Professor Michael Sharpe

Thanks for collecting them - always good to see exactly what this intimidation and harassment really is. It's quite clear that the 'Actions of a man whose world is about to crumble' tweet refers to Sharpe accusing Monaghan of behaviour unbecoming of an MP, not Sharpe's question about what treatment 'activists' want.

I wonder if the journalist at De Monitor realises that Sharpe can block people from replying to his tweets. Not that it seems that they care about fairly representing even those who did reply.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1035936036201721856

 

Impossible to say who, but it's hard to believe that this was a legitimate journalistic effort. If so, that's almost worse considering how poorly researched and biased the outcome is. Hanlon's razor only goes so far, oftentimes it's a healthy mix of both incompetence and malice.

Wild prediction, but someone likely got paid to publish this, not necessarily in currency but possibly in some other form of quid pro quo. As legitimate journalism, this is just embarrassingly bad. It's clear that there is a pushback by vested interests to mounting evidence that national policies were implemented based on fraudulent research and piss-poor quality research in many countries.

Once exposed, many careers will be destroyed and institutions will face serious litigation, many medical licenses will be revoked and civil lawsuits will ensue. I'm not suggesting there is a conspiracy here, just people with aligned interests covering their asses against inevitable consequences. That's generally how this goes, people with bad ideas being promoted far higher than their skill warrants and having to bullshit way past the expiration date.

 

This looks exactly like smug, lazy journalists trying to put together the 'best' story they can to me. I'd be amazed if there was any corruption beyond their prejudices and desire to seem 'moderate' and 'sensible' without bothering to understand the details of the dispute.

 

The SMC know their target audience: smug, lazy journalists uninterested in looking carefully at the evidence. I'm sure that Knoop will have been happy to encourage those at De Monitor to absorb the results of the SMC's work.

 

Wow, it's déjà vu all over again. By March 21, 2018, the SMC had a "fact sheet" out that said:

By May 18th, after @Robert 1973 informed the CDC of the SMC's assertion that the CDC had bowed to pressure from patient associations, the SMC had quietly changed their fact sheet to read:

Of course, correlation does not imply causation...

Thread on this here: https://www.s4me.info/threads/cdc-responds-to-false-smc-factsheet-claim.4355/

 

Weird article. I didn't discern any arguments for or against the quality of the research or the validity of the findings. Just tribalistic emotion when it comes down to it...
Well, that is appropriate in a way; unfortunately it is an accurate reflection of the general level of argumentation from the 'pro-PACE' authorities and experts - 'If you're against us, the august scientific authorities, you're against Science! Therefore you are bad so we refuse to substantively engage with your criticisms!... Oh yeah, and, Think of the children!'

 

I'm not sure but I think it's the Dunning kruger effect. You read an article in a newspaper that you are somewhat informed on and realise it's absolute trash and the journo doesn't know what he is talking about; Then you turn the next page and read an article that you don't know anything about and have a tendency to assume it's legit as it's coming from a big paper.

I think journalism has become a right state, maybe it's always been this way except now with the internet BS can be spotted more easily? First comes clicks (does it generate money and get people interested?), 2nd comes does it fit with our news organisations narrative, and last comes the truth.

 

Fair comment. It is confusing. Most people, including many ME activists, conflate CFS and ME into CFS/ME. I personally do not regard them as identical as there appear to be some different symptoms. Neither did the PACE paper. But is a tricky area that needs clarifying.

This suggests the man really has no idea what he is talking about. There cannot 'appear to be some differences' unless you know what the two illnesses are. At the moment these are simply categories defined by criteria - which vary all over the place. Any different symptoms are just the differences in the lists in criteria someone has dreamt up. Sharpe gives the impression that he already knows which illness people have or what it is that the criteria are recognising. If so then he must KNOW there are different symptoms in order to know which illness it is. Again, it seems he has no understanding of scientific thinking.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1036883992216313856

 

wrt the selective quoting of tweets...

 

I agree with MS, it's just sad.

It's nice that he now realises this after doing it for so long.

Perhaps he could pass his realisation on to others, such as the SMC, ..........

 

Hell yea, its like a Wessely mini-me!

 

I misread this to begin with as "Well if going to pick off the elderly with the same bullshit is a different field then he has opted for a different field."

 

I head to read that about 5 times to see the difference @Arnie Pye!

 

Sorry!