Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

[NelliePledge]

GOTCHA!

good sparring @Robert 1973

 

[Barry]

i think it is PR - if he's fishing for angry responses he wants his own tweets to be perceived as rational/concerned - so he can use the thread if he gets any nuggets of militancy

I actually got my reply a bit muddled, and mistakenly had some of an old edit in the mix, which I thought I'd abandoned

 

[large donner]

Robert McMullen@RobertHMcMullen
So, would you like to apologise for saying that “some people with [ME] do not push themselves to recover”?

Any minute now he will claim he didn't make that quote in the Daily Mail and that his remarks were taken our of context by them. That may or may not be true, however as he is such a social media bunny why hasn't he denounced that article. Perhaps because they are his beliefs and the same as the nonsense remarks he made on Australian radio after the first set of PACE results.

 

[Guest 102]

Maybe what Dr Sharpe has to realise is this. The only realistic way forward for care in ME in the UK is going to be to make use of people already employed to do that and to recruit new people who will have to be trained by those already involved. Until the penny drops with all these people that there is no basis for using CBT or GET or managing on the basis that the condition is psychosomatic we are stuck in negativity.

The positive move we can make at present, and it would be a major positive move, is to educate these people sufficiently for them to realise they need to start afresh. It would be very much easier if people like Dr Sharpe took a vanguard role in that, and gave lectures pointing out that the BPS model is groundless and disproven, at least on prima facie consideration. Or at least agree to stand aside. Similarly for Simon Wessely. But without that we are stuck with having to shout from the rooftops that PACE is rubbish in the hope that stick-in-the-mud service providers finally get the message.

It is best they all step aside, they have been toxic, they can never be trusted again with ME research.

 

[Barry]

It is best they all step aside, they have been toxic, they can never be trusted again with ME research.

Given their track record with ME, I'm not sure they can be trusted with any research.

 

[Guest 102]

Given their track record with ME, I'm not sure they can be trusted with any research.

I think Sharpe should leave medicine and go into pantomime, he has demonstrated his skills this evening.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Either he has a cunning plan ...or he is heading for a mid life crisis

The cunning plan involves a sports car.

 

[alktipping]

View attachment 3349

is that s w in the lifeboat.

 

[alex3619]

"So here is a challenge for ME activism:
Can you articulate what treatment you want as opposed to what you don't want?"

Yep. No treatment aside from palliative support is better than treatments that make us worse and are sometimes forced on very sick patients, or where they are coerced into doing them or lose their entitled benefits, both private and state benefits.

 

[Carolyn Wilshire]

What happens if both positions are wrong?

The positions are usually exhaustive.

This example from eyewitness testimony research:

Does information presented after an event get incorporated into witnesses' descriptions of the event it self?
Position 1: yes
Position 2: no

(In reality the question would be phrased in a much more specific way than that).

 

[Seven]

I am doing great on symptomatic treatment = sleep, OI, inmune mods, and anything I need!!!
I have kept a job and a family! That is more than the CBT and GET people ahve been able to hold! If they step aside, the symptoms on Cfs are not that uncommon that cannot be treated until we get a cure or better things .

 

[Carolyn Wilshire]

That’s one of the possibilities I was alluding to – but I didn’t want to make myself look like a prat if it was a ridiculous suggestion. @Lucibee, who is much more knowledgeable than me, seemed to think it was more innocent that I was implying. Any thoughts @Jonathan Edwards @dave30th @Carolyn Wilshire?

I would have thought his connections with the authors and with the project would need to be disclosed, and would disqualify him. But then the Lancet doesn't seem at all like a scientific journal, more like a magazine, and the editors had already promised to promote it even before it was peer reviewed, so I don't expect peer review was anything more than a rubber stamp.

I don't think they would need Simon Wessely as a reviewer, they could pick any one of a huge number of pro-BPS ideologues (in consultation with the authors), and even if a reviewer recommended 'reject', they would be under no obligation to take that reviewers' advice.

 

[Seven]

I’m beginning to think he is clueless after all

Or MAYBEEeeeeeee they are working for the dwp ( whatever your insurance for government is)?

 

[Woolie]

What a nasty, nasty little man.

He's not even pretending he has any real concern for patients now, is he? His contempt is out there for all to see.

 

[Woolie]

I think this is a variant of "You haven't read the paper"

 

[JaimeS]

"So here is a challenge for ME activism:
Can you articulate what treatment you want as opposed to what you don't want?"

Yep. No treatment aside from palliative support is better than treatments that make us worse and are sometimes forced on very sick patients, or where they are coerced into doing them or lose their entitled benefits, both private and state benefits.

UGH I almost cited every ME organization but figured he'd view it as Summoning them with my magic Twitter wand to swoop in for the attack.

So creepy, because it seems as though he's gently encouraging us to 'think positive', and because it seems like that's really bait. While the retraction of PACE is an important goal, it's hardly our only concern.

 

[JaimeS]

Can't help but add this one:

 

[JaimeS]

The man's Twitterstream is an alternate reality.

 

[Milo]

"So here is a challenge for ME activism:
Can you articulate what treatment you want as opposed to what you don't want?"

Yep. No treatment aside from palliative support is better than treatments that make us worse and are sometimes forced on very sick patients, or where they are coerced into doing them or lose their entitled benefits, both private and state benefits.

I myself volunteer to try drugs that are potential treatments as suggested by the ME experts hthe real experts) Cyclophosphamide comes to mind, but there are other drugs such as the ones used in rheumatology.

 

[Sbag]

We need him to confirm he doesn't think its ok to re diagnose children with PRS like Esther Crawley does and while hes at it he could perhaps set the record straight with her claims of 60%? of people recovering in the PACE trial.

On the subject of "what treatments do you want then", it may be a last ditch effort before tomorrows hearing in parliament to get someone to tweet something about some unproven biomed treatment etc, so if he gets called to any hearing in parliament he can call double standards on the "activists" and claim to be the level headed one.

Can someone just tweet him back with, "we don't want faith healing, witchdoctory, GET or CBT any other nonsense treatments as part of healthcare policy and will just sit tight until something that works is on offer so that we are not made worse by a trial partly funded by the DWP".

Another thing to point out to him is that we are positive and looking forwards. But the legacy of the PACE trial is holding us back. Medical professionals are still quoting the results to stop us from getiing benefits, insurance payouts, other medical treatment which might even be as basic as supplements. But we can't get any of that because we are still told to excercise and have counselling. That is why we are still banging on about it!