Forward-ME Group Letter to the Science Media Centre, April 2018

[Andy]

Forward-ME Group Chair, The Countess of Mar, has written on behalf of the members of the Group to the Chief Executive of the Science Media Centre asking for the SMC “to retract and replace your factsheet on CFS/ME, published on 21 March 2018”. The letter continues that the factsheet, entitled “CFS/ME – The illness and the controversy” “……. includes numerous inaccuracies and distortions; it denigrates patients and some doctors; it fails to reflect the numerous peer reviewed papers, published since the release of some of the raw data from the trial following legal action, which demonstrate serious defects in the PACE trial, and it fails to take into account the extensive research from the USA published since 2014. This will all have been available to you.”

The full text of the letter is as follows –

http://www.meresearch.org.uk/news/forward-me-group-letter-science-media-group/

This letter refers to the 'fact' sheet discussed in this thread, https://www.s4me.info/threads/scien...nalists-the-illness-and-the-controversy.3104/

 

[Sasha]

Excellent. I especially like the threat to report them to the Charities Commission if they fail to comply (though I'm actually amazed that the SMC are a charity - but it is).

 

[Peter T]

Thank you to Forward-ME for taking this robust stand against the misinformation and indeed downright lies in the recent SMC so called 'fact sheet' on ME.

For too long the SMC has been allowed to breach its own guidelines and act as a biased cheerleading section and apologists for the advocates of evidence less psychosocial models of ME and their profoundly flawed and increasingly unethical research.

Indeed this hastily released 'fact sheet' could only have been timed as a preemptive propaganda strike in relation to the Wiltshire et al paper.

The incestuous croneyism of a section of the British science establishment including some journals, some universities and the SMC (and the DWP and the Insurance industry) has no place in science in the twenty first century. They had escaped scrutiny by maligning patients and black balling young academics that pointed out flaws in their research, but fortunately this is now being seen for what it is.

Now focus needs to be turned on the associated clinicians that use threats of sectioning or child protection orders to impose medically sanctioned abuse on patients and children.