BBC News: MP Carol Monaghan leads campaign for new ME treatment

Yeah, I can get my tone wrong on things like that too. I now feel like I've implied I'm ticking you off!

 

No, just providing a valuable sanity check .

 

Found the article on a website for locum placement
MP Carol Monaghan leads campaign for new ME treatment
25/06/2018

http://www.locumplacementgroup.co.uk/mp-carol-monaghan-leads-campaign-for-new-me-treatment/

eta:
"Locum Placement Group, is one of the leading Healthcare, Education and Social work recruitment agencies in the UK; and is committed to delivering exceptional service. We provide locum doctors, agency nurses and temporary healthcare professionals (AHP/HSS) to the NHS through government-approved framework agreements. We also provide permanent staff directly to the NHS Trusts, local authorities and the private sector."

 

Now that is one of the best indicators yet that the snowball effect is kicking in. Especially as it has that attention-grabbing "Future lawsuits" section. Seen evidence - after Carol Monaghan's Feb debate - of personal injury lawyers starting to get interested, which will add another dimension.

 

So I wonder who talked to who then. Beyond pathetic.

 

However, this surgery http://www.dromarasurgery.co.uk/news.aspx?p=Z00226 has a link to the BBC item in their news page (scroll down BBC Health column). In case it also disappears, I've saved it at https://web.archive.org/web/20180627213408/http://www.dromarasurgery.co.uk/news.aspx?p=Z00226. Maybe other surgeries too?

Edit: YES! Loads of other surgeries have the same thing! People more up on web technology will know the detail better than me, but it looks like the same standard news feed is available on lots of NHS surgery web sites (not mine, but its website is a bit old fashioned), so the BBC news article on Carol Monaghan's parliamentary debate is available to many ordinary surgeries across the land!

 

Cached by Google.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...r-new-me-treatment/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

I find this article pretty unhelpful. There is a major news story here and the journalist has completely failed to engage in the evidence involved. It seems that the press feel it is OK to treat health issues on the same level as food fashion and beauty care. It does not matter whether anything is actually based on evidence, just what is trendy.

Anyone from the medical profession reading this will think it is just some well meaning MPs failing to understand that ME is one of those things nobody knows what to do about - what's new? If instead it had been pointed out that 95 senior academics have written to the Lancet calling for an enquiry into how the research came to be published at all they might think something was actually new.

The fact that Sharpe was quoted and not anyone critical of PACE seems to confirm that the BBC is still unable to shake off its allegiance to Simon Wessely, who appears out of nowhere to brief them whenever there is the slightest whisper about ME. BBC journalists have been given the detailed facts and understood them. There are highly intelligent investigative journalists there. Yet we get something from a health journalist who makes no attempt to evaluate the material.

 

I think the bbc is only capable of recruiting at the bottom end of its profession now. The news service is particularly bad...not exactly Fox News but bearing sharply in that direction. Most investigative journalism and consumer programmes are highly misleading as if they have decided on the attention grabbing headline first and then twist everything to fit it.

Even when the evidence is presented (e.g. trust me I’m a doctor) you still get Michael Moseley or whoever posting his opinion contradictory of the evidence at the end.

‘There may be no evidence yet, but I’m going to .... “. etc.

Add this trash news policy to what is obviously an old boys network where truth is manipulated and you just have a pile of crap.

 

Perhaps channel 4 would be better placed ( through their generally less establishment friendly track record) to actually look at facts? They seem to like engaging in derobing emporers.

With the joke that is IAPT about to impact thousands of lives with little public knowledge that isn' t spin, it may offer a foot in the door given it seems largely based on the same research issues.

If anyone has contacts it may be worth sowing seeds...

 

no go I'm afraid (I've been trying for well over a year); they 'see no problems' with the PACE trial.
An old acquaintance is one of their reporters and was initially sympathetic and gave me some other contacts. But they can't/won't be swayed. (I think one of the problems is that they are controlled by ITN).

I was thinking about this last night as Jon Snow was really going for a US Govt representative over the current issue of taking children away from their parents as they cross into the US from Mexico, saying 'that doesn't happen here'.

And yet we have a situation here where very sick children are being forcibly removed from their parents care and their families put through hell.
Double standards?

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1012032600645554176


worth reading the thread to see how it came about

 

Maybe be of interest that Strudwick has said he was cured of ME by the Lightning Process, and promoted the anti-science harassment stuff about ME patients when people were criticising Max Pemberton's claims about PACE showing a 30 recovery rate (since edited in his article).

 

One day I hope to understand the mystery of what really happens when someone claims they've been cured thanks to LP.

Are they full blown delusional thanks to LP?

Were they were full blown delusional before, and LP is akin to fighting fire with fire?

Are they just letting themselves go to wishful thinking, hoping that it will cure them?

Did LP give them the motivation to build themselves a better life, which cured them of the mild depression that had been misdiagnosed as ME?

It is a mystery.

 

Not necessarily. He says he became ill in 2007. The Times article is in 2011. He may be just one of those who recovered within three years. Nothing unusual there.

 

Right. That is the most likely explanation.