Buzzfeed News - A Controversial Therapy For ME Has Led To Claims Of Death Threats, Harassment, And Pseudoscience

OMG when I saw the title of this thread I was prepared to see another total shitfest of SMC propaganda.
Between this article, Tuller's dogged persistence, and Jen's epic tweeting, I dunno how much shit EC's spade
will be able to throw any more. Bravo everyone, BRAVO!
 
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Rick Sanchez said:
Mega awkward
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:D

Daisymay said:
I find this comment from Professor Bishop deeply depressing and shocking.

For goodness sake Professor Bishop, the safety and care of children with ME takes precedence over the career and feelings of any scientist. If the research is seriously flawed, "mega-placebo effect", speak out to the powers that be, not some mere comment in Buzzfeed. That's not good enough.

You're an Oxford professor, you have a duty to protect the children, not Professor Crawley and not yourself!
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This, to the power of a gazillion. One of the most important responsibilities and obligations of all those with professional expertise of any kind (from tradespeople to senior professors) is to make sure their fellow professionals don't stray from the path, and call them out when they do.

Luther Blissett said:
Thanks to everyone who made the article happen. (Whether seen or unseen)

I liked the way the piece is written. Lots of interesting information but edited down to manageable chunks.
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Seconded. Might just be the author's style, or the magazine's editorial style, but it made it easy to read. Frequent, well placed paragraph breaks are an essential part of the journalist's art.
 
I only read the article after seeing all the praise here, so I was a bit disappointed by it. It was still good, and another step in the right direction, but I found it annoying that the 'harassment' stuff didn't include reference to the PACE tribunal ruling, or any of the other things that, at least partially, undermine that harassment narrative that some people are pushing.

Given the context, I'm not sure what I thought of this quote from Reingold: “Both UC Berkeley and the University of Bristol believe strongly in the principles of academic freedom and the ability to engage in robust scientific debate. The two universities are also interested in seeing that such debates occur in a civil manner so that the genuine issues of scientific discovery and research methods are not lost in arguments of a personal nature.” Bristol don't seem to believe that strongly in the importance robust scientific debate.

By far the best parts of the article came from Parker, Crawley and Bishop. Chiver had a big advantage over Tuller with being able to get these people to speak to him, and they all make SMILE sound worse than any critic can!​

All the bits from Edwards were great, as is to be expected. I can be surprised how little detail articles like this go into, so having an 'authority figure' able to make some very simple points like that is really useful and important.

I'm not really sure how other will judge this article. Compared to the BBC's coverage of SMILE, it was amazing, but was short of a vindication for the patients who'd been raising concerns about SMILE years ago, and had been accused of running a campaign of anti-science because of that.
 
Esther12 said:
but I found it annoying that the 'harassment' stuff didn't include reference to the PACE tribunal ruling,
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Yeah, that was a glaring absence of the most important part of the harassment/threats story.

Esther12 said:
I'm not really sure how other will judge this article. Compared to the BBC's coverage of SMILE, it was amazing, but was short of a vindication for the patients who'd been raising concerns about SMILE years ago, and had been accused of running a campaign of anti-science because of that.
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Its value is in the relative advance. This kind of media story would have been almost unthinkable a couple of years ago (with honourable exceptions).

But agree that there is still a long way to go. Hopefully Chivers will continue to follow it and fill out the details and arguments, and/or inspire others to do so.

I do think that reading between the lines suggests that Chivers is not impressed by the Parker/Crawley act, and was mostly giving them enough rope to hang themselves.
 
Esther12 said:
I only read the article after seeing all the praise here, so I was a bit disappointed by it. It was still good, and another step in the right direction, but I found it annoying that the 'harassment' stuff didn't include reference to the PACE tribunal ruling, or any of the other things that, at least partially, undermine that harassment narrative that some people are pushing.
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Agree. But it is debated on twitter with the journalist. Hope he digs further.


 
Interesting comment from EC "She added that self-reported school attendance lined up very well with the schools’ records of attendance".

This means that she had the school records, if so why not use them rather than the self reporting?!
 
Binkie4 said:
Why do we have to rely on US researchers to challenge Esther Crawley? I know they do it very well but have we none of the home grown variety to do it? Or have the SMC and bio psychosocial school got all the power wrapped up?

EDIT: the last question was a rhetorical one of course.
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We don't. Imo this latest salvo is hem chasing. The real work has already been done by a US/ UK collaboration. And very effectively. And continues to be done using point by point dissection of what Crawley has actually published. Hyperbole and dogged interrogation of her work are not the same (edit: as each other).
 
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Binkie4 said:
Why do we have to rely on US researchers to challenge Esther Crawley? I know they do it very well but have we none of the home grown variety to do it? Or have the SMC and bio psychosocial school got all the power wrapped up?

EDIT: the last question was a rhetorical one of course.
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Er, there is this chap called John Edwards quoted in the Buzzfeed piece a bit. I didn't see any US researchers mentioned.
 
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