Netflix "Afflicted" - ME included

Would be interesting to get a comment from Netflix on why they think that this documentary should continue to be promoted to their subscribers, and if they feel they have any responsibility for the harm done.

 

Worldwide fame for S4ME!

Excellent German article about Afflicted. It's just a short paragraph about how Afflicted failed and then the article concentrates on ME as one of the diseases that were misrepresented. Prof. Montoya, Prof. Davis, Linda Tannenbaum and Jamison Hill are cited. Science for ME is mentioned (because of the Q&A with Montoya) and is also listed as a source at the bottom. One of the best articles about ME in German I know. Maybe the tide is really turning.

http://www.general-anzeiger-bonn.de/news/kultur-und-medien/Netflix-Doku-über-Krankheiten-erntet-Kritik-article3960866.html

Automatic generated English translation: https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.general-anzeiger-bonn.de/news/kultur-und-medien/Netflix-Doku-%C3%BCber-Krankheiten-erntet-Kritik-article3960866.html

 

Twitter thread written by a pwME in Sweden:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1058315998611283974

 

Really shameful of Netflix to have kept this tripe. When the subjects of a show all testify that what they said has been misrepresented, you know it's not serious work. I don't know if it's still categorized as a documentary but at best it's a reality show for prejudice porn.

I don't miss the subscription. Except for Bojack. But it's an easy protest when there is so much stuff on Youtube.

 

Science-Based Medicine reviews afflicted, it's a bit of a mixed bag and makes no mention of Jamison or me/cfs

Afflicted and the Tragedy of Fake Illnesses
Afflicted is a documentary following the lives and treatments of people “diagnosed” with illnesses not recognized by science. Conversely, it could also be seen as a documentary illustrating the risks and harms of alternative medicine.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/afflicted-and-the-tragedy-of-fake-illnesses/

 

It really says a lot about the state of medicine that participants in the series took pains to state that their representation was heavily edited and misrepresented everything and this objection, which should normally have sunk the series in disgrace, is thoroughly ignored.

Participants told you that they were edited to paint a narrative, that their words were twisted, and still the words of professionals involved in the series, despite having no relevant knowledge of the patients or the conditions, are taken at face value over serious warnings that the series is a misleading mess.

Not even gonna bother with the fact that ME is a denied disease with a huge body of evidence, not a fake illness, and MCS seems more and more likely to actually be MCAS in most cases, so not a fake illness either.

Science-based medicine, I guess the name is ironic. Magical thinking is just so damn rampant in medicine, it's demoralizing.

 

Magical medical thinking.

Good sound byte.

 

In the case of MCS the claim by patients is that they suffer symptoms as a result of exposure to certain chemicals not necessarily that they are better at detection than healthy controls.

You mean like the easy answer that the cause is psychological or psychosomatic?

So you're happy to be exposed to UVC or X-rays?

The old stigma card that gets played so often. Did you stop to think that may be patients are offended because they have a physical illness and that they know from first hand experience that patients will be treated in a way that is detrimental to their health by doctors and society in general if they are misdiagnosed as having a mental health problem?

 

Hi guys, had been ill for the last 2 weeks with the darn flu and watched a lot of films on Netflix, couldn't sleep because of severe coughing. I watched Afflicted and by the second episode, I already knew this was not a serious documentary. The participants were treated like shite and the film was a disservice for chronic illness awareness. I wish the guys could raise money to produce an answer to this outrageous film. It could be called 'Inflicted'.

 

I noticed that there have been a few 8/10 - 10/10 reviews of this series of late raising the overall rating by .3

A few reveiwers enjoyed it for the entertainment of watching 'crazy' people.

 

Defamation Lawsuit Against Netflix Over ‘Afflicted’ Docuseries Allowed to Proceed

A state appellate court has turned down Netflix’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by subjects of docuseries Afflicted who say they were defamed when the show misrepresented their chronic illnesses.​

In a unanimous decision from the Second Appellate District, the panel ruled that the consent releases the subjects signed aren’t enforceable because they were lied to and pressured to waive their rights not to be defamed. It found that plaintiffs can pursue claims over misrepresentations in the documentary that “were reasonably susceptible to an interpretation that defendants were portraying [their] illnesses, and accompanying physical symptoms, as not the result of any underlying, diagnosable medical condition, but rather as either the product of [their] imaginations or some mental disorder.”​

Click the link in the title for the whole article.

 

Doubtful it would be that big of a win, but I hope the producers are sued into bankruptcy, so they can never pull off something like this again. They knew what they were doing, they wanted to mock and bully sick people while promising they wouldn't. Promising fair treatment while explicitly meaning to be mocking and disrespectful warrants it.

Speaking of which, is it still on Netflix?

 

It is in Australia:

 

Just checked - it's also available here in the USA.

 

Just one of several reasons to cancel your Netflix account...

 

"It's got to be in your head": Using Mental Illness to Silence Chronic Conditions in Afflicted
by
B Fitzsimmons

in
"Streaming Mental Health and Illness: Essays on Representation in Netflix Original Programs"

See extracts:
https://books.google.ie/books?hl=en...=onepage&q="chronic fatigue syndrome"&f=false