Esther Crawley

I didn't know where to put this, but thought it of interest.
From a Bristol Uni magazine in 2013 an article by Esther Crawley.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/university/migrated/documents/nonesuch6.pdf
(pages 15/16 on pdf, 29/30 in mag)

Her mission:
"‘The aim of my fellowship is to improve the
diagnosis and management of children with
chronic fatigue syndrome,’ she says. ‘That’s
what I’m about. I always think that if I was
involved in a car crash, and my femoral artery
was gushing blood – sorry, that’s a doctor thing
– and I knew I only had five minutes left, I
would hope I’d say “At least I made a difference
to kids with chronic fatigue”.’
•
Dr Esther Crawley’s research is funded by NIHR,
the Linbury Trust and the Ashden Trust, Research for
Patient Benefit and Action for ME."

maybe, but sweet Fanny Adams for kids with ME

 

Gosh. She's just so impressively knowledgeable.

Is there anyone on this forum who a) doesn't know what and where their femur is, b) doesn't know what an artery is?

No? Thought not.

 

Ooh, I don't know, could be Crawley speak for 'womanly wiles'.

 

Esther Crawley - what drives her?

She saw the opportunity to make a career by filling the void where an effective treatment should be with a bogus therapy. Psychosomatic mumbo-jumbo was and still is in fashion in the UK, and clinical trials in the fields of psychotherapy and behavioural medicine are holding themselves to a standard that stopped being considered good science about 70 years ago, if not longer. The illness is also very much neglected. Merely acknowleding that such a problem exists is almost revolutionary. All these factors faciliated the rise of Crawley. I don't think she is in any way extraordinary, anyone could have succeeded. Due to the circumstances it was just really easy for these kinds of bogus therapies to arise. We are now witnessing growth and changes in the ME/CFS field and unfortunately for Crawley she will either have to adapt to this new reality or fall into irrelevance. She seems to believe that smearing Tuller and critical patients and conferences will save her. Of course it won't.

 

All I have to say is, "ARRRGGHHHHHHHH!"

Thank you for listening.

 

A few years ago, I would have put money on the former. Now, no chance.

 

It's not important, if there was not an Esther, there would be some other opportunist so called clinician called whatever; Mary, Vivian, Rosie, Listeria, Hysteria, etc. It's the system who employs inefficient but terribly ambitious and confident people. They will find someone that fits into their plans; population control, public money grabbing etc.

 

It's probably best to be cautious with speculations on this. We can't really know, and we've seen how other people's speculations about the motivation of PACE critics are often nothing more than a reflection of their own bigotry.

It's hard to prevent oneself from speculating on the drive/incentives/motivations of Wessely/White/Crawley, etc, but I always try to keep reminding myself how little I know and how often people surprise me. Also, it's worth trying to avoid things that Crawley could plausibly present as a smear on her character (although she has behaved so badly that it's now difficult to speak honestly abut her without it seeming like a personal attack!).

edit: Also, I think that it's easy to underestimate the role of thoughtless incompetence when authority figures harm others. If you're within a system of power that praises you it's easy to mindlessly dismiss critics from outside of that system. That failure to engage with critics is still immoral, but I think it's quite common in the UK.

 

PS: Looks like the ActiveME app mentioned in that article has been abandoned: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/activeme/id458308805?mt=8

 

I agree with you @Esther12.

I'd add that speculation of this kind doesn't get us anywhere. It can be tempting, but it's a waste of energy, in my opinion, and plays into their narrative of martyrdom.

 

My femur and I have a bone to pick with this woman.

 

I don't think speculating about people's motivations is appropriate. I agree people should be judged on their actions, not their thoughts, emotions, beliefs or motivations which we know nothing about.

 

Yes, I think that's very valid. I think it may even be a hangover from the class system, where the temerity to criticise your "betters" was considered an outrage. When I was younger, doctors were indeed considered a class apart from their patients, and any patient thinking to criticise would have been something of an upstart. I strongly suspect that mindset still prevails within the UK medical professionals culture even now; could it be that psychiatry holds onto it more tightly than some of the other medical disciplines?

When speaking to a medical consultant a few months back, he explained some things to me much more clearly than ever before, including how some previous consultants in earlier years had misunderstood the subtlety of a certain terminology, and how that had implications for how I should have been treated. He told me that a few years back the ambiguity of this terminology had been highlighted in the US, and that the NHS medical professionals were now better educated on the issue. Virtually certain that this consultant had not grown up through the UK system, and was much more ready to discuss such things with me. I then better understood why some of the other doctors who had spoken to me just a little while before, seemed to have skirted round the issue, and ummed and aahed somewhat.

 

I do agree, but it does also get tricky, because a persons motivations have a strong impact on what their actions and behaviours are deemed to be due to, which impacts what their wrong doing gets labelled as. If you were to take the analogy of a court case, then a person's motivations would effect what crime they maybe end up being sentenced for, and what sentence they maybe receive. But I imagine (I need your input here @Valentijn) their motivation would not actually influence the factual evidence of the case, and whether there was actually a case to answer to (but I'm guessing a bit here also).

So maybe the point here is that, although we inevitably feel only-too-qualified to make judgement of the "crimes" here, we are much better to focus on gathering/presenting the facts of the case. Maybe akin to being the investigators gathering and amassing all the necessary evidence, and presenting it to the prosecutor's office (or whatever the exact title is), in such a form they can and will see the need and viability of pursuing it.

 

perhaps her statement would better be expressed like this:

"I always think that if my femur were sticking out, and the nurse and doctor refused to look at it because of the actions of people like EC and their backers –-- sorry, being treated like that is an m.e. thing –-- and I knew I only had five minutes left, I would hope I’d say 'at least i fought hard for sanity, human rights, and a scientific worldview'".

[see http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...symptom-severity-in-me-cfs.48312/#post-794346]

 

So noble. Doublethinkers typically pull on the heartstrings since it works better then laughable lies.

Though i would enjoy analyzing how they think, the tide has already turned for practical purposes, the psychological theory is on life support and will soon become terminal, yet PACEers continue to believe their own fabricated lies. I would be interested in understanding why. They can't put the genie back in the bottle with Unrest, published papers and with their own uncovered malfeasance. We are marching towards a biomarker which they certainly can't put back in the bottle and they are only writing their own epitaphs by continuing to try to convince people of lies. They will be a laughing stock when a disease mechanism is elucidated or blood test/scan can diagnose ME/CFS and especially if there is a credible treatment found. The more they blather now the tighter the noose they are putting around their own lies
Their alternative facts are circling the drain yet they believe more strongly then ever that their lies are the truth. This is what i would like to understand.

 

Cognitive Dissonance .....

 

Motive is almost never a required element of a crime, so doesn't have to proven. But motive is often featured by the attorneys in court cases, especially if there's a jury, so that they feel like they have a full story that they can judge. What is usually required is intent - not necessarily an intent to break the law, but the intent to do the action which resulted in breaking the law.

As to the necessity of coming up with a motive, I think it can help a lot, depending on the audience. People want a complete story. They generally want to know why someone did something, and not just get a list of things that they're accused of. The motive helps explain that the war hero's granddaughter who dedicates her life to sick children and fighting off the vexatious militants who want to chop off her balls is actually the one doing some pretty sick and twisted things.

I don't think a likely motive should be over-stated or presented as being something certain. But speculation or insinuation of a motive certainly helps people in understanding why a doctor would lie about patients, harm children, and harass their families. Without a motive, those accusations would look pretty bizarre and unbelievable.