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

I take your point, but some of us do have our feet firmly in several arenas! I will do my best to persuade you I do know a bit about GM ( Monsanto tactics) and GM Watch's work!

https://www.soilassociation.org/new...evidence-of-health-impacts-of-very-low-doses/

 

I don't doubt that you do, but so do I. And I understand much of the science behind it (not just a bit). Biotech is our friend not our foe. I'm not saying that this area is not complex (scientifically and politically), but there has been a lot of misinformation spread about it over the years by certain "interest" groups.

If you want to take this discussion elsewhere (Convo), I'd be more than happy to tell you where I am with it all.

[ETA: Although I will leave this alternative to Kelland's article here for consideration: https://allianceforscience.cornell....still-burns-witches-if-theyre-named-monsanto/]

 

Dropping it in the middle of the Brexit chaos was obviously a bad move, I'm sure most newspapers are far too busy dealing with other stories. Overall it's a bit of a nothing-berder, sorry for bringing politics into it

 

I agree with you, she does undermines her piece and glad to hear that they are loosing people in their filed. However, we know they have not gone just moved to FND like SW?

Do we know or can we find out if the PACE trial authors paid for the article? Should this be public knowledge if they did? They were discussing something similar on BBC radio 4s the media show about journalists pushing forward a topic or product and good journalists declare that they have been paid to write them. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00035pg

 

Good for us

 

As I understand it the New York Post is a tabloid style paper, but I may be wrong.

 

I think that also the difference between this and the last time this story was used, was last time the story was generated by the SMC so therefore they promoted it. Really this time it’s just a regurgitation with nothing new and they were lucky to get a long article and devoted journalist. I’m not sure it will spread, hopefully not, it’s probably already done an amount of harm.

 

Well, the Wikipedia article on the New York Post says:

This 1983 headline is fairly infamous:

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1106164738898182144

 

How easy it is to compartmentalize their own beliefs and actions

 

With themselves at the heart, our heroes really obviously.
I’m pleased they’ve acknowledge this and rebuffed it as it is news and important , the psychological brigade are obviously only interested in themselves and have the grip of influence still but everything is indeed moving around them sooner than expected which is scaring them.. I just think the Americans collaborations are much better than the CMRC which initially insisted we be a broad church, had a Crawley as top dog and has apparently only recently fully moved towards the biomedical research effort. I still think Action for ME are pushing the global thing instead of tackling the multitude of things in the uk that could be lobbied eg why did we only learn what GPs were being taught recently?, what criteria do they support, why Isnt there more push to get oxford criteria retired, why is severe care not bothered about, why wasn’t there attempt to get the Surrey CFS service physician led...

 

It looks like they quite carefully tap-danced around the issue to avoid directly disputing anything the article wrote about Michael Sharpe, David Tuller or the PACE trial.

 

Maybe, but focusing on the positives is not a bad thing.

 

I noticed that Sharpe tweeted that the "harassment" he alleges is common for scientists, essentially undercutting the whole point of the article, doubly so by saying it in the wake of an uncritical puff narrative published worldwide that repeats allegations that a tribunal rules to be grossly exaggerated.

Somehow, "some people are mean on the Internet" is not quite the impactful revelation they thought it would be. And by entirely ignoring the substance of the matter it really does not convince anyone who isn't interested in gossipy drama.

What % of ME research funding goes to this stuff again in the UK? About 90%? With Chalder and Crawley having a sizable share. That's some mighty loud silence. I wish one day I could be as silenced as these guys are, basically holding all the power imbalance and whining that making extraordinary claims with subjective, low-quality evidence, means having serious scrutiny.

This research basically suffers from Affluenza, it's been pushed and prodded by political pressure even after the bar was lowered so far it probably reached the water table.

 

It is. It's a Murdoch tabloid.

 

It's definitely very charitable to mediocre ideologues who need their research to be propped up and coddled since it can't stand on its own.

Suck at science? Can't produce real research? Managed to muscle through a turd across the finish line with political pressure but now it's far too obvious it's massively flawed? Let the charitable SMC help you keep your reputation intact by publishing PR puff pieces worldwide. Because sometimes you really have to drill in some people's skull that the emperor's new clothes are totally wonderful and worth every penny. That's the SMC promise.

 

Ah, I see. Thank you.

Now they have this article, they can use bits as "evidence" whenever they want. Very unfortunate, for lack of a more expletive description.

Re not commenting publicly on this article, MEAction has an excellent point. On the other hand, our community is always wanting good articles on ME. This is an opportunity to provide correct information. To say nothing to bullies and turn the other cheek doesn't work IMO.

 

Read the twitter mentions of any female journalist on any given day that they’ve posted a story and you’d find things 10 times worse. Oh well, good job it was a pretty bland and inconsequential article.