Interesting blog by David Healy about the Maddox prize:
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In 2017 the Sense about Science (SAS) John Maddox (JM) Prize was awarded to to Riko Muranaka for her efforts to counter apparent misinformation about the HPV vaccine.
MedWatcher Japan are the group who have helped raise the profile of concerns about the HPV vaccine in Japan. When it comes to tackling the adverse effects of treatments, there is no more impressive group in the world and in response to their arguments – see
Here – the Japanese government has reconsidered its position.
Key to an award of an SAS Prize is that Muranaka should have been threatened, and intimidated for her brave work standing up for truth. I asked some MedWatcher contacts what the score was. They said yep she’s saying she has been threatened but there is nothing much that can be done about it, as she would just use any complaints or even debate as evidence of persecution.
What’s going on?"
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2012
Simon Wessely and Fang Shi-min are the two winners of the inaugural JM Prize for Standing up for Science
Fang Shi-min, a freelance science journalist based in Beijing, was awarded the Prize for his bravery and determination in standing up to threats to his life to uncover clinics promoting unproven treatments, and to bring a wide public readership to the importance of looking for evidence.
Simon Wessely, Professor of Psychological Medicine at King’s College London, was awarded the Prize for his ambition and courage in the field of ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) and Gulf War syndrome, and the way he has dealt bravely with intimidation and harassment when speaking about his work and that of colleagues.
Given his very close links to SAS and SMC, the award of an SAS Prize to SW smacks of SAS awarding the Prize to itself.
That said, it’s easy to get on with SW. I’ve been to his house and he to mine. There are certain things you don’t challenge acquaintances on. In this case one of those things was his belief that he’d had death threats and in general had had a hard time from people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome who didn’t like his research. Long before this SAS prize came on the radar, he had assiduously been peddling this line, as the researchers working on CFS in general do.
One of the other things I didn’t challenge him on was James Coyne who SW thought was marvellous.
I’d first come across JC when the University of Toronto – and perhaps others – appeared to have outsourced the defending of their fragile little selves against the juggernaut that was Healy – after they’d fired me – to JC, who didn’t just say what U of T or others might have wanted to say but went wildly beyond that without his having ever met me or liaised with me in any shape or form whatsoever.
JC is a notable academic thug, a bully who picks on women in particular. Some people find him very intimidating in print but if you confront him he becomes your new best friend in a rather wheedling kind of way. See
Rolf Harris and James Coyne"
https://davidhealy.org/outsourcing-fascism/
