Who is Simon Wessely?
Peter T
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
It is telling that he said “nobody really liked them”, not “no body like treating them”.
When I had a general caseload I did not enjoy treating stammerers, this was partly because it was an area of work I was not interested in, but also I was never fully confident in what I was doing. But I never thought that was a property of the patients who generally were interesting and likeable people. I hope I listened to their needs and agreed an intervention strategy that we both felt would be useful.
When I had a general caseload I did not enjoy treating stammerers, this was partly because it was an area of work I was not interested in, but also I was never fully confident in what I was doing. But I never thought that was a property of the patients who generally were interesting and likeable people. I hope I listened to their needs and agreed an intervention strategy that we both felt would be useful.
Chandelier
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Did you know that there's a Book-a-Wessely site?
I wonder why he decided to present this particular video interview front and center?
Is it because it comes with the most sycophantic intro you could possibly stomach?
Very telling how he used to tell the story that his greatest accomplishment is showing that CFS can be treated, but his crowning achievement is entirely missing from his own resume as a NHS bigwig, and when recently asked about it, in the context of Long Covid, which has made his "greatest achievement" more relevant than ever, he waffled a word salad worthy of a ten year-old doing a book report on a book he didn't even read, and he freaking wrote the book.
The Peter Principle in action.
The Peter Principle in action.
Last edited:
Where, somehow, his "greatest achievement" is simply reduced to "co-authored books about it". That's how you know the greats, they co-author books and such.
neurophusion
Established Member (Voting Rights)
Home > About us > NHS England board > Our leadership team ...
"Simon was a non-executive director on NHS England’s Board from 27 January 2023 to 31 July 2025."
That statement itself is on the "Our leadership team" page which still lists him there. So what is he still doing there on the list 15 months later? "Board adviser – mental health".
What cushy job will he be given when NHS England is abolished. It is being abolished to decrease bureaucracy.
Simon Wessely to Jim Al-Khalili:
"And because these patients were being seen there. I have to be honest, and say nobody really liked them."
I have to be honest, and say nobody in the ME/CFS community really likes him either. In fact, Wikipedia states that he has been described as the most hated doctor in Britain.
I remember reading that Wessely won a medal for his work on CFS. Wikipedia mentions he "was awarded the Jean Hunter Prize in 1997[citation needed] by the Royal College of Physicians". Imagine boasting that your proudest achievement is something which, err, earns you the title of the "most hated doctor in Britain".
Based on what we know now, if there was a physical medal, that medal is not worth the metal it was cast from. Being involved in setting up or administering a "fatigue clinic" is something which hundreds of doctors across the world have done without any pomp and show. Many "fatigue clinics" are just alternative medicine quackery.
The award for "standing up for science" was for promoting and defending a now discredited treatment, combined with playing a guiding role in the acquisition of CFS patients for the first negative XMRV study in which Myra McClure and others did all the real work without reward.
Then the GBE for his "services" to the UK, no doubt has something to do with cosying up to the British Army over decades, cosplaying as a military doctor in the green zones behind a military escort. There was something about how he advises against too much briefing after trauma in the military. He did also review the Mental Health Act, I do not know how good that was, maybe he did some good?
He complained that he felt safer in war zones than at home, all while avoiding going outside the green zone.
No one should have posted online the alleged video that Valerie Eliot Smith saw, but comparing us to being worse than actual war zones or insulting Islamists, both of which has resulted in actual deaths, was a disgusting tactic to smear us, which gullible people regurgitated and called us the "terrorists of health".
How do we know the video creator had anything to do with ME/CFS? Who would be more likely to make threats, Gulf War veterans or civilians with ME/CFS? He admires the military, but he does not see GWS as a discrete entity and conflates it with CFS, so I doubt he has much respect for veterans with GWS.
"Simon was a non-executive director on NHS England’s Board from 27 January 2023 to 31 July 2025."
That statement itself is on the "Our leadership team" page which still lists him there. So what is he still doing there on the list 15 months later? "Board adviser – mental health".
What cushy job will he be given when NHS England is abolished. It is being abolished to decrease bureaucracy.
Simon Wessely to Jim Al-Khalili:
"And because these patients were being seen there. I have to be honest, and say nobody really liked them."
I have to be honest, and say nobody in the ME/CFS community really likes him either. In fact, Wikipedia states that he has been described as the most hated doctor in Britain.
I remember reading that Wessely won a medal for his work on CFS. Wikipedia mentions he "was awarded the Jean Hunter Prize in 1997[citation needed] by the Royal College of Physicians". Imagine boasting that your proudest achievement is something which, err, earns you the title of the "most hated doctor in Britain".
Based on what we know now, if there was a physical medal, that medal is not worth the metal it was cast from. Being involved in setting up or administering a "fatigue clinic" is something which hundreds of doctors across the world have done without any pomp and show. Many "fatigue clinics" are just alternative medicine quackery.
The award for "standing up for science" was for promoting and defending a now discredited treatment, combined with playing a guiding role in the acquisition of CFS patients for the first negative XMRV study in which Myra McClure and others did all the real work without reward.
Then the GBE for his "services" to the UK, no doubt has something to do with cosying up to the British Army over decades, cosplaying as a military doctor in the green zones behind a military escort. There was something about how he advises against too much briefing after trauma in the military. He did also review the Mental Health Act, I do not know how good that was, maybe he did some good?
He complained that he felt safer in war zones than at home, all while avoiding going outside the green zone.
No one should have posted online the alleged video that Valerie Eliot Smith saw, but comparing us to being worse than actual war zones or insulting Islamists, both of which has resulted in actual deaths, was a disgusting tactic to smear us, which gullible people regurgitated and called us the "terrorists of health".
How do we know the video creator had anything to do with ME/CFS? Who would be more likely to make threats, Gulf War veterans or civilians with ME/CFS? He admires the military, but he does not see GWS as a discrete entity and conflates it with CFS, so I doubt he has much respect for veterans with GWS.
Last edited:
neurophusion
Established Member (Voting Rights)
Blast from the past (1998) ...
Hang on. I thought (we were told that) people with ME/CFS were primarily responsible for the denigration of psychiatry? What do you mean medical students hold psychiatry in low regard? /s
[Edit: Minor rephrasing.]
Hang on. I thought (we were told that) people with ME/CFS were primarily responsible for the denigration of psychiatry? What do you mean medical students hold psychiatry in low regard? /s
[Edit: Minor rephrasing.]
Last edited:
Jonathan Edwards
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Medical students tend to retain a level of common sense at least for a while. Psychiatrists were normally referred to either as trick cyclists or witch doctors by students in my day. My experience of my psychiatry attachment would make your hair stand on end. Jerry and I decided that it might be better to change the 'intensive clerking' on the timetable to 'intensive gardening'. We were et loose on children with psychiatric problems without any sort of supervision or idea what we were supposed to be doing there. I now realise that the whole thing was a pantomime and it certainly seemed like it at the time.
I've spent the last two days watching Poison Water and re-reading The Legend of Camelford; well it was all hallows eve! Well researched documentary, with some key contributors.Now on iplayer:
Poison Water
When tap water turns toxic in Cornwall, a public health disaster leads to accusations of a cover-up and the search for the truth. The story of Britain’s biggest mass poisoning.www.bbc.co.uk
I’ve not watched it yet. I hope SW’s role is highlighted. Regardless, I wonder if it would be worth contacting the film makers to see if they might be interested in doing a film about what he’s been up to since.
From the BBC website:
5 star review of Poison Water in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...medium=&utm_source=Bluesky#Echobox=1764202482
In 1988 it was believed by experts that aluminium could not pass the blood brain barrier; that pigs constantly walking into walls was due to anxiety caused by irresponsible media reporting, and that there was no coverup to protect water privatisation.
I wonder what a 40 years after the naming of this disease as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome would uncover?
bicentennial
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Just for starters, it could uncover the key contribution of a book publisher with a team of research nuts, maybe next year. "Anxious pig" still beggars belief. The deniable cover-up conspiracies pepper human history & drama, so conspiracy is not all "tin-hat" theory. It starts in the school play-ground, ends 80 years later.
Chem-trail trackers also had a thing about blood-brain barriers. Maybe the Kennedy nephew can take that up with NIH, next. But NIH is still busy with Long Covid (if not all its 'associated' similarities). I am sure the 3 insurance industries were vastly relieved by such attacks on shell-shock, E.lethargica, me/cfs, post-polio, severe dyslexia, adhd, then ad with no hd, no-smoking campaigns, ptsd, gulf war syndrome, twin tower illness, autism, long covid and now .. depression.
These intrinsic industries are military, commercial & government. UK's national insurance pays for DWP and-or the NHS. I am shocked by what Danny Altmann had to reveal - in an international symposium - about the UK's highly cultivated attitude to paediatric Long Covid, in all its research too. It does seem the same probably applies to ME/CFS research. It is time the UK caught up with Germany. Mind our 10-year plan. Never mind SW's "attractive idea more art than science".
So you see, re-assessing work capacity is artful. Backtrack on this video segment for a tale of "loneliness" on his campus, where unedifying sarcasm - instilled in and by an adept coterie of lecturers - fails to engender camaraderie in class so there's a lot of it about, this "loneliness". Simon says it can't incapacitate a work-force for study and work, and it needs "no anti-depressants", just psycho-social prescriptions for singing.. (& mindfulness but cheaper to recommend a church choir .. & bellringing).
Last edited: