I think sometimes we're inclined to see conspiracy against us when that's not (all?) that's going on. There are other likely reasons why recruitment would be piecemeal.
It's rarely conspiracy. It's just people defending an opinion who just happen to have been completely wrong for decades about a matter of life and death. It happens all the time. No one manufactured the AIDS crisis, it happened because majority opinion, including in the medical profession, was to do nothing because they didn't think it could affect them, "only" druggies and gays.
The tobacco industry published fake research for years to hide the lethality of their product. We vaporized a potent neurotoxin in the atmosphere for decades. People tried to push thalidomide for years after it was shown to be dangerous. Tainted drugs are regularly sold in poor countries by people who know they are killing people. Some people just suck, willing to commit monstrous acts as long as they don't see the outcome and it provides for their family.
Just look at climate change. While there are some elements of conspiracy on the part of the energy industry, it still took years of growing evidence for majority opinion to actually shift. With or without evidence, many have chosen to dismiss it because it has such huge implications on our civilization.
Getting things massively wrong is a time-honored human tradition. It doesn't take a conspiracy, we do it naturally. Then people try to deflect accountability from serious consequences, especially relevant here as the public record of ME patients begging for help is decades-long and quite massive. But that's just people scrambling desperately in the face of real consequences they felt certain would never happen.
Edit: And at the risk of being too political, I think this summary of Watergate captures it all: "the truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand". It's pretty universally true but here it just says it all.
). But also patient representatives, who managed to stand their ground. Dr. Knoop ended up quitting just before the final revision. The resulting advice/recommendations adopted IOM conclusions and underlined the issues with benefits and disability service assessments.
