Paul Garner on Long Covid and ME/CFS - BMJ articles and other media.

Unless he's after some nice sinecure that will give him influence and position in retirement, but he has to be seen to toe a party line first.

You could be right about there being no particular motive, though, specially if he genuinely believes his recovery was down to the, erm, 'treatment'.

 

I think it was because he was promoting the Free Speech Union stuff. This was on linked in https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul...e-professor-activity-7191384764904341504-5ZtL

 

Post-exertional malaise best understood as a functional brain aberration, so research on brain neuronal networks needed-causal link with peripheral pathophysiology like muscle cell function/mitoch likely to reveal little

https://twitter.com/user/status/1840037361821863991

 

My reaction to that is unprintable.

 

thread here
Opinion - Post-exertional malaise – A functional brain aberration?, 2024, Wyller | Science for ME (s4me.info)

 

Paul Garner just put an utterly creepy and wholly disingenuous Comment under a recent Telegraph article.
Please note his gross tactic.


The article of the 7th October 2024 is called:

'Coroner tells NHS to act on ‘nonexistent’ ME care in wake of 27-year-old’s death'
'Maeve Boothby O’Neill died of malnutrition as a result of myalgic encephalomyelitis having battled with the condition since her teens'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...y-oneill-myalgic-encephalomyelitis-death-nhs/



Paul Garner's Comment:

'The Oslo Chronic Fatigue Consortium is made up of researchers and clinicians who question the conventional approach of prolonged rest, social isolation, and sensory deprivation. They advocate for a more constructive approach that helps patients develop a less threatening understanding of their symptoms. Maeve's death is so heartbreaking. These symptoms are real and produced by the brain. These conditions are not necessarily incurable, and improvement and recovery is possible through more holistic approaches encompassing biological, psychological and social factors.'

.

 

I wonder if he is also getting mainstream medical doctors offside with his repeated publicly made statements that prolonged rest, social isolation, and sensory deprivation is the conventional approach and therefore by implication what they are and have been recommending?

These doctors can insist until the cows come home that their patients need to keep active and it will never be enough for PG. I guess he’s doing double duty trolling here and why not?

 

2 replies to Garner's Comment on the Telegraph thread:


1/ "Oh yes, Norway, where the Drs have fallen for mind/body 'cure' scams. How naive of them."


2/ "What a load of codswallop and wholly disingenuous of Paul Garner to present ‘prolonged rest, social isolation, and sensory deprivation’ as if they are treatments for ME, calling them ‘the conventional approach’, when they’re unavoidable, totally unwanted, consequences of the illness."

.

 

No forum-approved words for this one

 

Theirs has been the only approach for decades. In the report, it's explicitly why Maeve died, even though it falls short of saying it. No one who is in the right ever has to lie half as hard as this.

What nonsense to speak of social isolation and sensory deprivation as part of convalescence, when it's a consequence of illness. Might as well speak of the conventional treatment for the flu consisting of sneezing and coughing. That they not only feel the need to pretend like they're complete idiots is one thing, but that it doesn't bother anyone is so damn absurd.

 

This is his legacy. It’s not the glory he imagines it is.

 

Coughing and sneezing indeed.

 

The only good thing about this is that the only airplay he could get was a comment. If he's a Telegraph subsciber - that says alot!! There was a time he was doing hundreds of media articles either quoted or as an expert. At least in this media round there's been no 'othersiding' or BPS crowd approached. It just shows how far he has fallen -only kooky patient groups like Living Proof and 'free speech' groups will touch him.

 

I sometimes wonder if the most zealous BPS proponents were at some point in their lives the kind of patient that they see in ME/CFS patients. The one with false perceptions of reality, fear, and so on.

Or maybe the defense mechanism is rewriting a scary past into something that's not threatening. He wasn't close to lifelong disability, he just had a few silly months of unjustified fears and bad behavioural patterns and then pulled himself together.

 

I think it’s more the latter. I believe he has a relative who has had ME for many years, it was mentioned by him in an interview early on, but not going to discuss his personal life beyond what he has made public himself.
In any case, he’s paying a subscription to leave comments. Not exactly reaching much of an audience.

 

This has been happening for a few years. Sharpe and at least one more similar I think of, all they could manage is some lame quote as a comment on an article. Still, where it counts they're just as influential as ever so it doesn't bother them (yet).

But it is notable that I haven't seen much of Garner in the media for a long while on LC, a big contrast with early days. Amazing that this triggers zero self-reflection, but falling down pseudoscientific rabbit holes rarely gets fixed with reason or self-awareness. But Wessely was enemy #1 of the community for many years and he has done very well for himself, so it would be surprising for anyone involved in this to assume otherwise.

Until a breakthrough, their BS will reign supreme. It will be a very steep drop into irrelevancy, but until then they are dining rich on the throne of misery they helped build.