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U.K. Professor Malcom Hooper writes to Michael Rawlins Chairman of NICE

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Permission to Repost

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Hooper-signed-letter-to-Rawlins.htm

Following the recent press release concerning Professor Hooper's report and
official letter of complaint about the MRC, I draw your attention to the
attached letter from Professor Hooper to Professor Sir Michael Rawlins,
Chairman of NICE, which raises serious doubts about the validity of the
psychogenic model of 'CFS/ME' and the conduct of the MRC trial that will
further underpin it.

Clearly there are attendant ethical and legal implications for NICE and for
all practising NHS clinicians".

Many thanks.

________________________________________

From Malcolm Hooper Ph.D.,B.Pharm.,C.Chem.,MRIC
Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry School of Sciences
Fleming Building
Wharncliffe Street
University of Sunderland
SUNDERLAND SR2 3SD


Chief Scientific Adviser to the Gulf Veterans' Association
President: the National Gulf War Veterans and Families Association, NGVFA,
(2002)

19 February 2010

Dear Sir Michael,

I am a ‘blast from your past’. I was at Sunderland School of Pharmacy and
you were at Newcastle in Clinical Pharmacology when the M.Pharm course in
Pharmacokinetics was developed. Congratulations on your eminent status and
knighthood.

Since 1997, when I retired as Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, I have been
involved with the emerging and widespread complex chronic multi-system
illnesses (Gulf War Syndrome/Illness, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome, ME/CFS, multiple chemical sensitivity, MCS, Aerotoxic
Syndrome, organophosphate and other pesticide poisonings) that are of
growing concern and are medically challenging -- writing and lecturing,
locally, nationally and internationally.

This letter is linked to my concerns about ME which involves some 240,000
people in the UK with varying degrees of disability. Some 25% are housebound
or bed bound and have formed their own group, www.25megroup.org/ .

The 442 page report “Magical Medicine, how to make a disease disappear”,
copy attached with the press release, together with a copy of my letter to
the Minister, Lord Drayson, currently the Minister responsible for the MRC,
brings together an extensive and fully referenced review of the literature
on ME.

It provides the evidence supporting my complaint about the MRC PACE Trial to
Lord Drayson.

The entire report, the press release and the letter of complaint have now
been circulated worldwide on the internet and have received much acclaim and
support from the major ME organisations in various countries and numerous
individuals, as well as academic institutions. The report is to be discussed
by the International Association of CFS/ME at its next board meeting in
early March, as confirmed by the President, Professor Fred Friedberg from
the US.

Despite the vast amount of biomedical literature (some 5000 papers) going
back to 1934 and the classification of ME as a neurological illness by the
WHO (ICD-10 G93.3) since 1969, the official UK attitudes as demonstrated by
the MRC, DWP, Department of Health, and to some extent your own organisation
NICE:

a. ignore all this evidence
b. show an ideological commitment to a psychosomatic/behavioural model of
the illness which is no longer tenable

c. recommend only cognitive restructuring techniques (CBT and GET) that are
“not remotely curative” and have been shown to be of no lasting value and in
the case of GET to be positively harmful (Peter White’s assertion that this
is because the interventions have been incorrectly administered has been
shown to lack credibility)

d. proscribe any investigative tests to identify the disorder, leading to
missed diagnoses and misdiagnosis

e. support cruel, even vicious, actions that lead to patients being wrongly
sectioned and parents, particularly mothers, accused of
Munchausens’-Syndrome-by-Proxy, MSBP.

f. the result is that essential benefits and insurance payments to support
patients and their families have not been paid or have been granted only
after protracted and expensive legal action. All this adds to the burden of
the illness for patients and for those who care for them.

The psychiatrists’ argument that what they refer to as “CFS/ME” is
substantially different from past epidemics of ME does not withstand
scrutiny in the light of current knowledge. It is beyond question that ME is
associated with a severely disrupted immune system which renders patients
more susceptible to both further viral and chemical challenge and
reactivation of latent viruses and persistent viral-specific symptoms.

For the psychiatrists to amalgamate 25 different disorders (Holgate, RSM
July 2009) and to focus on “medically unexplained fatigue” whilst ignoring
cardinal symptoms of ME is a travesty of medical science.
Of special concern and relevance are the legal and ethical requirements
facing doctors today, in particular, the legal requirement for doctors to
keep up to date with developments in medicine and medical science (as
clearly set out in “Good Medical Practice: Duties of a doctor. The duties of
a doctor registered with the General Medical Council: 'Keep your
professional knowledge and skills up to date' and 'Never abuse your
patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession'
(http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_medical_practice/duties_of_a_doctor.asp
).

Ignoring vast swathes of evidence is not keeping up to date. For any
registered medical practitioner – consultant or GP -- to dismiss or ignore
this widely available evidence which invalidates the behavioural model of
“CFS/ME”, together with the prescription of inappropriate interventions, is
in clear breach of the GMC regulations and consequently raises issues of
medical indemnity.

As noted in the report: “since the general body of knowledge known about by
other clinicians and researchers working in the field of ME/CFS is now so
great, the question repeatedly asked is: at what point will that body of
scientific knowledge be so great that it will be considered serious
professional misconduct to ignore it and to continue to deceive patients by
pretending that it does not exist?”.

The recommendation not to carry out appropriate investigative tests is
inconsistent with the Hippocratic Oath in its ancient or modern form.

The offering of treatment that is known even by its proponents to be
ineffective is a betrayal of doctors’ responsibility to their patients.
Merely to pronounce that the onus is on the individual doctor, when
adherence to NICE Guidelines is to become compulsory, is unacceptable.

Inappropriate sectioning of patients and false diagnoses such as MSBP
represents a further betrayal.

To rely on only a few studies, showing very modest efficacy, all of which
having been shown to have very serious flaws (as is the case with the PACE
Trial) and enshrine this inadequate information in official directions,
publications and statements from authorised bodies, including NICE, is
utterly unacceptable and dishonours the name of medicine as well as being
destructive of lives of sick people and those who care for them.

I draw to your attention the commissioned editorial in last week’s BMJ by
Alistair Santhouse, who you will be aware was a member of the CG53 GDG.
Please read the attached eBMJ response submitted by Horace Reid, a former
long-serving NHS clinician. It was rejected for publication, a fact that is
revealing in itself, given that it is impeccably accurate.

I would ask you in your role as Chairman of NICE to engage fully with our
report and act accordingly to right the long standing wrongs that people
with ME have suffered for the last 20 years.

With best wishes,

Malcolm Hooper.


This is a strong letter full of evidence.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
Kati - thanks for posting this. It is brilliant! Well done Professor Hooper and thank you. He is our U.K. champion and thank goodness he is prepared to tell the truth. I do hope that he will make public the response.

Thanks for such an encouraging post.

best wishes,

C.G.
 

froufox

Senior Member
Messages
440
Thanks for posting this Kati...what a fantastic letter!! As you say it is very well & strongly argued and I think its really important that he highlights the issues of "professional misconduct" and "medical indemnity"....too right!!! It is very encouraging to know that he is really on the case and fighting for us. What a hero.

It will be interesting to see what Rawlins has to say in response, if it is made public.

Well done Malcolm!!! :victory:
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
Kati thanks for posting this letter it has made my day - what a great guy to have on our side. Hope some good comes from it, I'm sure it will given his status.
 

garcia

Aristocrat Extraordinaire
Messages
976
Location
UK
It is a brilliant letter!

If only Malcolm Hooper was leading us full time. I would be somewhat less embarrassed to be British.
 

JAS

Messages
70
Location
UK
Fantastic letter!!! Does anyone else feel that the momentum is starting to roll with CFS/ME..from many different areas? :Retro smile:
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
I have met Malcolm Hooper and he is a really lovely unassuming modest kind man.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
Whoo hoo! I love it! "I am a blast from your past!" hee hee hee :D

Go Hooper!!!!!!!!! :victory::victory::victory:

Isn't Hooper brilliant!:D:D:D:victory::victory:

I've just sent a copy to my GP :Retro smile: :worried: :victory: along with a copy of the Light research from the Journal of Pain. I so hope he reads it.

I've set my DVD recorder ready to record the discussion on ME in the House of Commons tonight. Should be interesting! :Retro wink:
 

Daisymay

Senior Member
Messages
754
Proffesor hooper's brilliant letter to nice and their shocking reply

Professor Malcolm Hooper has just received a reply to the letter he recently sent to Sir Michael Rawlins, the head of NICE.

Bit of background info - NICE, National Insitute of Clinical Excellence, is the organisation over here in the UK which decides, supposedly based on the scientific evidence, which treatments/drugs are to be allowed on the National Health Service for each disease.

Of course in the case of ME/CFS science does not come into it - they ignore ALL the biomedical evidence and base the treatments allowed, CBT/GET, solely on Wessely and colleagues papers. When researchers, patients and charities contacted them to complain they merely said it wasn't in their remit to look at the biomedical evidence, they were only looking at treatments and as the only treatment papers are on CBT/GET and all these papers, written by psychiatrists, also ignore all the biomedical evidence that was it, they managed to completely airbrush all the biomedical evidence out of existence.

Now 2 years later these guidleines will be coming up for review in August and NICE will be using the results of the PACE trail to show how wonderful CBT/GET are at curing/treating ME/CFS and to set these treatments in stone for the next n years. The PACE trail is run by Professors White, Sharpe and Chalder with Wesely head of the MRC PACE Clinical Trial Unit, all the usual suspects.

Professor Hooper has spent the last nine months writing his truly shocking, scholarly report, Magical Medicine, which completely blows apart the PACE Trial, in a forensic,scientific manner.

So professor Hooper sent this 442 page report along with a formal letter of complaint to the head of the Medical Research Council, who funded most of the PACE trial. 3 weeks on and he is still to recieve any response or acknowledgement from the MRC.

He also sent out the following letter to Sir Miichael Rawlins, the head of NICE. It is an absolutely brilliant letter:

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Hooper-signed-letter-to-Rawlins.htm


19 February 2010


Dear Sir Michael,


I am a blast from your past. I was at Sunderland School of Pharmacy and you were at Newcastle in Clinical Pharmacology when the M.Pharm course in Pharmacokinetics was developed. Congratulations on your eminent status and knighthood.

Since 1997, when I retired as Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, I have been involved with the emerging and widespread complex chronic multi-system illnesses (Gulf War Syndrome/Illness, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, ME/CFS, multiple chemical sensitivity, MCS, Aerotoxic Syndrome, organophosphate and other pesticide poisonings) that are of growing concern and are medically challenging -- writing and lecturing, locally, nationally and internationally.

This letter is linked to my concerns about ME which involves some 240,000 people in the UK with varying degrees of disability. Some 25% are housebound or bed bound and have formed their own group, www.25megroup.org/ .

The 442 page report Magical Medicine, how to make a disease disappear, copy attached with the press release, together with a copy of my letter to the Minister, Lord Drayson, currently the Minister responsible for the MRC, brings together an extensive and fully referenced review of the literature on ME.

It provides the evidence supporting my complaint about the MRC PACE Trial to Lord Drayson.

The entire report, the press release and the letter of complaint have now been circulated worldwide on the internet and have received much acclaim and support from the major ME organisations in various countries and numerous individuals, as well as academic institutions. The report is to be discussed by the International Association of CFS/ME at its next board meeting in early March, as confirmed by the President, Professor Fred Friedberg from the US.

Despite the vast amount of biomedical literature (some 5000 papers) going back to 1934 and the classification of ME as a neurological illness by the WHO (ICD-10 G93.3) since 1969, the official UK attitudes as demonstrated by the MRC, DWP, Department of Health, and to some extent your own organisation NICE:

a. ignore all this evidence

b. show an ideological commitment to a psychosomatic/behavioural model of the illness which is no longer tenable

c. recommend only cognitive restructuring techniques (CBT and GET) that are not remotely curative and have been shown to be of no lasting value and in the case of GET to be positively harmful (Peter Whites assertion that this is because the interventions have been incorrectly administered has been shown to lack credibility)

d. proscribe any investigative tests to identify the disorder, leading to missed diagnoses and misdiagnosis

e. support cruel, even vicious, actions that lead to patients being wrongly sectioned and parents, particularly mothers, accused of Munchausens-Syndrome-by-Proxy, MSBP.

f. the result is that essential benefits and insurance payments to support patients and their families have not been paid or have been granted only after protracted and expensive legal action. All this adds to the burden of the illness for patients and for those who care for them.

The psychiatrists argument that what they refer to as CFS/ME is substantially different from past epidemics of ME does not withstand scrutiny in the light of current knowledge. It is beyond question that ME is associated with a severely disrupted immune system which renders patients more susceptible to both further viral and chemical challenge and reactivation of latent viruses and persistent viral-specific symptoms.

For the psychiatrists to amalgamate 25 different disorders (Holgate, RSM July 2009) and to focus on medically unexplained fatigue whilst ignoring cardinal symptoms of ME is a travesty of medical science.

Of special concern and relevance are the legal and ethical requirements facing doctors today, in particular, the legal requirement for doctors to keep up to date with developments in medicine and medical science (as clearly set out in Good Medical Practice: Duties of a doctor. The duties of a doctor registered with the General Medical Council: 'Keep your professional knowledge and skills up to date' and 'Never abuse your patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession' (http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_medical_practice/duties_of_a_doctor.asp).

Ignoring vast swathes of evidence is not keeping up to date. For any registered medical practitioner consultant or GP -- to dismiss or ignore this widely available evidence which invalidates the behavioural model of CFS/ME, together with the prescription of inappropriate interventions, is in clear breach of the GMC regulations and consequently raises issues of medical indemnity.

As noted in the report: since the general body of knowledge known about by other clinicians and researchers working in the field of ME/CFS is now so great, the question repeatedly asked is: at what point will that body of scientific knowledge be so great that it will be considered serious professional misconduct to ignore it and to continue to deceive patients by pretending that it does not exist?.

The recommendation not to carry out appropriate investigative tests is inconsistent with the Hippocratic Oath in its ancient or modern form.

The offering of treatment that is known even by its proponents to be ineffective is a betrayal of doctors responsibility to their patients. Merely to pronounce that the onus is on the individual doctor, when adherence to NICE Guidelines is to become compulsory, is unacceptable.

Inappropriate sectioning of patients and false diagnoses such as MSBP represents a further betrayal.

To rely on only a few studies, showing very modest efficacy, all of which having been shown to have very serious flaws (as is the case with the PACE Trial) and enshrine this inadequate information in official directions, publications and statements from authorised bodies, including NICE, is utterly unacceptable and dishonours the name of medicine as well as being destructive of lives of sick people and those who care for them.

I draw to your attention the commissioned editorial in last weeks BMJ by Alistair Santhouse, who you will be aware was a member of the CG53 GDG. Please read the attached eBMJ response submitted by Horace Reid, a former long-serving NHS clinician. It was rejected for publication, a fact that is revealing in itself, given that it is impeccably accurate.

I would ask you in your role as Chairman of NICE to engage fully with our report and act accordingly to right the long standing wrongs that people with ME have suffered for the last 20 years.

With best wishes

Malcolm Hooper

..........................................................
And here is the shocking reply he received back from Sir Rawlins yesrerday:

From: Professor Sir Michael Rawlins FMedSci

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence


To: Professor Malcolm Hooper

2 March 2010


Dear Malcolm,

Thank you for your letter and for enclosing "Magical Medicine: How to Make
Disease Disappear".

You are obviously aware that NICE has, in the recent past, been involved in
defending an action for Judicial Review over the ME/CFS guideline we
published a couple of years ago. Although judge found in favour of the
Institute the legal costs were considerable. I am afraid, therefore, that I
am not prepared to enter into any correspondence on this matter.

I am returning your document.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins FMedSci

Chariman
................................
Sir Michael claims it is because of the cost that he fails to read the report and address any of the isues raised by Professor Hooper.

But it isn't down to money, they are just using that as a feeble excuse, they daren't say they have read, or will read the report because it completely blows apart the PACE trial and the whole of the Wesselyites view of ME being a behavioural disorder with no organic basis, that you treat with CBT/GET.

Just section 2 of the report alone, which gives all the biomedical scientific evidence, blows the whole NICE guidelines and the Wesselyite view apart. If they say they have or will read the report then it is very difficult for them to deny this so they say they just won't read it, simple, just as they did with the NICE guidelines when they said it wasn't in their remit to look at the biomedical evidence, deny it exists, ignore it and they get away with it. So much for science, integrity and care and compasson for patients.

I'd just like to thank Professor Hooper so very much for all his amazing work for us all, he is retired, he need not do any of this, he is truly a man of great compasson and integrity not to mention intellect. He also figths for GW vets and autistic children and many others.
 

V99

Senior Member
Messages
1,471
Location
UK
Does anyone know what the complaints process is for this kind of thing? I suspect you cannot refuse to say anything, am I wrong?
 

justinreilly

Senior Member
Messages
2,498
Location
NYC (& RI)
Professor Malcolm Hooper has just received a reply to the letter he recently sent to Sir Michael Rawlins, the head of NICE.

..........................................................
And here is the shocking reply he received back from Sir Rawlins yesrerday:

From: Professor Sir Michael Rawlins FMedSci

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence


To: Professor Malcolm Hooper

2 March 2010


Dear Malcolm,

Thank you for your letter and for enclosing "Magical Medicine: How to Make
Disease Disappear".

You are obviously aware that NICE has, in the recent past, been involved in
defending an action for Judicial Review over the ME/CFS guideline we
published a couple of years ago. Although judge found in favour of the
Institute the legal costs were considerable. I am afraid, therefore, that I
am not prepared to enter into any correspondence on this matter.

I am returning your document.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins FMedSci

Chariman
................................
Sir Michael claims it is because of the cost that he fails to read the report and address any of the isues raised by Professor Hooper.

But it isn't down to money, they are just using that as a feeble excuse, they daren't say they have read, or will read the report because it completely blows apart the PACE trial and the whole of the Wesselyites view of ME being a behavioural disorder with no organic basis, that you treat with CBT/GET.

Just section 2 of the report alone, which gives all the biomedical scientific evidence, blows the whole NICE guidelines and the Wesselyite view apart. If they say they have or will read the report then it is very difficult for them to deny this so they say they just won't read it, simple, just as they did with the NICE guidelines when they said it wasn't in their remit to look at the biomedical evidence, deny it exists, ignore it and they get away with it. So much for science, integrity and care and compasson for patients.

I'd just like to thank Professor Hooper so very much for all his amazing work for us all, he is retired, he need not do any of this, he is truly a man of great compasson and integrity not to mention intellect. He also figths for GW vets and autistic children and many others.

"I am returning your document."
I'm speechless.
How does this retard hold a job?

Ok, I guess not totally speechless.
 

Daisymay

Senior Member
Messages
754
Does anyone know what the complaints process is for this kind of thing? I suspect you cannot refuse to say anything, am I wrong?


Hi V99,

Prof Hooper's letter to the head of the MRC, Lord Drayson was an official complaint which I believe they have to reply to in some shape or form, but who knows, they may well ignore it....

Prof Hooper's letter to Rawlins was not an official complaint.
 

Daisymay

Senior Member
Messages
754
Prof hooper's reply to prof rawlins' rebuttal

PERMISSION TO REPOST:

This is Professor Malcolm Hooper's reply to Professor Sir Michael Rawlins' unscientific refusal to address the biomedical evidence that exists about ME/CFS:


From Malcolm Hooper Ph.D.,B.Pharm.,C.Chem.,MRIC
Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry
School of Sciences
Fleming Building
Wharncliffe Street
University of Sunderland
SUNDERLAND SR2 3SD

Phone 0191 515 2000
FAX 0191 515 2502

Public Relations Office 0191 515 2691

Chief Scientific Adviser to the Gulf Veterans' Association
President: the National Gulf War Veterans and Families Association, NGVFA, (2002)

web site http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/autism


05 March 2010


Dear Sir Michael,


Thank you for your letter and the returned copy of Magical Medicine which I found very disappointing and disconcerting.

To be faced, yet again, with the denial and dismissal of the comprehensive amount of biomedical evidence about ME that has been presented in some 5000 published and peer-reviewed papers is disturbing and has sinister connotations devoid of any compassion.

Failure to consider this evidence means that any policy towards people with ME will be built upon sand in defiance of the basic principles of scientific inquiry and any consideration for very sick people, their families and carers

As a fellow medical scientist I find the continuing denial and unwillingness to face the biomedical evidence both puzzling and incomprehensible.

We know Government is committed to funding research that is perceived to support policy, an attitude that has, in this case, lead to lack of scientific rigour, integrity and humanity in order to avoid developing a policy based on the biomedical evidence available in this complex and difficult area of medicine.


With best wishes


Malcolm Hooper