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

There's also the issue that the internet can bring groups of people together and make larger groups that would not have existed before. There's good money to be made going around the world giving meme based talks in echo chambers even after one has been discredited.

You just keep on playing the victim to a gullible audience and make alliances with new audiences who require your conspiracy theory narrative to be true so they can add it to their latest one also.

None of these people will go to jail or lose pensions even when the truth comes out so quite frankly maybe they have nothing to lose.

They also have the skills they have acquired in years of deceit to market themselves to any new group that requires their Machiavellian mastery.

Its really quite ingenious all you have to do is conspire deliberately or eventually out of necessity to cover up deceit or default failings then go around pushing the, "there are people out there who are conspiracy theorists who are out to get us", conspiracy theory.

Its simple you turn the very nature of scientific discord activity, which is the whole purpose of scientific enquiry, into a bad thing buy referring to it as a "conspiracy theory".

Very clever to conspire whilst simultaneously creating a deity (we are scientists) that must be believed based on appeal to authority, your own authority, whilst discrediting the notion that anyone ever engages in conspiring by turning the conspiracy theorist term on its head to give it an automatically bad connotation.

Nothing new there, its been used since day dot.

 

And isn't he due to retire soon? He certainly looks old enough.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1107565754222825473


to respond

eta: not sure why the article about the interferon alpha trial gets highlighted(?)

eta2:
https://twitter.com/user/status/1107565745771286528


eta3:
maybe someone could tweet a link to the ME show interview with Dr Nina Muirhead and suggest they talk to her to get the perspective from a doctor/surgeon/cancer specialist and ME sufferer.

 

It came across as just time-filling fluff, so it probably won't upset you.

 

He was reported by the BMJ as being aged 62 in August 2016, so approaching 65.

https://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i4231

Michael Sharpe, 62, was researching integrated care and riding a Brompton bike long before either was fashionable. His research has included groundbreaking clinical trials showing how integrating psychiatry and psychology into medical care can improve the lives of patients in neurology, cancer, and medical clinics. More recently he has put these ideas into practice by leading the integration of psychiatrists and psychologists into medical teams at Oxford University Hospitals. He is professor of psychological medicine at Oxford and was the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ “psychiatrist of the year” in 2014...

 

Prof, Sir Simon Wessely is 62.

Prof Francis Creed (Manchester) retired a few years ago.
Emeritus Prof, Sir David Goldberg (chaired the working group for development of the ICD-10 PHC (1996); current chair, ICD-11 PHC Primary Care Consultation Group) is around 85.

Prof Per Fink was 60 around May 2014, so he's coming up 65.

 

Don't count on them retiring, their "movement" needs them to prevent its collapse. They have some younger colleagues but they will stay active in ME denial.

 

Yes, I suspect they will go on and on...like the Duracell Bunny.

In May 2014, White, Creed and Sharpe all gave presentations at Per Fink's birthday/Aarhus Clinic celebration bash. Sharpe's slides wouldn't work. During the course of his presentation, he said "fuck" a couple of times, like a six year old trying the word out in front of grandma. What's that German word for feeling embarrassment for someone else?

 

Feel kinda stupid now.

I think your post hit the nail on the head.

 

No need to feel stupid, as long as we work together we will ultimately triumph

Thank you
One thing i have always felt is that we need to understand our adversaries in order to effectively oppose them so this is not far outside my research area if you will.
As Sun Tzu once said (paraphrased) Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious.

 

Be careful he might tweet that out as another example of people reporting him to the authorities.

 

Note that the term "chronic fatigue" does not appear in either ICD-10 or ICD-11.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paywalled and not in print edition (if Dr Porter's regular medical column is including CFS, ME tomorrow) until tomorrow's edition (Tuesday).

You can also register to access two articles for free.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ue-syndrome-is-a-complicated-matter-28f7xcsgt

The Times

HEALTH

march 18 2019, 5:00pm, the times
ME: Treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome is a complicated matter
new dr mark porter

Few terms are as emotive as chronic fatigue. Those complaining of it often feel marginalised and labelled. Their doctors, in the absence of an easily identifiable and treatable cause, feel impotent. Scientists are wary of studying it for fear of invoking a backlash from those who disagree with their findings and conclusions. And, as I have learnt, anyone writing on the subject needs a thick skin to cope with the feedback.

Little wonder that chronic fatigue has become an area around which everyone — with the exception of those affected — tiptoes. However, it’s something that I cannot avoid in my day-to-day practice. It is a very real and common complaint that can exact a considerable toll on those affected, and one that requires a caring and…

 

Chronic fatigue is a real and common complaint but it is not a diagnosis.
Perhaps you need a thick skin if you write about something you are rather ignorant about?

 

He's written, "Those complaining of it..."

Why not, "Those diagnosed with it...."?

 

Well people complain of spots but they are not diagnosed with spots.

 

My point is, despite the headline "ME: Treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome is a complicated matter", he goes on to use "chronic fatigue" in the text. So what is he writing about, here - chronic fatigue - or patients with a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome? And is he going to differentiate?

 

Agreed; the point of my post above is that he does not seem to realise there is a difference.

 

I won't see the full text until tomorrow.

Having spent the last few months getting WHO to delete "chronic fatigue, unspecified" from under ICD-11's 8E49 terms, I am understandably a tad prickly about "chronic fatigue" being used interchangeably with "ME and chronic fatigue syndrome."

 

Absolutely, and I am afraid Dr Porter brings me out in prickles on rather too many occasions with his suave oversimplifications.

 

And what a co-incidence the timing is!

Kate Kelland for Reuters (March 13).
The Odious Lidl in The Sunday Times (March 16).
Sharpe on BBC Radio 4, this morning.
Dr Porter in tomorrow's Times.

Any bets on which paper on Wednesday?


Edited to add:

I missed out the Mail (March 15):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/...e-researcher-QUITS-online-trolls-hostile.html
Top Oxford researcher trying to bust the mystery of chronic fatigue syndrome says he QUIT and turned his focus to new research because trolls are 'too hostile'

and Times (March 16):
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trolls-force-oxford-expert-to-stop-research-into-me-ttnb8gznv
Trolls force Oxford expert to stop research into ME