"The motivations behind science denial", 2019, McLintic (CFS mentioned)

[Hutan]

Is it worth taking the risk? That might depend on how bad the actual article is. Has anyone been able to access the whole article yet?

What's the downside to an email? I think it's mostly our time and energy to write it. If it's polite, it's hard to see how it could be misused to illustrate what a rabid bunch we are. (Although I suppose someone who is very determined might get out the scissors, cut out the words and rearrange them into a threat*.)

*That's a reference to the threat letter that I believe a journalist fabricated to illustrate a story about how violent people with ME/CFS are, that was then used by Esther Crawley as a real example.

 

[Snow Leopard]

It's hard to say without knowing the man how such an email would be taken.
If he's just been ignorant and careless about fact-checking he might just be open to reconsidering his point of view on ME/CFS.
On the other hand, if he happens to be mates with one of the usual suspects and has his mind firmly made up, then any email - no matter how polite - will be taken as further proof of our supposed harassing of scientists.

Is it worth taking the risk? That might depend on how bad the actual article is. Has anyone been able to access the whole article yet?

I suspect he is the type of person who will simply ignore the words of any patients. Someone who has an independent reputation might be able to change his mind.

Some people are independent thinkers (think Mike Godwin), many are not.

 

[Esther12]

IMO: if he's the sort of person who falls for this sort of empty spin from authority figures then he's probably not the best person to prioritise raising concerns with. It might still be worth a go, but what we've seen so far has not been impressive.

 

[Ravn]

What's the downside to an email?

The risk is that if the author is already a committed member of the ME/CFS=dangerous loons school, even a polite email may cause him to double down - a common defensive strategy - and write or say more damaging stuff about ME/CFS.

Whereas by not drawing attention to ourselves he and his readers may just forget about us, especially if the mention of ME/CFS just slipped into the abstract by accident (read: sloppiness) but doesn't feature much in the article itself which, for all we know, could be all about vaccines and climate.

Of course he could also be open-minded and care enough about good methodology (cf. his statistics booklet) that he would be horrified to find out what's really been happening. In which case not sending an email would also be a risk, The risk of missing out on gaining a potential ally.

Not knowing the author and not having seen the actual article it's impossible to tell which way he would go. Most likely nothing would happen at all, maybe a polite reply to a polite email but no action of any sort. Unfortunately experience has made me cynical enough to assess the first risk as higher than the second. Would love to be wrong.

 

[Daisybell]

A polite email attaching JE’s submission to the Scottish parliament, with a very short explanation that this is an excellent summary?

 

[Ravn]

Update:

Somebody in an ME FB group has read the article and reports that there is no mention at all of ME or CFS in the article itself, only in the abstract.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Somebody in an ME FB group has read the article and reports that there is no mention at all of ME or CFS in the article itself, only in the abstract.

That seems rather bizarre!

 

[rvallee]

That seems rather bizarre!

So looks more like an off-hand remark that probably coincided with the Reuters report, didn't bother digging at all, just repeated it casually assuming it's true. It's not even a convincing argument since it even misrepresents what trolling is, something that is done by people who don't care one way or another about the topic and just want to annoy others.

Given this it would be worth doing a comment on the article, rather than addressing the author personally. This reply could be added to MEPedia and used whenever this trope rears its head. There are loads of quotes making it clear this was grossly exaggerated, even fabricated for the most part.

Basically we live in a loop where there is "controversy" because controversial people are sabotaging things and this maintains controversy by merely being involved, while pretending there is other controversy than themselves and absolving themselves of being the bulk of the controversy. It's a self-reinforcing citation loop where the people who make the controversy are themselves cited over the controversy, misrepresenting it entirely.

Top of my head there is:

• statements by other researchers in the field praising the ME community for our involvement in science and successfully pulling off maintaining research funding against sustained institutional opposition
• the ICO tribunal response stating the claims are grossly exaggerated
• comments submitted to the UK parliament supporting Monaghan's motion
• the millions of dollars raised for scientific research by the ME community*
• several letters signed by academics and clinicians raising the same concerns

* on this one the same trope of "research we don't like" can still be used but then it's not the same controversy, it removes the trope of anti-science and instead moves the controversy squarely on the BPS research having failed to deliver anything of value