#MEAction: A response to Dr Mark Porter’s article about ME in The Times

https://www.meaction.net/2019/03/25/a-response-to-dr-mark-porters-article-about-me-in-the-times/

I actually started writing the article as a post on S4ME but as it got longer I decided to submit it as an article for #MEAction.

If you feel I’ve overlooked anything I should have mentioned, or got anything wrong, please leave comments under the article, which I hope Dr Porter will read.

@Dx Revision Watch I belatedly realised that I hadn’t mentioned the point you’ve raised eslewhere about the benefits of getting a diagnosis for children at school etc. Please feel free to add something about this as a comment.

 

Great @Robert 1973! Particularly liked this quote:

It says so much about this disease with very few words.

I hope that Dr Porter will read it.

 

An excellent response, it deserves to be widely read. Is it linked to in a comment on the original article?

Thank @Robert 1973

 

Great article, @Robert 1973.

 

If someone could add a comment below the Times article with a link to my article that would be very helpful.

Meanwhile...
https://twitter.com/user/status/1110488020732596231

https://twitter.com/user/status/1110513115769253888

 

Have just replied to the above tweet ...if the article is about chronic fatigue, then why is the headline "Treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome...?"

 

The stock answer to that is probably that the title is written by a sub-editor. We shall see.

 

Agreed it's an excuse, but it's not a valid one.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1110562415979216902


"But am leaving chat now as day job to do.", what an arrogant comment. I used to have a day job, but medical 'professionals' conflating CF with ME enabled me in ruining what health I did have left by overexerting myself.

ETA: replaced my rule breaches with more suitable language.

 

His next response. Ugh. "have a day job". I guess correcting mistakes in his own reporting is just a hobby and misleading medical information could not possibly be important, or whatever.

A little knowledge... as always. He seems confident enough in his knowledge to publish an article about it, but being accurate isn't terribly important. I guess that it's fitting that this is basically the most positive piece of coverage so far, mediocre but at least not flat-out insulting.

 

Seems to have picked up the BPS habit of "have you read the paper/did you read the whole thing..."

 

Why bother doing this article at all knowing how badly newspapers get things? Also why hasn't he commented on Sharpes attack on patients and whether he was talking about ME CF CFS Hepatitis or anything else how can he not address the PACE trial fiasco that is at the centre of this engineered hit piece by the BPS crowd.

 

To be fair, healthy people do have to stop tweeting to go and do day jobs, so I wouldn't take offence at it. His newspaper articles are a sideline.
As to 'have you read my article' type comments, I've come to think that quite a few people don't read things properly before commenting on things, as btl comments for online articles often demonstrate. He's probably used to that as any columnist will be, and that may have happened with this article. (I'm not referring to anyone here, or Rob's response.)

However, that doesn't explain away the issues with his piece.

 

An example of why disinformation like Porter's can be so harmful
https://twitter.com/user/status/1110511276394975234

 

Dreadful state of affair when members of the general public are fed a story about chronic fatigue and fail to understand that it was never about chronic fatigue syndrome. How can doctor/journalists be protected from such ignorance?

 

"Ive already got a very lucrative day job and the celebrity commentary moonlighting I do isn't even my own words cos the editor changes it all, which doesn't matter even though the editor isn't a doctor, doesn't fact check or have any journalistic integrity and likes stories to be run from a sensationalist viewpoint, I am admitting to knowing this but still continue to do such work cos its double bubble, two paychecks, Whoopee!!"

If he is so worried about the way editors change articles why doesn't he just publish his own articles online on his own FB page, blog or other?

Let me guess, he wouldn't get remunerated for that.

Its just laughable after such an admission that David Tuller taking complete responsibility for his own statements, was the one who got criticised for making a living from fact checking, citing, sourcing information, obtaining data, scrutinising the data whilst holding both sides of an argument to account, offering equal comment from all parties.

 

Well. this is ironic! "outcome switching"......or "moving the goal posts'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003jhq


Inside Health
Moving the goalposts in research,.......??????


or being a busy bee covering both sides of a known problem.........shame about Ben G though....