Opinion: ‘You don’t want to get better’: the outdated treatment of ME/CFS patients is a national scandal - George Monbiot

It's been corrected now -
Added at the bottom of the article:
"This article was amended on 12 March 2024 to replace an incorrect hyperlink"

 

The fact that it names and shames Wessley and Sharpe is excellent and will no doubt have been through some checks to make sure it's ok to name them as such. Will be interesting to see if they respond - their silence will be telling - but they might employ some of their useful idiots to do some their dirty work.

Shame he didn't throw Crawley and Chalder in the mix, but, beggars can't be choosers.

 

It’s being promoted by Guardian Science on Xitter, which is encouraging: https://twitter.com/user/status/1767559495889109390


I also noticed that other day that Ian Sample, Guardian Science Editor, said some positive things about people with ME/CFS last year:
https://meassociation.org.uk/2023/0...re-we-any-closer-to-understanding-long-covid/

And the SMC quoted 3 good ME/CFS researcher for its coverage of the Wallit NIH “effort preference” paper.

All positive signs that the sands may be shifting.

[edit: posted corrected tweet. Old one deleted.]

 

Fantastic article!

Ironic that on the left side, one of the recommended articles is literally one of the opinion pieces going against the NICE guidelines. I'm sure it would have been too awkward to name it on their own pages, but the Guardian has played a significant role in pushing this propaganda, though not nearly as much as medical publishers.

 

Yes, its in today.

 

I wish all journalists were as good as George Monbiot. Brilliant. He's really taken the time to understand the situation properly (not easy to do).

 

Monbiot on Xitter:

“My journey to writing today's column began here, in 2021, when I realised I might be responsible for more human suffering than the entire cast of Alvin and the Chipmunks. https://www.theguardian.com/comment...spreading-long-covid-professor-press-coverage“

 

Its such a great article, with links too, a succinct summary of all the important points. One of, if not the, best articles ever published on the subject, especially in terms of referability - i'll be happily directing people to it. Deep appreciation to Goeorge Monbiot & all involved. Appreciate the editor printing it too.

lol wait for the outrage! i cant believe he named names!

 

It will be interesting to see what happens. It does feel that things have moved on from articles being withdrawn and journalists offending the BPS deities getting the sack.

Weesley and Sharpe must be itching to respond, but also must be aware of the risks this involves. I suspect either others will try to mount a defence in some way, and/or like the anomalies article attacking NICE a collection of names will appear on a letter of protest to the Guardian.

 

Does anyone know why the article's comments have disappeared?

 

As far as I know it never had an open comments section, despite the URL in part saying "comment is free".

 

I didn't notice any comments yesterday the first few times I visited the page ( I was actively looking for comments) but then the comments link appeared and I was able to view the them. I assumed I just hadn't noticed the link earlier but then in subsequent visits the link disappeared. It was only on that one visit that I was able to view them.

 

Yes @Andy you are right the comments section was always turned off, or at least it was when i looked yesterday morning. IIRC comments not often enabled on ME/CFS articles, think they get too heated.

"Comment Is Free" in the url is because its a subsection of the guradian 'opinion' section. Francis Ryan often writes under it, its people writing opinion pieces. Nowt to do with the public commenting on articles

 

George seems to have got the bit between his teeth. I gather there is more to come

“All this requires further investigation. The injustices done to patients with ME/CFS are compound and multiple. It's not just individual clinicians in the frame, but universities and departments, insurance companies, government and media. Great wrongs have been done.”​

 

Great if this becomes better understood. Potentially a game changer.

 

Comments often aren't enabled on controversial topics, specially where individuals are named. George's article will have passed legal checks, but I imagine newspapers don't have moderators with enough of that kind of knowledge to manage comments on it.

 

The Guardian often disable comments, in fact it’s only certain pieces they will enable comments for a limited time. Avoids paying for mods or dealing with legal issues.