Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

large donner said:
I think the people on twitter he keeps referring to as activists are extremely positive and are the kinds or people who have got us to the verge of positive changes despite 3 decades of being targeted by the BPS crowd and their negativity.

I think being on the end of their positivity is leading to negative consequences for him. That's his real problem.
Click to expand...

Think you got a point there. Destroying PACE is very positive for us and very negative for him. That's where we once again are at a stand-off. The one person's positive is the other's negative.
 
Nasim Marie Jafry said:
Dislocating though to see a medical professional spend last few months on Twitter insulting everyone involved w ME advocacy/exposing PACE and now opening his arms to understand us.
Click to expand...

The apparent change of heart is interesting. Maybe he's suddenly realised that his old mate, Simon 'I had nothing to do with PACE' Wessely, won't hesitate to throw him under the bus if things go really pear-shaped?
 
Michael Sharpe 2002, Functional Symptoms and Syndromes, in UnumProvident, Trends in Health and Disability 2002, Chief Medical Officer’s Report, https://web.archive.org/web/20030126154618/http://www.unum.co.uk/downloads/CMOReport.PDF, p.15-21:

p.18,
Psychological factors
Whatever their biological basis, there is strong evidence that symptoms
and disability are shaped by psychological factors. Especially important
are the patients’ beliefs and fears about their symptoms. Research in
several functional syndromes has found that a strong belief and
preoccupation that one has a “medical disease” and a helpless and
passive attitude to coping is associated with persistent disability (as it is
in recovery from acute medical condition such as myocardial infarction).
The presence of depression is similarly associated with greater disability
and worse outcome. Some persons appear to exaggerate symptoms but
this is often hard to prove.
Click to expand...

Social Factors:
p.19
Although harder to research, social factors are almost certainly of great
importance in shaping functional illness. Relevant factors include the
information patients receive about the symptoms and
how to cope with them. This information may be
helpful or may stress the chronicity of the illness and
promote helplessness. Such unhelpful information is
found in “self-help” (!) books and increasingly on the
Internet (see for example www.meassociation.org.uk).
Click to expand...

p. 19, Obstacles to recovery
In practice, even if treatment is available, there may be obstacles to
recovery. Over time, the patient’s beliefs may be become entrenched
and be driven by anger and the need to explain continuing disability.
The current system of state benefits, insurance payments and litigation
remain potentially major obstacles to effective rehabilitation. It is often
unrealistic to expect medical treatment alone to overcome these.
Furthermore patient groups who champion the interest of individuals
with functional complaints (particularly for chronic fatigue and
fibromyalgia) are increasingly influential; they are extremely effective in
lobbying politicians and have even been threatening towards individuals
and organisations who question the validity and permanence of the
illness they champion. Again the ME lobby is the best example.
Click to expand...


p. 21: By the insurance industry

[...] Much could be gained from having an early biopsychosocial assessments
of patients that ensured the identification of psychiatric as well as
medical diagnoses. There is also a need to minimise iatrogenic harm
both from family doctors who misguidedly encourage the patients to
“take time off ” at the insurer’s expense and from certain “specialists”
Click to expand...



 
Steven Brine, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care, ie, the one who was there to speak on behalf of the government in reply to Carol M et al, wants to be copied in to the email apology that he wants Sharpe to send to Carol M.

He thinks Ricky Gervais should apologise too (UK comedian, who made an unfortunate joke about ME).
 
Last edited:


Another adjustable rhetoric of the BPS narrative of ME/CFS

"Before I / PACE entered the stage, there was nothing". "I" says Sir Wessely, when presenting himself as the good guy - meaning the late 80s when he began his "CFS"-carreer. "PACE" says Prof. Sharpe - ignoring that they both had entered the field and did harm to ME-sufferers before.
 
Last edited:
Cheshire said:
A new one (more politely asked)

View attachment 3409
Click to expand...

"We can't control what's in the media" ...and yet according to the TSC minutes, Team PACE worked with the MSC, The Lancet, Barts and the Science Media Centre to try their best to do just that. Which suggests that they must have thought it was possible to have at least *some* influence on the media coverage...
 
Sharpe says that PACE was about CFS not ME. That is fair enough. It was CFS that was in the title.

It was Sharpe who wrote up the criteria for CFS. If anyone knows the intended relationship of ME to CFS, he should. Perhaps someone on Twitter could enquire of him, and ask him why this was not made clear in the paper. I have read that paper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom