This is the perfect chance for the UK organizations to expose the unscience behind the science. They have ammo now. But do they have guns and do they know how to load them? (As opposed to the response of our advocacy group to XMRV and Reeves' comments in the Times, which was to lock the ammo in a box and hide it in the back of the closet lest someone get hurt....)
Hah!
With fence-sitting-blow-with-the-wind Dr Charles Shepherd (ME Association), and PACE Trial supporters Action for M.E.?
I don't think so - not even a pea shooter.
Although a number of UK XMRV related studies have already been identified since the publication of the WPI study in
Science, in October, this study co-authored by Simon Wessely has
not been publicly reported on.
A lid has been kept very tightly on this.
We knew that Jonathan Kerr, St. George's University, London, is involved in several XMRV studies with Dr Judy Mikovits, and with others, including UK Dr Amalok Bansal and New York, Dr Derek Enlander. I can confirm from an FOI that the Prof Greg Towers PhD project (University College London) is MRC funded but criteria and some additional information as yet unconfirmed, as UCL say they don't hold this information.
According to an unofficial summary published by Dr Charles Shepherd on behalf of the ME Association following the APPG on ME meeting on 2 December:
"XMRV was discussed in some detail at the Medical Research Council Expert Group Workshop on November 19/20 where there were four UK researchers present who are actively involved in XMRV research:
• Dr Jonathan Stoye - National Institute for Medical Research
• Dr Kate Bishop - NIMR
• Dr Jonathan Kerr - St George's Hospital
• Dr Suzanne Hagan - Glasgow Caledonian University
There are several other UK virologists involved with XMRV research as well - including Prof Greg Towers at University College London, whom CS recently met for an afternoon discussion.
(Ed: No mention of Prof McClure/Wessely.)
So replication studies and other XMRV research is taking place, or is about to take place, here in the UK.
MERUK plus IRISH ME TRUST has just funded an XMRV replication study in Sweden.
The MEA Ramsay Research Fund has money available for UK studies - but money does not appear to be an immediate problem in the UK.
It looks as though there may even be some early results from replication studies before the end of the year."
It had been thought that these "early results" may have been a reference to the National Institute for Medical Research, based on a remark by Dr Des Turner, Chair APPG on ME.
Has Dr Shepherd been aware of this Wessely/McClure study? Professor Chris Mathias, of Imperial College London (where the study was carried out), was listed as a participant in the MRC's December CFS/ME Research Workshop.
Psychiatrist, Professor Simon Wessely, King's College London, has been claiming since 2001 to have quit the field of CFS research.
On 20 September 2001, the Guardian had published an article by Health Editor, Sarah Boseley:
In this exceedingly emotive piece of journalism, Ms Boseley had reported:
“Prof Wessely has quit the field – and is not the only professional to have ceased involvement with CFS.”
Storm brews over ‘all in mind’ theory of ME, Guardian, 20 September 2001
Just a week later in the Guardian, Ms Boseley wrote:
“Simon Wessely, of the Department of Psychological Medicine at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s School of Medicine in London, is a former key figure in the study of ME/CFS who has felt the heat and largely backed out of the kitchen.”
A very modern epidemic, Guardian, 27 September 2001
More recently, in November 2006, the Group on Scientific Research into ME (GSRME) reported:
“[...] Wessely gave up the [CFS] research side of his work…”
Report of the GSRME: Page 19, Section 3.2 Other Evidence We Received: Prof Simon Wessely
In November 2009, Professor Wessely wrote to an enquirer:
"...I also do very little these days around CFS – I still see patients every week, and I keep reasonably abreast of the literature, but it hasn’t been my main interest now for many years."
Wessely also wrote to a second enquirer, in November, (that response has since been pulled from Co-Cure and from my site, at Wessely's request) but failed to mention to either enquirer that he was, himself, collaborating in an XMRV study.
Since 2002, Wessely has published around 30 papers and articles on CFS and is also an adviser on the design and execution of the MRC funded PACE Trial.
Not a bad output from someone who has allegedly
"quit the fiield" ,
"[given] up the [CFS] side of his work" and who does
"very little these days"...
Suzy