Michael Sharpe on Radio 4 Today / Tom Feilden BBC (18th march 2019)

You should. It is so short it is more of a non event, and is very embarrassing for Sharpe - the fact that is was so short, that they did query him and that they couldn't be bothered to do anything else around it so that he could talk about it for longer than a couple of minutes.

It very much seemed like they had put him on briefly because they had been told to do it.

 

Useful, appreciated.

 

It is odd. The raising of the JHP volume suggests that Sharpe was not just being given air time. Almost as if the editor was serving him a poisoned chalice in the form of a tea mug.

 

He is speaking at an event in Oxford tomorrow so maybe he is trying to come up with a story to tell people how badly he has been treated

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1107423843591905286

 

Re Sharpe saying he is now helping cancer patients.
Having listened to @Gary Burgess on the ME Show with Dr Nina Muirhead who was really helping people with cancer until she was hit with ME, and then had to stop.
So largely thanks to Professor Sharpe and co, cancer patients were deprived of her actual skilled treatment.

eta:
https://www.buckshealthcare.nhs.uk/Our clinical services/Consultants and clinical teams/muirhead-nina.htm

 

Given that Carol Monaghan called him out on Twitter yesterday I don't think this will bolster his street cred at all.

 

For anyone who wants to complain to the BBC if they feel that the BBC was biased in allowing Sharpe to present his claims about his research with no one with the expertise to challenge his view properly - such as David Tuller, Jo Edwards, Carolyn Wilshire, Carol Monaghan, etc., the BBC tell you how to complain on this page (top right):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

If you pursue it long and hard enough, a complaint can go all the way to Ofcom.

 

This is the funny thing, he must know that every academic, politician and scientist who has called them out over the last few years will be directly and indirectly implicated by doing such a Reuters style spin job.

Surely they understand that's more people with high profiles that will stand up to them and speak out via their arenas too.

It doesn't seem to be a well thought out tactic by Sharpe et al. Looks like they are going for shit or bust, they know they cant just sit quietly so I suppose they still think they can win or maybe just that they have nothing to lose.

 

At this point why not just skip the extra step and hand both the story and the award together?

And normally someone handing themselves (Wessely) an award would be something pretty embarrassing. That's a participation trophy if I ever saw one.

 

Hopefully one day we can get our hands on the media package sent out by the SMC.

I doubt there is much journalism involved, rather a heavy-handed PR blitz.

 

From @Lucibee 's transcript:
Michael Sharpe on BBC Radio4 Today – 18 March 2019 – 8.45am:

"These journals – journals like Health Psychology – are at liberty to publish campaigns against the treatment – because that’s
effectively what it was – but it’s very important that science takes its course with peer review and replication, and we don’t have science bent by campaigning."

Link to the podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003cth
(starts at 2:45:46)

Edited to add link to @Lucibee's transcript: https://www.s4me.info/threads/micha...n-bbc-18th-march-2019.8632/page-2#post-152182

 

Somehow "those people who constantly beg for research funding and have done so consistently for decades are anti-science and hate scientific research" isn't a particularly convincing story.

 

Thanks for the transcript @Lucibee. Much appreciated.

Here’s my alternative take on what MS might have said:

MK: “There have been criticisms though, haven’t there, about the methodology – the Journal of Health Psychology said that the results are at best reliable [sic] and at worst manipulated to produce a positive-looking outcome.”

What MS actually said: “The way that science works is, as you know, people do studies, those studies are peer reviewed, and then we see whether those studies are replicated. The studies of this treatment have been replicated maybe a dozen times in trials. These journals – journals like Health Psychology – are at liberty to publish campaigns against the treatment – because that’s effectively what it was – but it’s very important that science takes its course with peer review and replication, and we don’t have science bent by campaigning.”

What MS might have said: The way our science works is, as you know, people come up with woolly, politically expedient ideas and they design studies to try to show that those ideas are true. They key to biospsychosocial research is study design: if the data doesn’t support the theory, change the methodology until it does. So, if it looks like we might not be getting the desired results we adjust the outcome measures to ensure that the ship arrives at the right destination, so to speak. Then we get our mates to rubber stamp it under the guise of peer-review and fast track it for publication. If anyone criticises our methodology we just get our mates in the media to accuse them of harassment and abuse. Simples.

MK: “Do you have any sympathy for patient groups that say that they feel marginalised and dismissed? I mean, historically, people talked about ME, didn’t they, as ‘yuppie flu’?”

What MS might have said: F#*@ the patients!

 

Its exactly this.
The tide is turning and its their last best hope for preventing it.

 

I don't get it either...

It's clear that the replication crisis is gaining traction at the moment. If I were them I would stay low as much as possible. Instead they are painting a giant bullseye on their research for those who are being very critical of the poor science behind mindfulness / CBT and other vogue quack treatments.

It almost feels like a last hurrah just to spite patients and possibly influence the NICE guidelines / the new Cochrane review..

Or maybe they do truly live inside their own echo chamber and have no idea that the game is up.

 

I feel pretty sure this is about NICE/Cochrane/last week's events in Denmark etc. The tide is turning against the BPS approach and they're desperately trying to push the idea that this has only happened because 'anti-science' activists are overturning good science. They want to alarm other scientists and the establishment so that they rush to their cause.

The problem is that some of their most prominent critics are now other scientists and academics, and I suspect that being labelled 'anti-science' will cause those critics to speak out even louder...

 

I completely get it, they are under attack by reality.
They have transmuted that attack into calling us militant violent patients because whenever we disagree with them or reality does its a fundamental attack on their belief system.
We are essentially telling them their god is a lie and their lifetime of religious devotion is a fraud.

 

Seems like you've rumbled us.