United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

The annoying thing is that there is no zero star rating allowed.
So these 2.6 and 3.4 ratings should really be about 1.8 and 2.7 out of 5.

And of course one people might think it should get a negative rating...

 

The Science Bit by prof. Brian Hughes
'Cancel culture' paranoia and other right-wing hysterics reveal medical conservatism's true colours

quote:

Chapter 3. First They Came for the Communists: The bitter row over ME/CFS research

This is an outright attempt to diminish critics by juxtaposing them with the horrors of the Holocaust. The implication is that ME/CFS patients (and their advocates) who deign to object to medically obsolete treatments are, in fact, sinister malefactors aiming to overthrow the healthcare system by incrementally purging it of innocent doctors who just want to administer CBT. You know, just like the Nazis.

 

I admire the extended eloquence of my friends David and Brian.
I only managed a couple of sentences, but we are of one mind it seems.

 

Neatly gets around quoting that the overwhelming majority of the estimated 250K people with ME/CFS in the UK [2 million in Europe], and their families, believe I'm talking complete and utter crap and don't understand the basics of scientific methodology ---- presented like that it might just get the reader thinking!

 

Interesting find. As far as I am concerned this is accurate, the SMC is a PR organization, but here it's plainly stated. Not sure what's the source. Why does a PR organization have such influence?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1533203609839669252

 

What is quoted under Keith Geraghty's tweet is from Carmine Pariante interviewing Fiona Fox 31/5/2022



The same interview on the 'Inspire the Mind' Blog
https://www.inspirethemind.org/blog...iona-fox-the-head-of-the-science-media-centre

 

I'd be surprised if it means anything at all legally?

I certainly remember that we were warned re: CMA regs that you could no longer just use disclaimers to cover up not providing required information accurately (and we have to be able to reference any figures etc claimed)

I also note that when I looked up libel vs defamation, there was a point about how certainly defamation (would need to search further to confirm on libel) still applies where something is fiction but demeans/affects reputation etc.

 

That's interesting. Because it doesn't focus on the truth issue - but really emphasises that this is about the PR industry surrounding medicine.

If you think about it, from her and the SMC's job point of view, it is a fantastic advertisement. They are in PR and the truth seems to be that those with good, real scientific developments - or products that 'sell themselves' - or more precisely 'good reputations' are generally less in need of huge PR budgets. They also create fewer scandals to cover up or detract from.

SO if you think of this as a shop window for the talents in PR then one chapter would need to be focused on just what they can do with truth-reversal and 'handling a situation' when poor science is being exposed. And they've managed well to keep it distracted from - it's the exact same dead cat strategy they wheeled out first in 2011, and have used goodness knows how many times since then each time more real data comes out about the trial to 'change the narrative' to 'fake rumours about patients' instead of anyone looking at the data itself.

This chapter title is indeed a weird culmination, and might seem to be over-bold in putting it into a different medium where they are not hiding behind 'not being publishers themselves' (just pushing it to them) and 'only online'.

But I guess she boxed herself in. I guess when she got to that chapter she thought she'd been busy and would have a lot to say. But... the reality of spending over a decade PRing the same story that had been repeated umpteen times - even though the judge in the court case found they could only produce evidence of 'one heckle (which might actually have just been a question from an academic?) at a lecture' for that - would have instead undermined all the work that they had done. She'd be outing them as much as herself.

Plus if she wrote it was the same story as 2011 rehashed, surely that moment in court would become rather relevant for all the times it was re-PRed in the many years afterwards. Or maybe she never asked them - and still has never asked - and all this is what the woman has come to through believing what they've been suggesting over those years, and is from them effectively ? I'd love to know if she believed any of it or not (you'd think she'd have checked by the time it got to a book a least)

What do you do to explain 11years of doing that? You end up at a whole new level of storytelling via one mechanism or another... The bit I don't get is that this is a book, and had publishers and different obligations regarding regulation etc. So it has certainly managed to get me interested in thinking about that..

 

Yes, with this very telling response from Fox referenced earlier, confirming the SMC model is that of a PR organisation, albeit claiming to be a bit different to others:

And what's this about other PR organisations being all about promoting themselves? I thought most PR organisations were about promoting their clients, so what is so different here with the BPS ME/CFS brigade and the SMC? Even if the BPS people are not overtly clients of the SMC, there is a mutually beneficial relationship of some kind going on.

 

I don't know if she had other jobs elsewhere but I know that she started out doing PR for a college/uni. In that instance the 'PR dept' would be providing access to scientists in order to increase the profile and reputation of both the scientist and the organisation, and maybe to fulfill impact/engagement obligations.

Maybe she is confusing being 'client side' (as that was) with 'agency side' - and PR organisations with 'organisations who have PR teams' and the fact that the latter PRs for only the organisation for whom they work whereas the others PR for organisations for whom they work and have to PR themselves to get work. No I still can't see how what she said is accurate.

It certainly gets rather muddy and strained when she has been involved in BPS stories that diss other scientists

 

Not sure if this has been posted before:

Science Media Centre Promotes Corporate Views of Science

https://usrtk.org/our-investigation...dia Centre launched,to the group's fact sheet.

 

It's perversely ironic and backwards, as one thing that defines PR is roughly the same as a spy: if people know you did it, you did it poorly. The SMC always promotes itself, which is unusual in PR. But because everything they do is projection, they say about others what they do themselves.

Is there no oversight to this organization? It seems to enjoy a privileged status without any of the added responsibilities that should come with it.

 

A few pages from the book have been scanned and posted on Twitter

For what it is worth, I posted this

 

Looking “Beyond the Hype”: does this book contain defamatory material?

https://valerieeliotsmith.com/2022/...e-does-this-book-contain-defamatory-material/

 

A balanced piece by @Valerie Eliot Smith and I hope the ME organisations can produce a collective or at least a coordinated response.

 

I think the Countess of Marr and Carol Monaghan MP would be able to claim defamation. We, as a community, sadly, would not.

However, it would be the ultimate response to FF's silly scribblings if they were smacked down in a court of law. I would definitely chip in to support Margaret and Carol's case, if needed.

 

Here's my review of Fiona Fox's book. Please rate it as helpful if you think it provides extra context: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/review/1783966173/R1XYSNLD2KQJ38?ref=pf_vv_at_pdctrvw_srp

I added a lot that Fox (and people like Garner) haven't mentioned about the NICE process. I also explain why the evidence was rated very low or low, and why we made the recs we did.

Be warned: it's long!

 

But very good, @adambeyoncelowe. It should be hard to read that and not see what an idiot Fox has made of herself. No doubt some have the resources in mental acrobatics to not see but you have set the bar pretty high.