Esther12
Senior Member
- Messages
- 13,774
Would love to have record of that.
Wonder how she's 'educating' people.
UK Research Collaborative Conference in Newcastle: 13th - 14th October
- Thread starter charles shepherd
- Start date
Would love to have record of that.
Wonder how she's 'educating' people.
Research 1st
Severe ME, POTS & MCAS.
- Messages
- 768
Sasha, did you know Dr Holgate asked Mr Wessely who he thought should be part of the 'research' collaborative?
Source is FOIA Request. FOI request to the Medical Research Council (MRC). Some charity found out.
Anyway, due to this odd choice, I wouldn't hold out much hope there's going to be much talk on real biomedical ME neuroinflammatory research like in Japan and USA, moreover just the same old thing.
If I'm correct, Dr Holgate's background is a chest physican. Perhaps the MRC can fund a study, in which rates of Fibrosis (potentially fatal lung damage) can be looked at in terms of prevalence in long term severe ME patients, using the appropriate tests.
Hopefully that is the kind of study the MRC can fund oneday.
Source is FOIA Request. FOI request to the Medical Research Council (MRC). Some charity found out.
Anyway, due to this odd choice, I wouldn't hold out much hope there's going to be much talk on real biomedical ME neuroinflammatory research like in Japan and USA, moreover just the same old thing.
If I'm correct, Dr Holgate's background is a chest physican. Perhaps the MRC can fund a study, in which rates of Fibrosis (potentially fatal lung damage) can be looked at in terms of prevalence in long term severe ME patients, using the appropriate tests.
Hopefully that is the kind of study the MRC can fund oneday.
I'd be careful about reading too much into that. There are a number of possible reasons why Holgate might have done it. Not all of them good for the Wessely school. For example, it might have been a way for Holgate to find out who the main players in the psych school are, and hence be able to pick one or two of the less doctrinaire of them, so that the psychs can't complain about being left out, but their influence (at least from the more hardcore among them) is vastly reduced.
Awful lot of face-saving politics goes on at that level during power transitions. Sad, and sickening at times, but a fact of life that can't be avoided, it can only be managed, for better or worse.
@Research 1st, if you want to be sure of getting someone's attention it's best to put the '@' in front of their name or they might not see it - people don't always keep reading threads they've posted on (using the '@' is called 'tagging' and it makes a little red flag pop up next to your name so you can notice it
). Yes, I was aware of the Wessley/Holgate thing, which came up last year in the course of a long discussion about the CMRC before last year's conference (which was the first).
People were understandably discussing their concerns about the balance of power between the BPS proponents and the biomedical scientists on the panel. Like @Sean, I don't see anything sinister in this. Much as we might dislike the BPS approach and think poorly of the shoddy thinking of its proponents in relation to ME/CFS, it's not possible to set up a proper scientific organisation at a national level and rule a bunch of scientists out and still expect to be taken seriously: and contacting leading figures of any particular camp to get recommendations for who should be in would be a normal step.
As it turned out, the balance at last year's CMRC conference was overwhelmingly biomedical, according to @Jonathan Edwards, who attended (his interesting comments are here, on a thread that discussed the science at the conference).
Dr Holgate has worked hard to get the CMRC going in order to increase ME/CFS research funding from the MRC (something that he saw succeed spectacularly in his own field).
According to the MEA there'll be an "important announcement" of an MRC grant this evening.
Just a reminder that the livestreaming of Prof Holgate's talk will start at 10:30 am (in fifteen minutes!):
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/w9gF6Ps3Nkd
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/w9gF6Ps3Nkd
snowathlete
Senior Member
- Messages
- 5,374
- Location
- UK
I still feel uncomfortable with some of the names involved in the collaborative. I admire the pragmatism though and hope it proves worth it. The writing's on the wall for the BPS stuff so time should improve the likelihood of the collaborative growing and delivering benefits.
Same for everyone
Sonya Choudhury twitter has a few stills from the slides, quite useful
https://twitter.com/SonyaChowdhury/with_replies
- Messages
- 92
I don't think it was at all necessary for Ho,gate to consult Wessely over name or possible researchers to bring on board as he did. Wessely was supposed to have retired from the field as he always asserts and there was gross lack of transparency to a patient group being presented one thing whilst the main uk BPS, no such thing as ME, let's look at psychology not viruses proponent was being still involved behind the scenes.
With regards to the conference, as countess of mar said, the purpose of the U.K. CMRC was to increase research interest and pump up funding so it is results on those fronts (especially equal funding) , rather than the talking side of things that I'm most interested in,being a bedbound patients I just want research to get me better.
So far Jose Montoya is speaking brilliantly in full on serious "USA speak" - lots of words we don't hear so much in uk CFS/me discourse like me/CFS, disease, sick , infection, anti-virals whereas we usually hear CFS/me, condition, fatigue, muscles & exercise - so I am thrilled he was there.
With regards to the conference, as countess of mar said, the purpose of the U.K. CMRC was to increase research interest and pump up funding so it is results on those fronts (especially equal funding) , rather than the talking side of things that I'm most interested in,being a bedbound patients I just want research to get me better.
So far Jose Montoya is speaking brilliantly in full on serious "USA speak" - lots of words we don't hear so much in uk CFS/me discourse like me/CFS, disease, sick , infection, anti-virals whereas we usually hear CFS/me, condition, fatigue, muscles & exercise - so I am thrilled he was there.