Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

I hereby nominate @large donner to take over Sharpe's twitter account in the event of Michael falling ill, taking a holiday or being accosted (allegedly) by a woman with a fruit-preparation implement.

As the quoted post demonstrates, large donner has comprehensively grasped the intricacies of Sharpe's main arguments (sic) and is capable of delivering them in a more entertaining and persuasive manner than the man himself.

 

I'm not laughing...

 

No you are not, but you are doing a fabulous job taking him to task. Well done!!

Maybe remind him how they also dropped many of the objective measures.

 

I reckon i could do it I am stupid enough.

 

Something interesting in my book=

When the patients were “Crazy militants” they paid articles and the news papers, did the dirty work. For each bad article ME community had about PACE, 5 “good” would come out! They were on top Of it( as if they paid or had friends in line for this crap).
But lately they Are doffending their own work, and I ahve not seen so much news papers articles praising it after something comes about ME. What has changed? Or is it just my perception?

 

Already done that. He won't answer me. Wonder why not.

 

The ICO vs QMUL ruling debunked the crazy militant story.

Various articles in science journals debunked the PACE claims and vindicated patient concerns.

The journalists seem to now understand that the Science Media Center is an unreliable source of information on the topic.

The IOM report may have played a role as well in giving credibility to patients that say it's a serious systemic illness, not a psychiatric disorder involvng false illness beliefs.

 

Wow!

 

Not exactly making the path to salvation any easier is he?

 

I'd forgotten this:

What the article doesn't mention is that it was a paring knife for cutting up her apple wasn't it?

This part of the article is also intriguing:

"... pray to God for fogiveness" rings a bell somewhere, ... surely not ...

 

I was extremely disappointed that Trudie Chalder didn't cite this incident when she gave evidence to the Information Tribunal.

"Have you, or your fellow PACE authors, ever been threatened as a result of your work?"

"Well... on one occasion someone peeled an apple in front of Michael Sharpe. Does that count?"

 

I don't think that anyone knows the specifics, do they?

 

There was an account given on Phoenix Rising by someone who knew the woman in question. She attended one of Sharpe's lectures and started to cut up an apple during the Q&A - at which point the event security got involved. They quickly realised that neither she nor the knife posed a threat though, and no action was taken against her.

 

Is that right? I remember seeing someone speculating that it could have just been an apple knife, but I don't remember anyone knowing. I could be having a memory failure, but it's always my instinct to be cautious with these things. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Sharpe had spun something utterly trivial like that.

 

A 'review' such as that gives a clear illustration of the relationship between psychiatry and science - extremely tenuous. Absolutely no substance whatsoever, but full on emotive grandstanding. A very good example of some psychiatrists' perception of science.

 

If we're thinking about the same post - and we may not be - there was definitely someone who was pulled up for having an apple knife at one of Sharpe's speaking engagements. What the poster who gave the account couldn't say for certain was whether or not this is the incident Sharpe was referring to when he spoke to the Guardian.

My personal feeling is that it almost certainly was the same incident given that no other accounts have emerged over the years of anyone seeing a knife at one of Sharpe's lectures (and the fact that Sharpe has never mentioned it again suggests that it was more trivial than he initially claimed). But these are speculations on my part, and you're almost certainly right to emphasise caution when recounting an event that we can't verify satisfactorily. Especially if you're only doing so to make a joke at Sharpe's expense, as I was. Mea culpa.

 

I thought you might have at least told us the name @TiredSam, instead of just an onomatopoeia!