Professor Michael Sharpe

HMS PACE is lying just next to the Titanic.
Just because a few passengers made it into lifeboats and set foot in America, doesn’t mean it was a successful journey.
I reckon the FINE trial was Titanic, and PACE was the sister ship, Britannic. Britannic learned from the Titanic's lack of lifeboats, so they had enough and only 30 people died when it sank. Just as PACE realised if they kept their measures of success the same as FINE's, they too would sink, so they changed them. But PACE thinks it's the Olympic, another sister ship, that did not sink and had many years of successful journeys..
 

From David Tuller's latest interview with George Monbiot:
I wrote about this [LC] and I got a
lot of positive responses, but I also
got this utterly blinking weird response
from a certain professor Michael Sharp.
I didn't know anything about this old
biocschosocial model being pushed by
certain people, but he was one of the
big pushers.

Um, and he's he's someone
who's been absolutely rigid in and
unyielding in his belief in these now
completely discredited treatments, but
you know, he's just he he he just won't
back down at all. In fact, he doubles
down all the time. And he did this
extraordinary presentation to an
insurance health insurance conference um
saying the reason that this is being
spread is because it's being talked
about. And by talking about it, people
are spreading long COVID because then
then when people hear about it, they
imagine they've got it.

And I was thinking, well, I didn't imagine getting it. Anyway, the the prime example he
gives was me as a super spreader of long
COVID for writing an article.

>> There was a photo of your column. A
photo of your column, I think, in his
presentation.

>> That's right. There is a photo of me
with the mast head of my column and it
was like so what what I I've been
causing long co oh my god I'm I'm the
longco super spreader it's all down to
me and then I thought well well think of
all the all the issues I've written
about all the bad things you know I
cover climate breakdown I cover human
rights abuses I cover social injustice
or maybe I've caused all those by
writing about them so I mean it's
obviously mad you know it's obviously
completely insane but but it's like Oh,
you know, I've I've I've got to respond
to this now.

This I can't let this
idiocy lie from this supposedly very
eminent professor. And so I wrote to him
and said said, "So, how what do you base
this on? You know, you made all these
claims, including some quite specific
claims.

Can I see the science behind it?
Can I see your references, your
sources?" And and he he brushed me off.
And then when I tried again, he said,
"I'm terminating the communication with
you." And I thought, okay, very
scientific, right? Now I know who you
are. Now I know where you stand.

And then I started looking at it and found,
oh, there's a whole bunch of people like
you. There's a whole group of people who
are pushing this completely discredited
science. You've got nothing behind it.
You are absolutely no basis for making
these claims. And yet you have persuaded
governments to adopt your view as if it
were the scientific position. And the
harm you have done is incalculable. It's
not me who has been spreading great harm
around the world. It's you, mate. That
was my sense. And so that set me off.
 
There's a pattern emerging on Twitter / XCopy (no acc req) how Professor Sharp and others from the PACE trial brigade were actively trying to censor pro-ME/CFS reports:

Dr Keith Geraghty
@keithgeraghty
Oct 2
Great talk between @davidtuller1 & George Monbiot - George mentions an interaction with Oxford Professor M Sharpe of PACE trial, this same Prof phoned up my Head of Centre to complain about me writing about ME/CFS and critiquing his model - This was bullying and I also asked for the evidence, because my papers were factual and reviewed the science. youtube.com/watch?v=MaaeQ7cr…

Caroline Struthers@Healthy_Control
Oct 2
Lead author of @cochranecollab review of Exercise for ME, worked with PACE triallists, and contacted my boss to complain when I praised ME patients for fighting bad science, linking to this article, on my private FB page. Unexpected & intimidating statnews.com/2016/09/21/chro…

Dr Keith Geraghty
@keithgeraghty
Oct 2
wow what a pattern of behaviour from an Oxford Professor - perhaps its time we collated just how many times he did this, to whom, and how often. Perhaps this is an article for follow-up for Mr Monbiot & @davidtuller1?

Caroline Struthers@Healthy_Control
Oct 2
It wasn't Sharpe, but the lead author of the Cochrane review who contacted my boss to complain about me. She definitely collaborated with PACE's Peter White, and possibly Sharpe as well. I don't know that for sure

verenabee@verenabee
9h
I hope your boss stood up for you.

Caroline Struthers@Healthy_Control
8h
Replying to @verenabee @keithgeraghty@davidtuller1 @cochranecollab
She did! But she called me into her office to explain myself first which was not pleasant
Oct 3, 2026 · 6:40 AM UTC


Dr Keith Geraghty
@keithgeraghty
7h
Replying to @Healthy_Control @verenabee@davidtuller1 @cochranecollab
I too was called into an meeting and I was told I need to be careful- thankfully I had a good line manager at the time who stood up for me and my right to publish, however, the head of centre was the one who took the meeting - all of Sharpe's tactics were to shut down and intimidate other academics, often junior ones, how cowardly - how weak a scientist, rather than engage and argue the data and facts, like the best researchers would.
 
More posts from Twitter:
Dr Keith Geraghty @keithgeraghty
Oct 2
Replying to @davidtuller1
I wrote to Oxford University to complain, they investigated and said he had a right to phone up the bosses of other academics at other institutions, trying to shut down debate and stop published papers showing up how flawed his model and data is/was.

I said, its still a type of bullying, he published his papers, I published mine - this is how science works. Professor Sharpe doesn't hold to that principle - he only wants his ideas to be heard

Someone also posted a screenshot from a hearing from 2018:
Carol Monaghan
Interestingly, Professor Sharpe, one of the authors of the PACE trial whom I already mentioned, emailed me this week and told me that my behaviour is “unbecoming of an MP”. I say to Professor Sharpe that if listening to my constituents, investigating their concerns and taking action as a result is “unbecoming”, I stand guilty. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] If Members of Parliament are not willing to stand up for the most vulnerable in society, what hope do any of us have?
 
MEPedia collects some of these accounts and more on their page intimidation and pullying of PACE critics.
Wow:


Jonathan Edwards​

According to Professor Jonathan Edwards "If you criticize PACE in the UK, there is a quiet phone call to your employer and the next morning you are asked to a meeting to reconsider your contract. I get emails from people to whom this has happened. The only reason why I am the only UK academic to call out on PACE is that I am retired so do not have an employer."
​

 
Wow:


Jonathan Edwards​

According to Professor Jonathan Edwards "If you criticize PACE in the UK, there is a quiet phone call to your employer and the next morning you are asked to a meeting to reconsider your contract. I get emails from people to whom this has happened. The only reason why I am the only UK academic to call out on PACE is that I am retired so do not have an employer."
Anybody still in any doubt about what we are up against, and why some of us are so hard on them?
Naïve question I am sure, but how do they have this much power?

See also my questions about a certain person continuing to fail upwards despite so much debunking of everything he has ever touched
 
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Still no reason to start a legal procedure against this kind of bullying by Micheal Sharpe?

Where are the stories of doctors that were harmed by him?

And what about the backbone of the employers that give in to this pressure?

This sort of behind the scenes communication is absolutely standard in medicine and probably other professions. When someone is up for a job telephone calls and emails go round either positive or negative. When I was up for one post a colleague warned me that the prospective boss was warned that I would upset all the physios!

The behaviour I was told about here was totally unjustified but part of a general culture and not illegal as far as I know. You can bad mouth people as much as you like in private, just not in public.

I am not sure that anyone caved in. But nobody ever gets a job in medicine if they don't keep their nose clean when it comes to this sort of thing.
 
This sort of behind the scenes communication is absolutely standard in medicine and probably other professions. When someone is up for a job telephone calls and emails go round either positive or negative. When I was up for one post a colleague warned me that the prospective boss was warned that I would upset all the physios!

The behaviour I was told about here was totally unjustified but part of a general culture and not illegal as far as I know. You can bad mouth people as much as you like in private, just not in public.

I am not sure that anyone caved in. But nobody ever gets a job in medicine if they don't keep their nose clean when it comes to this sort of thing.
Does that mean: Hearsay has all the power?
Someone like Micheal Sharpe using his own training to threaten collegues with reputational damage.
A big thank you for not giving in.
You still upset physios, when needed.;)
 
My experience in 2002 was not "have you displayed avoidance?" rather it was "overall picture ME/CFS (no differentiation) so you must have displayed avoidance which we can treat". Has this changed with Micky's growing wisdom? He knew "the facts" decades ago anyway, with his businesswoman friend Frankie, so either the NHS was ignoring him at the time or the facts have changed or sth or he has changed his views. In either case is he now getting the fact out that ME is not CFS (what would that mean anyway?) and how are the conditions being differentiated in the NHS and are people being questioned before they "sail" as to whether they are avoidant or is it still assumed? Bit confusing so maybe belief can rescue us. Must ask Simon if in fact the Atlantic Ocean is moving while the ship remains still but no one will believe it so better [retend the ship is sea worthy and in any case whether it's still all metaphor anyway?
Implication of Sharpe is that while ME is sth else, CFS can be viewed as that which includes avoidance and can be addressed by CBT/GET. Is that fair? Maybe there are patients like that but does that permit the claim that that is CFS, any more than an LP/Mickell whatever success permits defining claims about ME.
Can't they just say "we can help a few people a little bit, coz there is some truth on what we say" like normal medics or does that undermine belief/hope, when it's more "healing" to get people to believe the coracle can reach New York if only they set sail? And any drowners can be said to have had ME not CFS. The parallels with LP are striking if one cares to tease them out.
 
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Anybody still in any doubt about what we are up against, and why some of us are so hard on them?

It's one thing to be so completely and utterly destructively wrong. It's another using all of your power and influence to damage the careers of anyone who challenges your shoddy, fraudulent work.

The psychobehaviouralists are the biggest crybullies in history.
 
On the off topic subject of informal conversations this sort of communication used to be more or less how jobs were filled “in the olden days”. In the civil service when I first joined they didn’t advertise except for new recruits personnel’s job was to move people around and keep a list of people that managers said were suitable for promotion (you didn’t actually get to see what the manager had said in your annual report about your promotability until they changed to what they called open reporting.
 
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Naïve question I am sure, but how do they have this much power?

See also my questions about a certain person continuing to fail upwards despite so much debunking of everything he has ever touched
It's not really that they have much power. It's that we have none, and the medical profession almost universally likes it this way. It's not just fair, it's good, to crush us. Hardly anyone in the profession cares about the career or work of any of those charlatans. What they do care is that we are annoying and best handled like Bigfoot conspiracy fantasists.
 
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