United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

Wow scrolling through that made me so angry. And the number of contradictions are crazy!

 

Relevant since ME/CFS is generally categorized as a "functional something or another", lots of pwME have been misdiagnosed with FND, and the same is happening with Long Covid:

I guess "anything but psychologically driven" doesn't mean "all in the mind", though? There's no point giving these people the benefit of the doubt, decades of building lies only works to support the notion that this is what they believe. We even have their own words admitting that they settled on functional because it makes it easier to lie to patients, and it looks like some are getting bored of the whole strategy and would rather say the quiet part out loud.

The comment is about this paper: Functional Neurological Disorders: Challenging the Mainstream Agnostic Causative Position 2024 Scamvougeras and Castle.

 

I always assumed that Wessley and co. genuinely believe in their theories and that they are correct. But seeing this number of inconsistencies in their own theories almost makes me think they might have malicious intent. (I’m sure they don’t but it is not hard to imagine).

 

see
https://www.s4me.info/threads/nice-...s-now-been-published.6197/page-23#post-117533

they changed their definition of recovery (P. White):

"One recent focus of criticism has been whether CBT and GET can actually bring about recovery or remission from the illness, not just reduce the symptoms. And by recovery we mean recovery from a patient’s present episode of illness – which is not necessarily the same as being cured, as someone might fall ill again.

To address this we did another test on the data, and found that 22% of people could be considered as recovered with either CBT or GET. Though not a large proportion it was about three times more than the recovery rates achieved by the other two treatments. Other studies showed similar proportions recovering after CBT."

 

Neither can even do that. That's how clownish and scammy this whole thing is. We keep hearing about how the only thing doctors can do about LC or ME (or POTS, or IBS, or whatever) is to treat or reduce symptoms, but they can't even do that, and CBT and GET obviously don't either. It's so ridiculous how decades and millions of lives have been wasted arguing over how many twirls or arabesques or whatever can angels dancing on hairpins do.

In fact in the case of GET it literally makes them worse. That's how insane this all is. They're talking about imaginary gains while in real life it's real losses.

 

This is one reason the "recovery" paper is fraudulent. The protocol said "recovery." The paper is called "recovery." In the text, they acknowledge they are talking about "recovery" from the "present episode of illness." There is a word for that. it's called "remission." Remission and recovery are not synonyms. They did not include this caveat in the protocol and it is disgraceful they were allowed to change the definition of "recovery" in the paper itself. This is a paper about purported "remission." Has little to do with "recovery."

 

Here you go.

 

With the byline: Fiona Fox is chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society.

Fiona Fox writing in Research Professional News: If the Royal Society expels Musk, it could harm trust in science

 

Should a Science Media Centre get involved in politics then?

 

I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous these statements sound vis à vis the SMC (and her) actions towards ME. Not limited to her book where she made some astounding allusions w.r.t. pwME.

 

First, they came for the Musk apologists....

Honestly, this isn't even surprising. I saw this in the wild on Bluesky and thought 'sure, that tracks'.

PACE was a political act motivated by ideological hatred of the disabled and chronically ill. It was a political decision to reduce the benefits bill. SW and his ilk are where they are precisely because they are so good at playing politics.

You know what, I was going to rant about Fox's hypocrisy but its so blatant I'm not going to waste the spoons.

 

None of these old RCP crew can ever resist the whiff of a jackboot.

 

There are parallels between Fiona Fox’s appointment as director of the SMC and RFK’s appointment as US Health secretary. Without straying too far into politics, there are also parallels between the philosophy and tactics of the RCP/LM (of which Fox was a leading member) and those of the Trump/Musk presidency: post-truth, contrarian libertarian.

It’s notable that Trump has expressed his admiration for Viktor Orbán, who counts Frank Furedi (RCP founder) among his advisors.

Fox appears to choose to ignore the fact that the open letter is about Musk breaching the society’s code of conduct. If fellows of the royal society aren’t responsible for upholding its own rules then who is?

Written by a political activist with no science qualifications who is now not only involved in science but a spokesperson for the SMC and a member of the Royal Society, who appears to consider herself a scientist.

I note that The Brave Sir Simon has not added his name to the open letter (as of 18 Feb): https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/02/11/open-letter-president-royal-society-stand-up-values/

[edit: typo]

 

Probably not. Isn’t it just a Trojan horse? I’d love to talk to some of the old RCP lot.