Cochrane ME/CFS GET review temporarily withdrawn

Welcome to the BPS misery go round.

Anyone else suspect that when Clare says "Dr's" she actually means her husband? Does she really believe in Simon's infallibility, or is she merely unconsciously colluding with him lest his fragile defences are shattered by complaints, intense fatigue (you have to be absolutely shitting me), shame. After all, without his defences (invincibility, detachment, denial of vulnerability) they would get anxiety & fear & hopelessness. The wife then suffers.

I thought it was only the pope who claimed infallibility:

He's a chancer that Sir Simon.

 

Clare Gerada and Sir Simon Wessely


“Folie à Deux”

 

Here is the thing, if you analyze this whole thing, it all goes around the same one person if not 3 tops, so we need to point that out, and zero out on the real culprits of this debacle, the rest are just puppets, we need the puppeteer down.

 

So there's a lot of strongly negative reaction to the framing of the Reuters article. They sure did a good job of preempting and the irony is certainly not lost on them that as they have been bullying us for years, they managed to get other people to bully us by claiming we are bullying them. All without evidence. Which somehow should backfire if this were a normal situation.

Until there is a further statement from Cochrane this should continue. How do we address this? The article definitely falls short of Reuters' policies and fails at journalism 101, in addition to being inflammatory. And it's working amazingly well. We're fascist trolls, y'all! And we're also "nonsense", somehow.

I think we need at least to have Cochrane make some sort of statement to deny (further, since it's the initial article anyway) those claims of bullying because they are absolutely being taken at face value. Nothing more, but clearly "this is not about patient pressure" is... somehow... ambiguous or falls short of overruling confirmation bias anyway. It's getting a little bit out of hand, to be honest.

I think we'll need the journalist to address at least the lack of evidence and that these are mere allegations. No matter what her role in this she is responsible for publishing inflammatory accusations without evidence. It was a careless piece of reporting.

I don't think we can expect much from Reuters, it's just too big to get anything done for now. But this is baseless slander of an already stigmatized population. Surely there are some grounds to at least have some of the parties involved state the facts and that patient involvement in scientific publishing is not terrorism.

 

November 2017 we were told by the Dean of medical school that GMC wanted doctors to be trained to be less DOGMATIC and more curious.

 

I get that it's a stressful job to see sick people all day but seeking comfort in an illusion isn't the answer.

One of the functions of psychosomatic diagnoses is creating the illusion that a problem is understood and managable when in reality it is neither.

Unfortunately this illusion prevents scientific progress, thereby ensuring that patients with such problems will continue to be frustrating.

 

Sally, I would be interested to read the whole of Keith Geraghty's reply, is it possible at all? Only if you are up to it, of course.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1053554807217315840

 

I'm wondering if this tweet is deliberately provactive.

 

Doesn't matter if it is, I'm proud of the reactions to all the ignorant tweets being put out there lately mainly by psychologists or people with a dog in this fight in another way. There's no namecalling, threats or whatever, comments are just being relayed with simple facts.

 

Ditto. I've been really heartened that tweets like this are being resonded to in a measured way pointing to evidence which undermines them. A lot of the responses throughout this have been really good.

edit - for clarification

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1053923123081498625

https://twitter.com/user/status/1053924211486609408

 

[All bolding mine]


I believe that clearly makes it one scientist involved, speaking for herself, not scientists.

 

Is there any form of press ethics committee or something it could be reported to? This normally works well in Norway, but then of course we are a tiny nation and the amount of complaints are probably more manageable.

The simple fact that they have not asked for a comment from the patient organizations they accuse should be enough to flag it. All parties should have the option of answering allegations.

 

He's been valiantly replying to a small group of SMC/Spiked alumni who are on the offensive!

 

It's weird how 'activist' and 'lobbyist' are being used as pejorative terms in this debate when there's nothing wrong with being either.

An activist is a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change.

A lobbyist is a person who takes part in an organized attempt to influence legislators.

Of course, what is wrong is being a lobbyist and pretending to be impartial - as with the Science Media Centre.

 

Could someone please let me in on what "Spiked" is all about? Have seen it popped up repeatedly in the Twitter debate about the Cochrane withdrawal.

 

Might be better that you don't have to have it in your mind. I've been wading through the sewage of researching it since yesterday and it doesn't feel nice. It appears to be the most recent incarnation of a libertarian Marxist? group who want the right to say whatever offensive things they like without consequence. I'm simplifying it somewhat. It appears they are OK even with extremes like paedophilia to allow free speech.

There's also a group called Institute (Academy) of Ideas who are deeply involved by what I can tell. Run by Claire Fox, sister of Fiona Fox of the SMC.

This is my take on it.