Special Report - Online activists are silencing us, scientists say Reuters March 2019

Reuters:

full article here:
eta: link deleted please use this one
http://archive.today/lwDNQ

 

Trying to control the narrative again......

 

@dave30th

eta: is this the slur piece?

eta2:
I think it is!! Oh my word.

 

Seems to have overlooked mentioning the many eminent scientist who agree with @dave30th and us "activists".

 

And if anyone ever questioned where Colin Barton (Sussex ME Society) stands:

 

What a relief that this is so weak. They really just have nothing of substance.

It does again show how personalised criticism of researchers on social media is used to distract attention from substantive issues, but I don't see any way of us controlling every persons stray tweet.

It would be great if I could control every patients social media post and ensure that not of them ever say anything stupid, but that's not the way the world works, and it's not what's expected of disability advocacy outside of the world of ME/CFS.

edit: Actually, I did read it knowing the context, and knowing how it was part of an attempt to manipulate the narrative. I can't really judge how it will be viewed by those who are new to the topic.

edit 2: I get the impression that much of the general public falls for the 'science' vs 'activists' spin.

 

As if that had been their wording!

 

Hopefully @Russell Fleming and everybody else at the ME Association will take note of this and have nothing else to do with this man, as they've been requested to do before.

As for the article, I don't even intend to click through to it, it's a desperate attempt by the BPSers to recover some/any of the ground that they are continually losing.

 

The silence from or about the south west is deafening. Was there an unwillingness to conform to the SMC manoeuvring? Let us hope that it is an indication of something.

 

How the hec are those tweets abuse or harassment anyway, it’s Twitter, the place to express opinion including contempt. If that isn’t the case about a third of twitter needs to be sanitised. There would have been a context, totally erased, if there was a genuine line crossing why only report cases before investigation. Jeus that’s a long paper, establishment protecting interests and bleating To play victim. Patients have tried to engage about the complexities with these psychiatrists so they are well aware of the reasons for opposition but our arguments are reduced in a deliberate way to rubbish them. The portrayal of tullers involvement suggests bias and a spiteful spoon feeding by those desperate to protect their reputations. They’ve obviously found a reporter able to be poisoned by their narrative, I just hope this isn’t going to do the rounds of the press In a co ordinated attack b

 

The author obviously did not even look at the well explained evidence showing PACE is obviously fraudulent or refuses to believe evidence over the spoon fed narrative from the PACErs. So much for "balanced and fair" coverage.
The funny thing is it would be great if the CBT/GET crowd stopped doing "research". We could only be so lucky.

Since they have reams of evidence of harassment i'd like to see it (since it *obviously* exists). Interestingly the reporter took them at their word and failed to realize (or didn't want to know) they lost in court when they could not produce any of this "evidence".
Finally i have yet to see any prosecutions, if they are under constant threat many people should be going to jail constantly.

 

I think an outsider reading that piece might wonder if the “activists” have a point!

The article may be slanted from the other direction, but it gives enough detail of concerns about the science, for the establishment of reasonable doubt on the therapies of CBT/GET.

Not all bad at all.

 

"It's still the same old story.
A fight for love and glory,
A case of on-line activists against scientists."

This is a familiar tune.

How is the author defining scientist? Is the implication the two sides can reduce down to Science vs. Anti-Science?

Not sure I want to be cast in that light.

ETA: This strikes me as a false dichotomy. Shouldn't the article be about scientists opposing scientists? Who were those 35 researchers or whatever that signed the letter supporting the International ME Criteria? On-line activists?

 

So I succeeded in refraining myself from reading the Reuters piece. Anybody saw who the author is?

Will try to not further comment the quoted bits (eta: because it would cost me too much energy to do so -- not suggesting it was generally not worthwhile to comment...)

For me, it is helpful to have known before that something like this will be published.

Thanks again, @dave30th for your work on behalf of sound science for ME.

 

Kate Kelland

 

I don't understand this, what do you mean with "the south west", @chrisb?

 

I find this piece very heartening. "Scientists" for the purporses of this article means "BPS activists", so it is wonderful to hear that that they are finding it hard to recruit new members and that their number of research projects is falling dramatically.

The writer ignores all the real scientists working on ME. This piece is so badly researched and badly written (its bias and manipulations are so easy to analyse and demonstrate) that it should be another easy own goal by Sharpe.

I notice that none of his abusive tweets are referred to.

That's impressive. What a shame the author wasn't able to write that he cut his teeth as a climate denier or anti-vax activist. She undermines her piece in so many ways. 10,000 people signed a petition did they? I wonder why. Any fair minded person encouraged to take an interest in ME by this article will find that they only have to scratch the surface to see that patients are right, and we will win more friends, as we have done before. Send them all to the virology blogs by all means Ms. Kelland, and thanks .

Vociferously. Nice.

 

Link to article using archive, as per Tom Kindlon's suggestion, so that it doesn't get the clicks:
http://archive.today/lwDNQ

Wonder if you want to edit your original post @Sly Saint to include this link instead?

Also #MEAction are proposing radio silence on this across this on social media, no sharing, no responding, no nothing. It's often us as a community who do more to boost this sort of piece in our outrage than anyone else. Hence trying a new strategy: silence.
Read more here: https://www.meaction.net/wp-content...tive_erroneous-press-about-ME-Feb.-2019-2.pdf