United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

Thank you, @adambeyoncelowe

Which is why I am in favour of a circuit-breaking robust transparent independent formal inquiry in the UK into this particular issue, with the power to order documents and witnesses, and interrogate under oath, in public.

This toxic defamatory shit is not going away until the accusers are required to put up or shut up in a forum where there is nowhere to hide.

This issue must be settled, and it has to happen now, not next century when all the guilty are long dead.

I know nothing is risk-free, but does anybody seriously think we have much to fear from this?

Few things could swing public opinion in our favour more than the vicous decades-long propaganda hit job on very sick patients by certain elements of the psych community and their allies being exposed for what it is.

It would also give the rest of the UK medical profession a face-saving out. They can pretend to be horrified about how they were lied to by their psych colleagues, and throw them under a bus. As can the UK political, business, and media classes too.

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back."
Leo Tolstoy

 

Thanks Lucibee for what I assume is your review. Really excellent. Gets to the nub of the issue in a few short clear sentences.
_____________________

I have been reading the acknowledgements in the book. It becomes clear that this is an SMC book, not just a personal account. On that basis I think complaints need to be made to the SMC board of Trustees.

From the acknowledgements:

One member of staff appointed in 2019 having included in his job description 'to support the CEO in writing her book'. She goes on to say 'Little did Alex know what a huge part of his job this would become... He worked stupidly hard on the book...I think there would be no book without him'.

She also thanks others who helped with particular sections. For ME/CFS she names Professor Carmine Pariante, Carol Rubra, Ed Sykes and Sarah Boseley. (see below)

And she thanks the SMC chair of trustees Jonathan Baker who urged her to get on and write the book and was 'the only non-SMC staffer who read the book before it went to print.'

Edit to add:

Carol Rubra
From Linkedin
Senior News Editor, Health and Wellbeing Story team, News Content BBC News

Ed Sykes
From his Twitter profile:
Works at Huma, formerly of the Science Media Centre and Babylon
From the Huma very uninformative website they are a 'Global healthcare company'
Sykes is their head of media and communications.

Sarah Boseley is the former health editor of the Guardian. In a 37-year career at the Guardian she won a number of awards for her work...

 

I'm now reading the introduction in which she says a bit about each topic covered.
Here's the bit about ME/CFS:

Not all the stories I have been involved in have ended positively or fit neatly into a wider theme - or arguably even our specific remit - but they cannot be left out. The SMC did relatively little on the controversy that arose when Nobel Prize winning biologist Sir Tim Hunt made sexist remarks... I ended up advising him ... became a major global science story... Conversely, the bitter row over research into [ME/CFS] is not an issue most readers will have heard about, but it contains important lessons about what we do at the SMC when research evidence and scientists come under sustained attack (chapter 3).
My bolding. The level of her certainty that she is on the side of science and evidence here is frightening. I'd like to ask her who and what convinced her she was on the right side here.

 

This bit of the intro shows just how shoddy a piece of work it is:

She talks about not keeping diaries, so what she writes is based on her memories which she acknowledges won't always be accurate, and she throws in a general apology to anyone who 'feels overlooked or misrepresented'.

'When I recently told a Home Office press officer that I was writing about the sacking of Professor David Nutt, he suggested I check that my version of events accorded with his. I politely declined his offer. This book is not intended to be an objective record of science in the media in the twenty first century: it is my account of my time in it. Or to put it another way - this is my book, and all the things in it are what I remember. Mostly it is about the people and the stories that touched, angered or inspired me, and the lessons learned from each, ...'

That reminds me vividly of some politicians' apologies. Completely hollow. She clearly doesn't care a jot about misrepresenting pwME, nor about taking sides so vigorously and getting her facts wrong in a way that has caused immeasurable harm.

 

The editor at the publisher is mentioned and thanked in the acknowledgements. (Olivia Bays at Elliot and Thompson) for 'a huge amount of time Olivia invested in transforming it from a book aimed at my immediate science circle to one that a wider audience might enjoy.'

 

That was the point I was trying to make. It's not just a personal project, it was clearly done as part of her job with the encouragement of the Chair of Trustees, so both she and Alex were paid by the SMC to write the book, and the chair read and presumably approved it.

 

That’s why it’s good to see considered responses like @Lucibee s draft. It’s very far from the social media knee jerk response that they might prefer.