Who is Simon Wessely?

As far as I can see there aren’t any replies defending him. The original post has 78 replies and 7 likes so far. Ratios don’t get much worse than that.

 

While justified, would this be playing into his victim persona and persecution complex about us vexatious, militant patient activists?

 

I don't doubt the S4ME squad, if anyone has the spoons to write, I'm sure it will be polite and factually accurate.

I am however deeply cynical as to how any message will be interpreted and how our words might be potentially used against us. He has form, after all.

 

The quoted tweets are the nicer ones.

I guess the man who was the most hated doctor in the UK a few decades ago is still the most hated doctor in the UK. Having never budged from the reasons why he is rightfully hated, in fact having continued further into it. Funny how that works.

 

He does have form, but I don't think it'll be good for him if people actually started looking into what he's done for us so far. I'm also not even sure that we have to be polite. We've self-censored enough over the past decades and we still get dismissed by these people.

 

Now he has successfully positioned himself as 'beleaguered scientist who cares about his patients but is under constant harassment from .... blah blah' he simply uses all the negative posts as proof of it. I'm not suggesting people should stop, simply that the crit helps rather than hinders his reputation. I dont believe that will change until we are proven to have biomedical disease.

Absolutely agree, it doesnt matter how polite/accurate is.

His response will just be "see... this is what i told you would happen, i did win the Maddox prize after all, this is mild compared to what i usually have to deal with"

 

Yes. However polite, reasonable and well-evidenced a message, he will inevitably twist it into 'anti-science militant loony attack on beneficent scientist just trying to help those poor patients'. After all, this is the guy who claimed that a verse from an old Bob Dylan song quoted in someone's post criticising him on some forum years ago, was a death threat.

 

you may be right. i hope so

 

The ethics thing is concerning though, but more to the point quite a specific 'topic point' regarding what medicine regards as its ethics ie doesn't have to be 'just' about him but what has ended up being the change and orthodoxy regarding ethics - which they will be part of the system of doing to people (and I think that is what needs to be underlined to medics and future medics, that 'as part of the system' it will be them doing it sometimes/will also compromise them and change what they do or have to do or happens to their patients, and so they should be concerned to think about these bigger pictures and issues)

I read the Diane O'Leary threadreader: Thread by @DianeOLeary on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App

and thought it was good

It's perhaps an area that could do with being 'nailed' in the more specific in something that does co-ordinate everyone so people might look it up out of curiosity, and seems less generically 'man not ball' listing all sorts he has done and lack of suitability, and more specifically focusing on his particular brand of ethics he might want to institute vs what needs to be the norm/change.

It's a pretty important area for us ... with perhaps some pretty specific issues we need to bring up?

 

PS I think the reason I state this is that many of us will be familiar with the irony that lots of people who study or are leaders in the theory of ethics do not need to be ethical people themselves at all.

With regards 'who gets any rights' and ethics for human beings this is highly pertinent and needs to not get bundled up with the mixed message of 'and the speakers also an arse' I think.

Because 'dangerous' requires quite a different level of action (and consider what you want to be involved in etc) for bystanders vs disliked. And scarily people will still err on inaction if they can manage to think its not the topic we are talking about today, or somehow isn't their business.

Quite how we get that right to bring across the level of the issue to the topic is a different thing given how much material he gives us to sift through on both counts.

And the way he brushes off these things with the 'not everyone can be liked' type tosh is probably akin to how many in medicine will have colleagues who aren't nice people in many ways, but because they work with them they have to see the virtues and say 'but if your heart was on its last legs they'd be the one you'd want' or whatever.

Which is of course wrong, because he's quite the opposite of this too: he's the man also doing harm with his medicine, who then started dissing the patients to undermine their testimony as a 'don't listen to them' tactic. But they'll be used to having to ignore things assuming it's that former (and 'don't get involved').

EDIT: And then you've got the bit beyond that which really is bang on the ethics of what he has done and where people's rights and safety etc might be involved, and what he would do in a systemic situation (where that expands to many, but also points to underlying beliefs of some having or deserving less rights or whatever the issue is) - which I suspect this lecture will be focusing on.

Being the person in medicine who is setting ethics is completely different however, and teaching ethics also. It's choosing who gets rights and who gets theirs and their safety infringed.

What he talks and instigates is as problematic as what he has walked. And there are bits of what he has walked that are directly applicable to what his underlying beliefs are to certain demographics. ie he has big blindspots that have been built into systems and implementations and aren't 'just small matters or foibles' to those on the receiving end.

 

I agree with @Solstice on the chilling effect we've had on ourselves and it changing nothing re: false accusations because the trolling trope has been convenient when bad research results need to be distracted from (and used as a filibuster to pad out their presentations from covering the detail)

I am however concerned about the 'noise' [of even though everyone has the same theme, it isn't everyone literally chanting the same words, so clashes into noise] - which works great for them, because noone listens to noise, but my goodness if there is one consistent banging tune going on outside that starts to eerily make a bit of sense as you pick up snippets of it here or there people eventually have to hear what is being said whether they are being put off 'from listening' or not. All of that is metaphorical of course because none of us can bang a drum and sing outside.

It's another case of 'good intentions' but complicated by everyone also deserving a voice and us not having one good organiser (like for example the Mr Bates situation)

But my point is these people are making up the troping not just to be victims but to cause a distraction from the sludge underneath their abstracts, so the noise rather does play into their hands as long as they can keep it as noise. Us changing to 'a tune' might* be heard even over their fake-troping noise they try to keep rolling out to keep people from asking questions at their presentations in the way people might at a normal presentation 'where the presenter doesn't have to rush off' or doesn't hog all the question time over that nonsense, but it's all there to ask about the methods and design.

I know it is near on impossible for us to pick simple messages to all convey, because even one core point is far from simple to get across given the twists and turns they've sewn us into, but we might get further if we do try and can work together to tick one off at a time.

And even if we went by the ones that will get through to the audience best and built from there then I'm sure it will be like whack-a-mole with them. or having a load of dodgy post-it notes that peel at the edges after a week.

 

This man's theories literally stole my life from me, and the lives of so many others. I was a writer before this and am now too sick to write anything about it. But if I had not been convinced to keep pushing after I worsened from mild I might have been able to be vocally critical of Wessley etc all. So their theories and the harm they cause are self defending because they take away the ability of patients to fully advocate for themselves and pursue legal options/spread the word about the harm they suffer.

It is galling that he continues to get away with it. Maybe after he's dead (of natural causes, wouldn't want to be misinterpreted) there will finally be an honest conversation, as with other powerful monsters like saville etc.

 

This.

I find this a very bitter pill to swallow.

It makes me so very angry that my life has and choices have been taken away because of this hateful, patient blaming approach

To add further insuIt to injury, we have to learn how to accept the unacceptable and unjust of diminished lives and stunted potential, while this approach continues to be funded and blocks potentially beneficial research.

To pour salt in the wound I also spend what limited energies I do still have try working to undo the harm this approach has caused.

I genuinely hope that one day this whole debacle will be consigned to history and science and truth will prevail.

It may not be perfect, but HIV got there eventually along with medical mesh, tainted blood and the Post Office, which gives me a candle flicker of light in this darkness that is IS possible.

I am very grateful when others tell me they are still angry as it helps to know that others find it hard to accept the unacceptable too.

 

I would say this man's theories have been uniquely damaging in history of medicine and his papers destroyed my life in many indirect ways.

 

I wouldn't say that he as an individual has been uniquely damaging, but the ideology behind his work has. He's just been one of the more effective zealots, but I think the HIV/Aids community has suffered similar for instance. The ideology is something I intend to keep fighting even if my health were fully restored by tomorrow.

 

But they are not his theories just dressed up ancient garbage .new wine in old bottles you have to remember he is just one of the lapdogs used by the insurance industry and governments alike it has always been about money .