Justin wrote:
Anyway, we would not be sued as this takes resources and he would never recover anything (ME patients don't have deep pockets).
Could we acknowledge please that not all ME advocates are patients. Advocates may be parents of children and young people with ME, or relatives or partners of ME patients. I am not a patient.
Responding generally, and not with reference to any specific issue arising out of this thread, it should be noted that Margaret Williams has reported that in 1989, the publishers of Dr Anne Macintyre's book
"ME‐PVFS: how to live with it" were compelled to remove a section of the book in response to a threat of injunction.
The Director of the organisation formerly operating as Westcare UK (subsumed by Action for M.E. in 2002) was also reported by Marshall and Williams as having had a similar experience with material intended for publication in a report. [1]
Within the last few months, Professor Wessely has requested removal of material from Co-Cure mailing list. This necessitated its removal from all other sites where this material had been republished, including Cort's forums and also from my own site.
(This issue resulted out of a misunderstanding over the obtaining of permission to publish a private communication from Prof Wessely and did not revolve around content written about him but it does illustrate that Professor Wessely monitors Co-Cure mailing list and other sites and will contact those who circulate or faciliate the circulation of material.)
Prof Wessely also collects examples of internet material for use in his slide presentations at the lectures, meetings and conference presentations he gives to members of the medical profession, professional bodies and academics.
A PowerPoint presentation from 2008 includes a couple of screen shots of Yahoo! Group Home Pages. In a screen shot dating from 2003, the former List owner, displaying a serious lack of judgement, had published a photograph of Prof Wessely and invited members of his Yahoo! Group to participate in a poll. The photograph, text and poll were taken down following complaints:
http://health.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/MEND-UK/
Wessely PowerPoint
See
Slide #75:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/pdf/rcts/Wessely.pdf
What one is prepared to publish in relation to any issue or individual will depend on personal circumstances, location, the availability and strength of supportive documentary evidence and one's own code of conduct when publishing on the internet or by other means and whether one is working under the cloak of anonymity.
Again, speaking generally and without reference to any specific issue arising out of this thread what I have
not done is caution
against speaking out against evidence of injustice, dishonesty, malpractice, negligence, duty of care etc from whatever quarter we perceive this to be originating, only that due care is taken, and that care is also taken not to leave ourselves wide open to criticism from the medical profession, government agencies and the media that we cannot get our facts right, and I do not think that is an unreasonable expectation and one which you appear to share.
[1] To set the record straight about Ean Proctor from the Isle of Man By Eileen Marshall and Margaret Williams, 20th July 2005 and other Hooper/Williams documents.
