Who is Simon Wessely?

alex3619 said:
Like they buried the fact that the PACE patients showed no improvement in fitness until they could write a paper giving a positive spin on it ... five years later. Suppressing data critical to interpreting PACE for five years is ... ?
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If it isn't academic fraud, it should be. They have deliberately changed, inflated, and spun outcomes to make a null result look like a positive result.

They have repeatedly advertised PACE as having a positive outcome to encourage the use of therapies that their data actually showed to be ineffective. This has a financial impact upon the NHS, it has a negative impact on patients, and it was done to boost their own reputations and funding.

Unfortunately this sort of behavior seems to widely tolerated in academia. Research isn't about patients or science - it's about the researchers, their careers, and the reputations of their institutions. Patients aren't the customer - we're the product which is being sold.
 
Valentijn said:
Unfortunately this sort of behavior seems to widely tolerated in academia. Research isn't about patients or science - it's about the researchers, their careers, and the reputations of their institutions.
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Sadly this is too much the case. Psychiatry, patients, and medicine in general, are ill served by this. However this is not entirely due to researcher misconduct, as the career, publishing and reward systems are geared to reinforcing this behaviour. Oh dear, sounds like something that can be treated with CBT, doesn't it?
 
Sean said:
One of the most self-damning actions from these clowns, most infamously in PACE, is that they ignore the outcomes on objective measures when it doesn't suit them.
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See also the 3 sets of null actometer results previously collected in other similar studies, that failed to be reported at all in their original study publications, and were kept out of sight until Wiborg et al, in Aug 2010.

RESULTS:
Although CBT effectively reduced [subjective, self-reported] fatigue, it did not change the level of [objectively measured] physical activity. Furthermore, changes in physical activity were not related to changes in fatigue. Across the samples, the mean mediation effect of physical activity averaged about 1% of the total treatment effect. This effect did not yield significance in any of the samples.

CONCLUSIONS:
The effect of CBT on fatigue in CFS is not mediated by a persistent increase in physical activity. [i.e. Their therapies did not increase activity levels, which as we all know is what Sir Simon himself, along with Chalder and others, declared to be the ultimate aim of therapy.]
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Note that Wiborg (Aug 2010) was published some time before the main PACE paper (Feb 2011), so the PACE authors would have known of this consistent null result before they published.
 
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When scientists can't get acceptance of their views amongst people within their own speciality, they often take their views to the public sphere, where they know other scientists can't as effectively rebut what they are saying, and where their views can appear to have more legitimacy. This is a common phenomenon, and I think this is the case with Wessely. Very few researchers that specialise in ME actually think it is anywhere near as psychosocial as he thinks it is, so he keeps on taking his views to the public, where he can get support. Scientists that actually have support within their specialty don't need to keep on unnecessarily going on about their personal views to the media.
 
"Sir Simon Wessely lecture
Tuesday 27th February, 17:30-18:45 2018 Newcastle University

The former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, knighted for services to psychological medicine and military health, is the first psychiatrist to become president of the Royal Society of Medicine. In this lecture he reflects on over-reporting and under-resourcing: whether over-awareness of mental ill health will sink an under-resourced service."

Oh the irony:
"
Get In Touch
Voice North
2nd Floor, Biomedical Research Building,
Campus for Ageing & Vitality,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5PL"

http://www.voicenorth.org/opportuni...gel-jacobson-lecture-insights-public-lecture/
 
Sly Saint said:
"Sir Simon Wessely lecture
Tuesday 27th February, 17:30-18:45 2018 Newcastle University

The former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, knighted for services to psychological medicine and military health, is the first psychiatrist to become president of the Royal Society of Medicine. In this lecture he reflects on over-reporting and under-resourcing: whether over-awareness of mental ill health will sink an under-resourced service."

Oh the irony:
"
Get In Touch
Voice North
2nd Floor, Biomedical Research Building,
Campus for Ageing & Vitality,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5PL"

http://www.voicenorth.org/opportuni...gel-jacobson-lecture-insights-public-lecture/
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I wonder if he is going to say more along the following lines ...

https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/psychiatrist-calls-for-rethink
Sir Simon Wessely, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told the BMJ that awareness campaigns “massively" expand “demand” on stretched NHS services.

“Every time we have a mental health awareness week, my spirits sink,” Wessely said.

“We don’t need people to be more aware. We can’t deal with the ones who already are aware.”
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Sir Simon doubtless sees suppressing public awareness of illness realities as part of his mission to save the country money :rolleyes:.

Edit: Brushes and carpets come to mind.
 
Barry said:
Sir Simon doubtless sees suppressing public awareness of illness realities as part of his mission to save the country money :rolleyes:.
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So it seems. Having had to nurse my wife with mental illness for six months I can only conclude that Wessely has no interest in ill people, only in himself. He reminds me a bit of Marie Antoinette in fact.

He also reminds me a bit of Lord Winston who very nearly made damn sure my wife and I had no children by vilifying Patrick Steptoe. Fortunately my wife and Dr Steptoe denied him the pleasure.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
He also reminds me a bit of Lord Winston who very nearly made damn sure my wife and I had no children by vilifying Patrick Steptoe. Fortunately my wife and Dr Steptoe denied him the pleasure.
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Winston's defence of Wessely et al in the house of Lords' debate a while back was just a straight reading from the notes the Wesselyites gave him, right down to the same words and phrasing. He had clearly not done a shred of proper due diligence, and instead had merely reflexively defended the establishment line.

Winston is a reliable establishment hack.
 
Sean said:
Winston's defence of Wessely et al in the house of Lords' debate a while back was just a straight reading from the notes the Wesselyites gave him, right down to the same words and phrasing. He had clearly not done a shred of proper due diligence, and instead had merely reflexively defended the establishment line.
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Yes, I remember watching that debate and yelling and screaming at the TV. Really don't understand how I managed to restrain myself from chucking it out the window! ;)
 
Sir Simon Wessely, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told the BMJ that awareness campaigns “massively" expand “demand” on stretched NHS services.

“Every time we have a mental health awareness week, my spirits sink,” Wessely said.

“We don’t need people to be more aware. We can’t deal with the ones who already are aware.”
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The irony.

I know a way to cut ¼ million people from the service demand at a stroke. Oh wait, if we also take out all the GWI people, and the MUS people and...

Why on earth try to hang on to people who have been mis-categorised, when there is real, unmet need for people who do have mental health issues?
 
Indigophoton said:
Why on earth try to hang on to people who have been mis-categorised, when there is real, unmet need for people who do have mental health issues?
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Their aim is not to help people, it's to "reduce the burden on society". They're really not achieving their goal with people with mental health issues. People with ME/CFS however they obviously believe they can achieve better results (for themselves).
 
If you can bear to listen:

"As part of Radio 3's Why Music? The Key to Memory weekend, Michael Berkeley talks to the psychiatrist Sir Simon Wessely. Professor Sir Simon Wessely is one of our most eminent psychiatrists: until recently the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, he is the current president of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Regis Chair of Psychiatry at King's College London.

An interest in unexplained symptoms and syndromes has led to many years of research in areas such as Chronic Fatigue and Gulf War Syndrome.

Simon talks to Michael about the powerful relationship between music and memory, his decision to study medicine rather than history, and how playing the flute once got him out of a tricky situation at Tel Aviv airport. He chooses violin music by Brahms and Dvorak for his parents, shares his love of opera with music by Puccini and Mozart, and tells Michael about his other passion - musical theatre."

https://player.fm/series/private-passions-1301177/sir-simon-wessely
 
Sly Saint said:
many years of research in areas such as Chronic Fatigue and Gulf War Syndrome.
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Well, I'm glad to hear he's only been researching Chronic Fatigue. Quite an unpleasant symptom. I'm glad no-one let him loose on a real illness like ME/CFS. Just think of the harm he could have done.:rolleyes:

Thanks for the information, but no, I won't be listening.
 
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