George Monbiot on ME/CFS, PACE, BPS and Long Covid

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Robert 1973

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Links to posts linking to articles/videos:
Jan 2021 article in the Guardian
Apr 2021 article in the Guardian
Jul 2021 interview video



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Not sure if these have been posted in other threads but I think they are significant so I’m posting them in their own thread. For those who don’t know, this is what Wikipedia says about George Monbiot (who has over 393,000 followers on Twitter):

George Joshua Richard Monbiot (/ˈmɒnbioʊ/ MON-bee-oh; born 27 January 1963) is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism.[2] He writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain (2000), Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding (2013) and Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in the Age of Crisis (2017).[3] He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom.[4]
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George has also been asking for links to info on PACE etc. He’s had a lot of helpful replies, and @dave30th has tweeted and emailed him.

Like Dave, I have emailed George in the past to try to get him to write about the SMC’s bias towards ME/CFS as George has previously been critical of the SMC on other issues (see http://www.lobbywatch.org/lm_george_monbiot.html). He didn’t reply to me then but it’s good to see him lending us his voice now.
 
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Robert 1973 said:
Update:

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Very pleased to see this. Great to have another person from the Guardian willing to actually listen and I really respect George Monbiot as a journalist.

strategist said:
Is anyone still skeptical that long covid would help ME/CFS gain visibility and credibility?
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I'm not sure it will result in more funding or support long term but I do think it will help more people understand ME/CFS better which is a small win.
 
strategist said:
Is anyone still skeptical that long covid would help ME/CFS gain visibility and credibility?
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It is helping but we only have a window of opportunity. People are fearful of catching the virus now but once the danger has passed they will look at long covid patients the way they looked at ME/CFS patients, people who are not as strong as them and just need to pull themselves together.
 
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Andy said:
Someone pointed this out to me earlier on.

Invasion of the entryists: How did a cultish political network become the public face of the scientific establishment?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/dec/09/highereducation.uk2

Given that he wrote this quite some time ago, hopefully someone has mentioned the SMC to him on Twitter.
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Yes, see tweet above. I also sent this:


(Link for anyone who can’t access Twitter: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jroffc18kizqzzn/fiona_fox_ME_RCP_with_links.pdf?dl=0)

I’ve also emailed him about these issues. He will have so much info now the challenge will be deciding what to include in a 900 word article. Maybe he could be persuaded to write a book.
 
Just to say if anyone doesn’t normally do social media there are many positive comments in response to George Monbiot’s posts. but also as ever the usual mix of people who are advocating various “approaches” to ME including Lightning Process GET and so on. And the cynics and nasty people as well.

So consider if you want to see the dodgy comments before going into the links.
 
strategist said:
I admit that I'm slightly worried that Monbiot will have the best intentions but make some mistake due to the complexity of the topic. Hopefully he'll send the article to an independent expert for review before the publication.
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I think this is a difficult topic for a columnist to cover after a couple of weeks reading... and I have massive worries about the sort of 'expert' the UK Guardian would suggest.
 
strategist said:
I admit that I'm slightly worried that Monbiot will have the best intentions but make some mistake due to the complexity of the topic. Hopefully he'll send the article to an independent expert for review before the publication.
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Esther12 said:
I think this is a difficult topic for a columnist to cover after a couple of weeks reading... and I have massive worries about the sort of 'expert' the UK Guardian would suggest.
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But at the same time we have been highly critical (correctly so) about the lack of, or extremely misguided, coverage in the mainstream UK media. So we have to run with this, albeit the noted concerns are very valid.

Is it necessarily for the Guardian to designate which experts a journalist can consult? Or can a journalist still be a journalist and do their own research for who to consult?

And yes, to expect someone to get everything right after just a few weeks to "tune in" would be unrealistic. The hope would be that for anything they get wrong, they do not get it seriously wrong. Would @dave30th be able to assist here?

Might just possibly mark a change in UK media coverage ... long shot I know.
 
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