Opinion: ‘You don’t want to get better’: the outdated treatment of ME/CFS patients is a national scandal - George Monbiot

I think it is a bit unfair on Sir Geoffrey Howe to compare MS to him.

 

Like being savaged by an imaginary dead sheep?

I love Sharpe’s classic strawman. Why does he put “unreal” in quotes when the article makes no reference to anything being real or unreal?

Notable that that SW appears to have decided – probably wisely – not to draw any more attention to himself.

Not only a very weak response from Garner but also notable for being significantly toned down from his previous outpourings.

Disappointing references to “chronic fatigue” in first letter.

The one on antidepressants is just badly informed. As far as I’m aware even the BPS enthusiasts now acknowledge that antidepressants are not effective treatments for ME/CFS.

 

They reference a study at the Royal Free from 1990, which caught my eye because a separate participant in that study told me to take sertraline two months into my illness. Not knowing any better, I listened to them. It probably helped dull my senses during an incredibly difficult time, but it obviously did nothing for my illness. Patients and clinicians tend to cling to meaningless results from these kinds of pilot studies.

 

They must be suffering from effort preference.

 

Michael Sharpe’s treatment approach, graded activity-oriented CBT, doesn’t pay attention to patients’ fears & emotions. It’s a one-dimensional approach that tells all #MECFS patients to do more, promising recovery. When their own study found no increased recovery, they redefined recovery in a ridiculous way!

 

I do not think they can have a good come-back to this. They can repeat the same stupid things over and over again, but Sharpe can't say to Monbiot "read the study." I mean, they've been exposed. They're not going away, but they no longer have an exclusive claim to authority and no one is afraid of them anymore. That's a big deal. And so all Sharpe can do is bleat a pathetic, meaningless phrase.

 

I wonder if their posts merit an individual response where possible, or that it's better to look at the bigger picture and go after the flaws in BPS-research and the misconduct that occurred over the last 50 years or so.

 

Well they can always try to sue the Guardian for defamation/s

They don’t have the media power to fight George. They’d do well to keep their heads down and stick to their echo chambers.

 

And in the print version

 

If he has any wisdom at all Paul Garner should be reflecting that he doesn’t know his BPS bedfellows as well as he thinks he does. Sometimes the barrel of a gun looks a lot like a Guardian news article.

I’m very grateful for all the work recently and over the years that has made it possible for George Monbiot to take this on.

 

I see the letter was from both Fiona Symington, who developed ME after living with EDS and chronic pain and then was “cured” of ME and pain, and Paul Garner, who presumably was cured of Long Covid.

So is Garner no longer claiming Lightening Therapy cured his ME/CFS?

Fiona Symington
https://archive.ph/8iMwK

Discussion of Garner and Symington has been moved to the Paul Garner thread

 

Sharpe’s reply was pathetic. They’re not even trying anymore.

 

Yea, probably difficult after NICE found the evidence to be "low" or "very low" quality. Well done to those involved in achieving that result.

 

Yes, echoes of the RCP mindset and Fiona Fox’s bizarre article for LM in which she wrote:

“I do feel that being one of the few people in the world who can really understand imposes a certain burden and definite isolation.”

​

See: https://www.s4me.info/threads/artic...he-revolutionary-communist-party-c-1996.3452/

As Adrian comments in the thread, “It reads as an early attempt at post truth politics.”

 

They never had to. One universal thing you find about psychosomatic ideology is that nothing they say is ever criticized by their peers, with the only exception coming from the small number who understand chronic illness. Everything they say is taken at face value, accepted as a fact, never demanding any actual evidence. I don't remember in all the years with hundreds of papers, studies and trials, excerpts from textbooks, presentations or discussions seeing a single display of real substantial criticism. No one present ever demands evidence, or sees any concerns with the giant flaws in the reasoning behind it.

So they've spent decades growing their scam without ever having to actually do any real work or present any serious argument, like Kim Jung-Un scoring several holes-in-one in his first, and last, golf game ever. They simply don't have any of those, are not the least bit prepared to meet real criticism and this is why they fold and leave at the slightest challenge. They are simply never challenged at their workplace, they can write their personal musings about this and that and it goes directly into textbooks.

 

Wow
I used to know Fiona Fox

 

Almost anyone can play the psychosomatic blame game. No training required. Othering comes naturally. This tendency is one of the things that has made the stigmatization of pwME so easy for the BPS Brigade.

 

great to have monbiot take us on.

i have trouble with the nih paper being linked to, and with "outdated treatment", because it never made sense in the first place. but those are nits and welcome aboard.