Henrick Vogt: "intense negativity spread by individuals/CFS groups/researchers" partly to blame for family's suicide

Clearly a tragic case, and a bad idea to try to use something like this to score any political points, particularly when so little is known.

 

Disgusting behaviour

 

I believe Mr. Vogt may deserve the "Norwegian Facepalm" - for when you've done something so stupid that the shock and dismay are felt all he way back to the 12th-century.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_chessmen

 

Copy and paste URL to see translation on Facebook

Code:

https://www.facebook.com/TomKindlonMECFS/posts/964184290396363?comment_id=964242563723869

A rough translation from the newspaper:

"The life of a family in Bjärred before the murders

NEWS January 19, 2018 Aftonbladet, Sweden

The parents made a joint decision to kill their children.

It is evident from the suicide letter found by the police in the house in Bjärred.

The reason was the children had a disease which deteriorated their health.

In March 2016 the first student health conference was held.

It was about 14-year-old and present was the school's principal, a special educator, a mentor, school psychologist and one of the parents.

What was exactly dealt with at the meeting is confidential, but only two months later a new conference was held to prepare school start in seventh grade at a new school.

Arranged restraint

In front of the high school, the girl would like to go to school and discuss a solution with a restroom in readiness when the noise and disturbances became too much.

It was decided that she would refrain from home education, sports, music and modern language in order to concentrate on the Swedish, math, SO, NO and English subjects as well as art because she flunked the aesthetic subjects.

During the conference, she talked about how she would pass the admission requirements to high school.

Her dad and school nurse would together inform her classmates about the situation.

The little sister was killed

In May 2017, at the end of the school year, it was found that 14-year-old couldn’t cope with the school environment, despite the will and despite the school's adaptation. Instead, she had been taught at home school and would continue in eighth grade four times a week.

If she would have the energy, she would try to come to school to take exams.

Two weeks later, in June, a new student conference was held, but now about the little sister.

The parents suspected that she suffered from the same disease even though the diagnosis had not been established yet.

Now it was about preparing for her schooling in a similar way.

Should the 11-year-old not cope with, the choice of sport and student should be eliminated first. A room would be decorated to rest and would be forced into homeschooling if coordinated with the big sister's school.

She is described in the minutes as a social and ambitious student who does not want to attend school work.

In autumn 2017, a decision was made on a continued graduate study for both sisters.

The mother, highly educated as his husband and also an expert in his field, was not very active in social media but engaged in a call for the preservation of Gottfries Clinic, a clinic specializing in patients with ME / CFS, often called " chronic fatigue syndrome ".

Knocked on the door
Tuesday, January 9, the first school day after Christmas promise, the teacher who would have a lesson with the girls came to the house and knocked on. No one opened, which was a bit surprising but not alarming.

"We have had such regular contact so I felt no worries. The teachers were there at home and had instruction so I received feedback from them, "said Margareta Strand Karlsson, a rector in an earlier interview with Aftonbladet.

She has also said that the school tried to support the family as "in a deep crisis and tormented by their circumstances".

"It is very unusual for a family to have two children with this diagnosis as we also have medical certificates," she said in another interview with Aftonbladet.

When the teacher knocked on the door of the house in Bjärred, the whole family was already dead.
"Feeling worried"
Just a couple of hours later, the police broke in after they were alerted by the father's boss. The dutiful and proper man would have held an important conference but never showed up and did not answer either phone calls or text messages, an unusual deviation from his normal behavior, according to the boss.

"I said I felt worried and wanted to call a whole family," said the boss.

In the house, the police found four dead bodies and an explanatory letter:

"The reason described in the letter was that they did not see any quality of life or future because of their daughters' disease situation. The letter was signed by both parents, "the police wrote on his website.

When the preliminary investigation is completed, it will be added to the actions because the suspects are dead."

Admin ETA: Previous Facebook links didn't lead to the intended comment due to the forum software trying to be helpful and messing it up - as it says above, copy and paste the Facebook URL to see the translation there.

 

Such a sad story, and a despicable message on twitter from Vogt. There are no words.

 

Pasient perspekt (https://twitter.com/Pasientperspekt) has retweeted it without comment.

 

@Tom Kindlon , are the links to your Facebook posts in your post above a mistake? They seem to be referring to something else?

 

I'm completely shocked, that someone responsible for providing care thinks its OK to tweet this. They do not operate in the same world that the rest of us do. They should be prevented from going anywhere near patients.

 

I've seen Vogt's ill informed comments on ME before, he was almost gleeful when Ritux trial was negative - but this is just appallingly ignorant and insensitive, to exploit a family tragedy. Really, what makes these people tick? Sharpe is beyond the pale. The human suffering of ME never really seems to impact on these doctors, it is always about pushing their idealogy, they really are terrifying.

I do not know the details of the Swedish tragedy, my stepsister is Swedish - I had planned to ask her to translate it for me, but have not yet had a chance. Terrible to know that a family is pushed to such catastrophe by the illness. Sad beyond words. Vogt and Sharpe disgust me.

 

This shows the dangers for people in using social media, especially in such sad circumstances. How does one convey, within the word limitations imposed by tweets, precisely how one is using the word "could" in the phrase "the children could get well." I don't suppose that modal verbs are any easier in Norwegian than in other languages.

Rather than merely stating the possibility the comment seems to suggest contingencies. They could get better if.....if what?

It is difficult to discuss this without being thought as lacking in social awareness as Vogt obviously is. Best just to reflect on the desperation which must have been endured before it became unendurable.

 

Well, if he took out the attack on patients he'd have 149 characters to better explain. I think that strongly suggests that his intention is to attack us rather than explain his treatment theories.

 

I think when people make tweets like this, it's best not to give them too much attention. He's just trying to distract from the fact that they killed themselves because ME/CFS is such an extremely devastating condition, and get everyone caught up on a totally different issue.

 

It is absolutely disgusting, I absolutely agree. I'm very sure, though, that's what he's trying to do - he's trying to distract from the true message of the tragedy. This kind of strategy is really commonly used (especially from politicians, for example)

 

The only thing he'll succeed at doing is shining a bigger light on it. Especially when he goes in like this with contempt for the patientgroup he's supposed to be treating.

*edit* removed the word no before contempt. Thank you @Barry

 

Yes, that might well be true. The concern is just that his response may frame the debate more towards "are patient groups negative?" and "can people with ME/CFS recover?", rather than "dear god, a family committed suicide because of extreme suffering" edit: (although I don't think anyone knows all the details)

 

contempt? I would guess you mean, possibly, empathy or something similar.

Personally I think it needs challenging, and if it was in the UK I'd be at least reading up on the possibility of a complaint against him for this. And in challenging him on it, we can hold him up as, from what I've seen, a typical example of the BPS attitude to patients.

 

So very true.

 

As I've said before, such people are not driven by truth and honesty I don't believe, but by cause and effect. Occasionally the two models coincide but typically not. They invariably expose their lack of empathy and compassion despite their pretestations to the contrary, such as on occasions like this. Sharpe must be off his trolley to align himself with this.