This.
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Who is Simon Wessely?
London gives Simon Wessely among 40 others another award for outstanding contribution https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/40...edom-of-the-city-of-london-in-group-ceremony/
ME/CFS Skeptic
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
What is his contribution exactly?
Utsikt
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
The page doesn’t even say which ‘field of business’ he belongs to.
It has absolutely nothing alongside his name under 'field of business', which seems appropriate to me.
He and his colleagues e.g. Sharpe etc have saved medical insurance companies untold millions by giving them a pretext to deny claims from pwME and LC. He has done similar for the state, and does similar whenever there is an environmental pollution or mass poisoning or 9/11 or whatever where people have long term health issues and companies don't want to pay out. Jolly old Sir Si comes along to tell everyone not to worry, it's all in their heads.
Dolphin
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Whenever this comes up, I feel inclined to highlight Peter White
https://virology.ws/2017/08/07/trial-by-error-retired-pace-investigator-peter-white-and-swiss-re/
We have one case on record (someone got their records under the data protection act):
https://www.s4me.info/threads/how-p...fs-such-as-the-pace-trial-investigators.8066/
He seems to have been a chief medical officer of SwissRe, a reinsurance company, for decades. The amount of claims he could have turned down during that period could be huge.
Yann04
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Isn’t that the company Sharpe infamously made a presentation to claiming George Monbiot was “spreading” long COVID, by writing about it.
Dolphin
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Sly Saint
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I was not aware of this and am horrified but not particularly surprised. This should have immediately disqualified him from running PACE. It's such a massive and obvious conflict of interest. But PACE was so clearly about getting one particular answer and bending the data to that end.
How many lives destroyed to save these companies and governments money? To prop up the careers of these mediocre frauds?
Adam pwme
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
New from Margaret Williams
“Over the past few weeks, “Margaret Williams” (a pseudonym) has been working on a detailed exposé concerning Professor Sir Simon Wessely. Many of you will be familiar with her previous work, often co-authored with Professor Malcolm Hooper.
A small group of us has contributed to the research, verified sources, and corrected any factual errors throughout the drafting process.
The document is now complete and ready for circulation.
It is intended as a historical record for the ME community, charting the events that led to the systematic erasure, redefinition, and dismissal of ME as a psychosomatic condition. What emerges is a deeply troubling account—a history marked by apparent corruption, institutional failures, and scientific misrepresentation.
While this document serves as a vital reference, it is not an easy read. The implications are serious, and the evidence points to a longstanding and deliberate campaign to distort the truth.
Please share it as widely as possible while you still can. As many of you know, Sir Simon Wessely has a well-documented history of threatening legal action to suppress inconvenient facts. The public has a right to know, and time may be short before attempts are made to censor or discredit this material.”
document
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/attachments/me-wesselys-words-of-wisdom-final-draft-pdf.55739/
source
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...-prof-sir-simon-wessely-on-me-patients.93394/
“Over the past few weeks, “Margaret Williams” (a pseudonym) has been working on a detailed exposé concerning Professor Sir Simon Wessely. Many of you will be familiar with her previous work, often co-authored with Professor Malcolm Hooper.
A small group of us has contributed to the research, verified sources, and corrected any factual errors throughout the drafting process.
The document is now complete and ready for circulation.
It is intended as a historical record for the ME community, charting the events that led to the systematic erasure, redefinition, and dismissal of ME as a psychosomatic condition. What emerges is a deeply troubling account—a history marked by apparent corruption, institutional failures, and scientific misrepresentation.
While this document serves as a vital reference, it is not an easy read. The implications are serious, and the evidence points to a longstanding and deliberate campaign to distort the truth.
Please share it as widely as possible while you still can. As many of you know, Sir Simon Wessely has a well-documented history of threatening legal action to suppress inconvenient facts. The public has a right to know, and time may be short before attempts are made to censor or discredit this material.”
document
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/attachments/me-wesselys-words-of-wisdom-final-draft-pdf.55739/
source
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...-prof-sir-simon-wessely-on-me-patients.93394/
Robert 1973
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I’ve not started reading it yet but I sincerely hope that this document is 100% accurate – that it doesn’t overstate or misrepresent anything he has said, or make any claims which can’t be proved. Anything else could be counterproductive – and potentially disastrous.
Utsikt
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
It’s too bad that they start the document by going way, way beyond the evidence in terms of what we know about ME/CFS.
Jonathan Edwards
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Yes, I am afraid that even as a stalwart supporter of people with ME/CFS I cannot face the idea of reading beyond the first page. On almost every count, Wessely was more often right than this.
Utsikt
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I think they would have done better with just a factual account of his actions. No judgement of how right or wrong they were, just a reference that could be used to counter convenient selective amnesia.
rvallee
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I'm afraid it's too late for this anyway. The original sin has been completely erased by time. Wessely is now completely irrelevant to this, it's old history. Not to us, but as a whole, he's just a cog in a large, very dysfunctional, machine. We can see that machine in action with Long Covid, and it's a disaster.
Wessely may have developed an irrational obsession with us, but I'd say that about 95% of physicians given the task to look at us, at the time or even now, would have concluded all the same things, and it would have happened most of the same ways. That may be the most ironic thing about it, that he was an absolute jerk about us, and it was all for nothing. He could have simply done his first few things, let it go, and everything would have fallen into place the same way.
Things now are a lot like Richard Horton's major error with the MMR paper. He launched the antivaccine movement with his irrational obsession, but the complete botching of COVID has already superseded it, made it a distant blip of almost no concern. The conspiracy fantasy communities would have likely latched on to similar things, and ended up at the same place regardless. It's not as if they need strong foundations to build a fantasy, and frankly, medicine is not that much different, they just as well fill the voids left by their ignorance with weird superstitious nonsense.
Anyway most of the ideas Wessely pushed were already decades old. He didn't even come up with anything new, he just happened to be more politician, a backbencher but still, than physician. And since medicine, and health care, are very political, political ideas always have a strong influence. I don't think things would have been all that much difference without any of those jerks. Maybe it would have been other jerks. Maybe it would have just naturally morphed into most of this anyway.
It's not as if their evidence is compelling. It really isn't. In fact it's completely laughable, so I place most of the blame on the institutions. They are the ones who failed us, not the wolves in sheep's clothing who put together some of that nonsense.
Sparkly Unicorn
Established Member (Voting Rights)
I can understand why they thought the piece should be thorough, but not sure if trying to prove what ME is biologically is needed here. It's easy to go off on tangents as it's all so connected. But just focusing on a timeline of Wessely's involvement in ME would make it more readable & impactful.
Still appreciate the effort and intention behind it though. It might have a good knock on effect somewhere?!
Still appreciate the effort and intention behind it though. It might have a good knock on effect somewhere?!
Utsikt
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I can’t say the same for their intention, because this isn’t about documenting what has happened - it’s a targeted attack. There is virtually zero upside here, and a large potential downside because this is just giving them ammo for their narratives about pwME/CFS.
MW's work is a mixed bag. Some excellent info and points and references in there. Best used selectively, and as source for other sources. Generally I would not cite them directly.
That said, I am grateful to them for their work. No doubt it is not fun to have to go through it all. Like all collation and cross-referencing, it can be very tedious and discouraging.
That said, I am grateful to them for their work. No doubt it is not fun to have to go through it all. Like all collation and cross-referencing, it can be very tedious and discouraging.