Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

Where is Simon I wonder?

 

Doesn't sound like that apology is coming anytime soon. Steve Brine will be disappointed. Anyone on Twitter want to ask Sharpe to post a screenshot of his email to Carol Monaghan, so we can all judge for ourselves how 'unbecoming' his message was?

(I almost hope CM *was* making it up - after all the 'abusive activists' crap that Sharpe has spouted over the years it'd be poetic justice if his reputation was trashed by baseless allegations...)

 

I reckon he's just poured Michael Sharpe a large measure of vodka and said "I think you should get back on twitter now, go on, I'll be along in a minute - oh, it's ok, take the bottle with you ..."

 

It is really quite interesting when entirely reasonable critical comments from an MP about the quality of some science is called 'defamation'. Presumably then any rejection of a paper by an editor is sort of defamation. We had a newspaper piece about insults at the Journal of health Psychology editorial board - might we hope for some coverage here? "Scientist asked to apologise by minister now accuses MP of defamation'

 

Someone should tweet "I haven't actually read it ...". Then he'll have to post it, because we know how he likes to insist that people read things.

 

Aside from the fact Phil Hammond works at Esther Crawley's CFS clinic.

 

In this 1996 paper by Sharpe, et al., Cognitive behaviour therapy for the chronic fatigue syndrome: a randomised controlled trial, they say:

I'm hard pressed to think to of something that is "inaccurate" yet "true." Common synonyms are "erroneous," "fallacious," "incorrect," "wrong," and yes "false."

 

Rather annoying for Sharpe that the only speaker who could remotely be said to be offering Sharpe a glimmer of hope / a little defence, the minister, also demanded his apology.

So after the most disastrous name-dropping exercise I've ever seen from Wessely, we now have the most disastrous lobbying exercise I've ever seen from Sharpe, who completely undermined himself just before the debate began. Watching these two clowns trying to out-politic politicians is bound to throw up a few more comedy moments.

 

deleted - too past it to be posting really, going to bed

 

This reminds me of a nasty trick some car second hand car dealers employed back in my youth. The oil pressure warning light coming back on once the engine was running and the oil had warmed up (and was therefore thinner) was a typical sign of a knackered engine. So so dealers rewired the oil pressure warning light to the generator light, which also went out after the engine started and stayed out. Just another way of ignoring vital warning signs.

 

I've been told by a very reliable source - okay, he's not that reliable - that Sir Simon retired from ME/CFS research many years ago. And he's had nothing to do with it since. No sirree. He wasn't even involved with the PACE trial - well, he can't remember whether he was involved and neither can Michael Sharpe (even though Sharpe is a co-author of numerous documents that clearly say that Simon was). And as Simon has pointed out recently, if he *had* been involved with PACE in any shape or form his monstrous ego would have demanded that he be listed as a co-author. But he isn't so he almost certainly wasn't. Unless of course he was - because no-one seems to remember and incredible as it may seem there's apparently no way to check...

So where is Simon? I imagine he's enjoying his retirement and hoping he doesn't get singed by Sharpe's apparent determination to commit self-immolation on Twitter.

 

Ye gods, hes been abusing his position for how long?

 

I just get the feeling he may be there in the background toasting a few marshmallows on MS’s pyre.

Hope he doesn’t eat them too soon and burn his mouth

 

Exactly. Given his position on CFS Vs ME, why has he never ventured to ever correct the authorities, NICE, the medical establishment, insurance companies, etc, where PACE-style remedies are foisted onto people diagnosed with ME, or with "CFS/ME"?

 

I don't know much about parliamentary decorum, but it seems to me that when you have conducted yourself in such an inappropriate manner that multiple MPs and a government minister call you out publicly and demand an apology, you have likely damaged your credibility and effectiveness as an advocate in the debate, and have undoubtedly undermined the credibility of your research as well.