Who is Simon Wessely?

Andy said:
Uh oh @Trish , you're in trouble for having an opinion...





And, if I'm understanding correctly, they are trying to warn me, a co-founder and committee member of the forum, of the evils of this forum by tagging the forum Twitter account....

"CFS/ME Research", thank you for your concern, but I, and the people who I work with on the DecodeME project (which is where I'm assuming you have discovered my name), are well aware of what the forum is like - Prof Chris Ponting is a member here, we have conducted a Q&A with him, and the UK ME/CFS Biobank (CureME) team also are a member here, and we have held two Q&A sessions with them, Q&A 1 and Q&A 2. So I'm not sure they would agree, and I definitely would disagree, that the forum should be avoided.
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For people who find the ME patient community deplorable, they sure do pay a lot of attention to us. We knew Wessely reads the forum, at least sometimes. It seems interest is a bit more widespread.

Quacks get called out. It comes with the territory. Don't like being called a quack? Don't be one, it's that simple. Don't lie. Don't defraud. Don't arrogantly make stuff up. Oh, and don't be massively disrespectful. You don't get respect in return for being disrespectful, unethical and generally causing harm to millions based on delusional fantasies. It's very easy to bully sick people. We won't be sick forever, and there will be lawsuits.
 
Thank you @Trish for writing so beautifully and speaking up. I wish I could write like that. Those words describe exactly how I feel.

The user on Twitter is a troll. Best to ignore and not feed a troll. I saw many engage when they first appeared on Twitter but it never leads anywhere. Not worth the effort.
Trish said:
They have got stellar careers on the back of increasing the suffering of thousands. I lie in bed most of every day feeling very ill, with my daughter lying in the bedroom across the hallway from me the same, her life ruined before it even got started by this damned illness.
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This reminds me that so many of us here are so very very ill. How can they not see this.

I've been lucky enough to engage with a few researchers who all have made a point to listen and try and understand what I go through. I see them become more motivated in their work to try and help us. I just don't understand the mentality of the BPS crowd and why this never happened for them. Why do they think they know better than us.

I want to say more, a lot more, but the words don't come. So thanks again @Trish
 
For me reading cfs/ME's post sounded like the posting of desperation.

It's no accident that he focussed on the two possible bright spots happening for PwME at the moment -- the Larun exercise review (Hilda Bastian) and the GWAS study (Andy).

It seems like sour grapes that PwME are getting that kind and level of attention. Those two things more than much anything else currently are bound to impact the BPS bottom line.

Thus the lashing out.

Also, it is true that not all people here are able to contribute by creating posts that properly analyse a piece of research. I am among this group. Some venting also takes place. Focussing on that deflects from any honest engagement of the real issues.
 
SW is someone of whom it might be said that it is not always easy to know what he is saying from what he says. Much digging around the periphery is always required. It is almost never clear whether all the words and citations are there to reveal his opinions or to conceal them.

We all know his 1989 paper with David, Chalder and Butler. I have come across a complementary article in the MEA Newsletter for Summer 1989
entitled A Positive Approach to ME by Chalder and Butler. Perhaps the most revealing aspect is that they mention two papers as being worthy of the readers attention. These must be assumed to be the core of the approach, something which may not have been clear from the full paper. The papers are

Straus SE The Chronic Mononucleosis Syndrome 1988 Journal of Infectious Diseases Vol 157 405-412 and
Stokes MJ et al 1988 Normal Muscle strength and fatiguability in patients with effort syndromes BMJ vol 297 1014-1017

Don't be misled by the Stokes name. It involves our old friend Edwards (RMT that is).

Now we know that Straus indicated that Royal Free Disease or ME was hysteria. Had not M and B proved the point? He had concluded that Imboden Canter and Cluff and some loopy paper from 1959 on glandular fever held the key to the disease.

The Stokes at al paper concluded that, based on their heterogeneous group Of "Effort Syndrome" patients, "an integrated approach giving advice on exercise as well as psychological support seems most helpful in returning these patients to normal functioning". Mary Sullivan writes in the Autumn edition that "I know this to be untrue since I was one of the patients included in the study and despite such an approach remain chronically ill".

There is clearly more to the story than meets the eye. As is so often the case.

I will try to post copies, but am not yet set up to do so.
 
This explains so much:



Yes, other people's lives are "important" but won't somebody think of the shopping experience of privileged people? No surprise these people place their egos above the lives of millions. This is unhinged behavior.

The projection is amazing, seeing other people wearing masks induces a sense of panic? Good grief get over yourself, this is literally the tiniest sacrifice anyone has ever had to do against a massive threat. And there will likely never be a smaller sacrifice to be made.

This makes me very concerned about how we're going to survive climate change if the smallest tiniest bit of personal "sacrifice" has such a hostile response from prominent experts in the relevant field.
 
Wasn't there a behavioural scientist on SAGE who said the real problem with catastrophes is that people don't panic enough and screw up as a result?

We watched the first two episodes of The Salisbury Poisonings last night. It was intriguing to see how well specialist emergency services can function in a health care crisis in the UK. They can identify an almost unidentifiable nerve agent within days. They can shut down an entire town. They can clean up a contaminated area and almost completely avoid deaths. (The portrayal of Dawn Sturgess is sympathetic and tragic.) Busibodies from Whitehall can be sent packing if people locally are committed to doing their job.

What went wrong this time, er Dr Gerada? Did some hobnobbing people in London trash the system?
 
According to his King College London web page “His research interests are in the grey areas between medicine and psychiatry, clinical epidemiology, psychiatric injury and military health ... has covered epidemiology, post traumatic stress, psychological debriefing, chronic fatigue syndrome, history, chronic pain, somatisation, Gulf War illness, military health and terrorism”. Wessely has published extensively on M.E/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, researching “many aspects of the illness, including biochemistry, epidemiology, history, immunology, neuroimaging, neurology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, virology and other areas”.[1]
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Wessely has had grant funding of over £18,000,000 during his career. [4] Funders of his research include the Wellcome Trust, Department of Health, MRC, Institute of Social Psychiatry, the European Commission, National Institute of Health Research, Health Protection Agency, ESRC, Royal College of Psychiatrists. [5]
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Science Media Centre
Wessely was a member of the scientific advisory board between 2002-2012. Funders that Wessely has professional links to include The Wellcome Trust, MRC, King’s College London, ESRC, Mebtal Health Foundation and the Mental Health Research Network.
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Wessely was the first recipient of the Maddox Prize in 2012, Sense about Science’s new award presented for “Standing up for Science”. Wessely was chosen for “his ambition and courage in the field of ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) and Gulf War syndrome, and the way he has dealt bravely with intimidation and harassment when speaking about his work and that of colleagues.” [6] Wessely is also a trustee of Sense about Science. [4]
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Gulf war syndrome
Wessely co-authored a report in 2002, based on research conducted at the Gulf War Illness Research Unit [GWIRU] which he set up. The research was funded by the Ministry of Defence and concluded that “health problems reported by veterans could not be blamed on vaccines used during the 1991 war”. Wessely, said that the research made it clear that the health effects suffered by soldiers who served in the 1st Gulf War were not associated with the brain or nervous system although veterans of Opertaion Desert Storm had poorer health than veterans of other conflicts. Wessely was quoted in the press as saying: "There is no smoking gun," he said. "There is no new disease that causes Gulf War Syndrome. There is a Gulf War health effect."
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Wessely has elsewhere said that mental health problems in all ex-military personnel is minimal, with 20% experiencing some psychological disturbance caused by missing the “camaraderie and support of life in the forces”, with only 3% developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and this isn’t caused by what they have seen or done in combat but rather "it's errors of omission or commission that lead to mental health problems - the feeling that they have let the side down or that they have been let down. He also listed inadequate downtime between spells of active duty and a difficult childhood as contributory factors. [14]
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The dearth of funding into the causes of CFS in the last 15 years has led some to criticise Wessely and his research as a contributory factor. [16] Wessely has said he has been “harassed, stalked and intimidated by fanatical lobby groups that dispute his findings”. [15]He stopped working in the field of CFS research over 10 years ago, but remains a central figure and his research is still quoted frequently in media articles.
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Wessley has been on the committees of numerous grant-giving bodies, including Medical Research Council, Wellcome, Mental Health Foundation, Guy’s and Saint Thomas’ Charity Special Trustees.
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https://powerbase.info/index.php/Simon_Wessely
(last updated in 2015)
info on powerbase
https://powerbase.info/index.php/Health_Portal
info on spinwatch
http://spinwatch.org/index.php/about/who-we-are
 
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