we call the 'Wessely school' then it would explain both the haste and the methodology, i.e. not taking fresh samples.

That would probably the very last possible reason for getting the study out so quick. Oh, Holmsey, if only you realized where our disdain for the Wessely school came from. :headache:

It doesn't hurt to hear a completely different take now and then though, I guess. It's somewhat endearing, if not naive but forces us to question our predispositions, if only for a second.

[video=youtube;L5foBQ1TzV0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5foBQ1TzV0[/video]

 

[Holmsey]

It might be prudent to ask people's permission to pass questions on. Although this is a public forum and anyone can read this discussion, if you have the opportunity to say "can I run this by Simon Wessely?" it would be a good idea to do that. I can't imagine anyone saying no, if fact they might think a little harder about the question and phrase it in a clearer and more concise way, but I would feel that some might be nervy about our discussions being fed to a person not highly regarded by themselves. It would also be nice to hear his answers if he is willing.

Personally, you can talk to him all you want but I really would advise you communicate how you're using the board in light of the hectic times we are currently experiencing.

On a slightly related note, have you checked out Orla's thread about the psychiatric paradigm in the UK? It's jam packed with papers, references and quotes from the Wessely school. It's in her sig, if you haven't read through it let me know and I'll dig up the link if you can't find it. As I read it I thought it would be right up your alley.

Here's the link, minimal effort, click and read away.
The Psychiatric view of ME/CFS - What is it?

Ok, I kind of expected this one as well. You'll note from my post that I sumarise in my own words what I've come to understand regarding the position of Simon Wesselys clinic and the Imperial college, I haven't added any direct quotes and I haven't added any opinions. Likewise, when I've asked question of Simon Wessely they've been my questions, they may have been prompted by things I've read here but I take full responsibility for them and I couched them in terms of things I could have gleened from the paper he sent me.

Now, I like others have had posts from the monitors, so I've been honest about my source, but this isn't about Simon Wessely it's about Imperial and their paper, one more thing, it became apparent today that Simon Wessely follows certain threads on this site, I've never mentioned this site but today he made reference to one post I imediately recognised, this is after all a public board.

 

[Eric Johnson from I&I]

I agree with Holmsey on lawsuits -- the hell with lawsuits.

Holmsey, I considered sending some questions to the authors. But I'm not really 100% certain in my interpretations. My PCR experience is kind of limited, and PCR has a number of fine points well known to the connoisseur and not so much to moi. I'm not a practicing scientist, just an ex-student and ex-quasi-grad student (unenrolled, for one semester).

Anyway, I feel like more labs will be weighing in soon. And scientists are not easily taken in by a paper that seems rather bare bones in its positive controls and does not address the possibility of geographic sequence diversity at all. Wannabe scientists sit around in grad classes dissecting papers. In small classes like 5-10. With usually two profs present. Who have studied the subject at hand their entire lives practically, because 20 or so different profs rotate through such a course, covering 2 or 3 class meetings each. And any student who can score the least, most minute touche on any paper gets ten points so to speak. And the profs rip on the papers to an extent you might not suspect from the outside. Their level of cynicism is warranted wihen you look at the large numbers of biomed papers that get disconfirmed. Probably around 25% of biomed papers are false, though it is hard to estimate exactly. The WPI has the kind of redundancy that makes it look like it is not one of those papers.

I was quite heartened to read in the Science News piece that *both* sides claim they got boyz behind em. Other labs I mean. If there are positive reports in the expected patterns from like three different labs, and they are done *blinded* which I feel is rather important and underemphasized, and they do both PCR and techniques with antibiody readout such as serology, and the number of labs reporting no XMRV is not too much larger than the 3+ reporting that WPI's findings are true -- then at that point I would think it is highly likely that the negative reports are false, the association with XMRV true, and the techniques will eventually be de-kinked and standardized such that they will eventually work easily for everyone. Consider how easily fasle negatives would be produced rather than false positives. False + PCR by contamination is very common. But if you sequence XMRV from patients and each patient always has pretty much the same sequence, but the sequences differ by patient, that would be very hard to obtain falsely. Serology is always hard to get a false positive on. Immuno-electron microscopy, yet to be applied in this little dust-up, is semi-hard to get a false + on. Meanwhile, it is always easy to get a false negative on anything and everything! Mind your p's and q's in the lab or you are not going to make experiments work, as I know only too well. And many, many times, people with a lot more native skill in the lab fail to get a certain technique to work, or fail entirely. People occasionally speak of honing a particularly difficult technique for YEARS before they can get it to work reliably enough to accomplish anything iwth it. I suppose they are practicing such a thing on the side while spending most of their time on something that is more immediately productive.

 

[Holmsey]

Garcia, come on. Most of my correspondence with Wessely is now of a personal nature, this site until today was never mentioned, and even then it was by him. I don't accuse anyone of being the spokesperson for WPI just because they big them up and I was totaly impartial in my summary. That I didn't mention the source until asked was because I'm constantly being accused of deliberately winding people up, you can't have it all ways.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

Samples from Quarmby et al CBT study 2007

According to the PLoS paper:

The (ICL news release confirmed stored) samples came from two previous cohorts:


11. Roberts AD, Charler M, Papadopoulos AS, Wessely S, Chalder T, et al. (2009)

Does hypocortisolism predict a poor response to cognitive behavioural therapy in chronic fatigue syndrome? Psychological Medicine. In press.

(I haven't searched for this one, yet - it may not yet be publicly available.)

and

12. Quarmby L, Rimes KA, Deale A, Wessely S, Chalder T (2007) Cognitive behaviour therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome: comparison of outcomes within and outside the confines of a randomised controlled trial. Behaviour Research & Therapy 45: 1085–94.

A free PDF of this Quarmby paper is available at:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/01/47/68/Quarmby2007CBTwithinoutsidetrialCFS.pdf

Extract:

Participants

RCT: Patients in this trial were recruited from consecutive GP and consultant referrals. The diagnosis of CFS was made by an experienced consultant psychiatrist (SW) according to Oxford (Sharpe et al., 1991) and US Centre for Disease Control (Fukuda et al., 1994) case definitions. Patients were excluded if they took antidepressant or anxiolytic medication of greater than 10 mg/day/diazepam or equivalent, or if their dose changed during the trial or within the 3 months prior. Patients with somatisation disorder, severe depression, ongoing physical investigations, concurrent treatment and/or an inability to attend all therapy sessions were also excluded (Deale et al., 1997).

Routine clinical practice: As with the RCT, patients in routine clinical practice were taken from consecutive GP and consultant referrals to the CFS specialist unit. All patients were assessed by either the aforementioned consultant psychiatrist or one of a number of other specialists in CFS. Treatment was offered to those who fulfilled the Centre for Disease Control Criteria for CFS (Fukuda et al., 1994).

Unlike the RCT patients, those in routine clinical practice were not excluded for reasons related to medication and the importance of their making an initial commitment to attend all therapy sessions was not emphasised. All patients were screened by their GP to exclude alternative medical causes and, as with the RCT, patients with somatisation disorder, severe depression, ongoing physical investigations and concurrent treatment were referred elsewhere.

Edit: The 2009 paper is here: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5946432

but it's not a free one, as far as I can see.

 

[Holmsey]

Holmsey says he has been in touch with Wessely. Holmsey, would you be willing to pass a question from us along to Dr. Wessely? *But please don't do so until we have finalized our wording!* :Retro smile:

Fresh_eyes, if it's sincere and there's no problem with saying where it came from then I'm happy to ask him if he'd be prepared to accept the quesiton, but his e-mail address was posted on this site, that's how I came to be in touch with him, so far I've found him entirely accomodating so I have no reason to beleive he wouldn't accept the question from anyone prepared to act as spokesman, so I have to ask why me?

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

Levi.

How far back would PLoS ONE view a potential COI? I have not studied PLoS's terms but are they talking current COIs or past?

 

[fresh_eyes]

Hi Holmsey, thanks for responding. I didn't know his email was public knowledge. What is it?

I'm surprised that he's so accommodating as far as taking questions from the public. And, yeah, we might want to give more thought to who should act as spokesman - though you do have a natural advantage, since you already "know" him.

 

[Eric Johnson from I&I]

Bonjour, Dr Wessely!

I'm not certain your paper was published in mala fide. Its just a possibility, not really above 50% likelihood. I hope you feel the same way about my illness not being too terribly much above 50% likely to be psychogenic.

Let me extend to you what we men all necessarily desire, after an evolutionary history so fraught with conflict: the cordial and hearty resistance of a diametric foe not lacking in esprit! My poposition to you today: pathopsychology is barely anywhere near science. There are almost no formally verifiable or falsifiable pathopsychological statements. Pathopsychological theories have continually been informally supplanted by superior physiological theories. Cheers, see ya nect time!

 

[Orla]

Hi Spit,

Yes the media can definitely put a spin on things. That was my first reaction to some of the comments, except the same exact quotes kept showing up in different news outlets (though sometimes a few can be copying from the same journalistic source).

I felt from the fact that they usually used the exact same quotes, and very similar layout of articles, that they were probably getting a lot of it from press releases, as so much of the media reports are based on these days. I have written quite a few press releases myself so recognise the patterns after a while.

Also the speed with which things were getting published in the lay press, even before the study was published, implied there was a press release to alert the news outlets.

And here is a press release from the Imperial College itself, which looks like what a lot of the papers have been quoting:.

Professor Myra McClure, one of the authors of the study from the Division of Medicine at Imperial College London, said: "Our research was carried out under rigorous conditions - we looked at samples from well-studied patients, and we used very sensitive testing methods to look for the virus. If it had been there, we would have found it. The lab in which we carried out the analysis had never housed any of the murine leukaemia viruses related to XMRV, and we took great care to ensure there was no contamination.

"We are confident that our results show there is no link between XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, at least in the UK. The US study had some dramatic results that implied people with the illness could be treated with anti-retrovirals. Our recommendation to people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome would be not to change their treatment regime, because our results suggest that anti-retrovirals would not be an effective treatment for the condition," added Professor McClure.


http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsande...wssummary/news_6-1-2010-15-34-39?newsid=80061

Note the hint, hint McClure seems to be making about contamination in the US labs (contrary to what she said to Cort).

And this comment implies the orignal Science article, or the WPI, were advocating anti-retrovirals, which they weren't. I don't remember if anti-retrovirals were mentioned in the Science article, but other comments from the original researchers were about hopes for FUTURE treatment. Of course technically McClure and co. don't accuse the WPI etc. of advocating anti-retrovirals for patients at this point, but it is written in such a way that it gives this impression that that was being done, and this comment was likely to be picked up this way by the media.

One thing that would be sort of funny if it turned out that Wessely and Cleare manipulated the press statments so that they would be making more moderate comments themselves, and got McClure to make all the more definitive overstated comments, so that the egg will be on her face and not theirs if the research goes in the other direction? Mind you, maybe she didn't need to be manipulated and was this way inclined herself anyway.

Orla

 

[Holmsey]

Holmsey, in a former thread you mentioned that you had been in contact with Professor Wessely regarding questions on this forum about his relationship to UNUM, a large disability insurance carrier. You said he stated in an email to you that he was a former unpaid advisory board member of the company. Unfortunately, because UNUM stands to benefit from this study, it was absolutely necessary for him to declare this relationship as a competing interest in the recent PLoSone article. He failed to do so.

Due to a complaint, the editoral board of PLoSone is currently investigating, and if the facts are established,this matter may be deemed to be a violation which could possibly result in the complete retraction of the article; "If a competing interest comes to light after publication the PLoS journal will issue a formal correction or retraction of the whole paper, as appropriate."

My question for you is; would you be willing to provide the personal email correspondance in your possession with Wessely that establishes his connection to UNUM to the editorial board of PLoSone if requested to do so?

Now that's an interesting question, I don't recognise the UNUM reference but I do recal the posting you mention.

I'm not sure why they'd need my e-mail to establish such facts, and clearly an e-mail can be forged. But in principle, if the mail were received during the period within which Simon told me I could publish any of his comments, which has now because I introduced my own circumstances, been retracted, then in principle and following my own ethics I'd feel I was in a very difficult place, but honesty would ultimately come first.