Interesting
so these two ladies who left when Charles returned … had they been really bps/pushing for psych stuff (any detail there of interest as I’m trying to remember back t on that time and work out how extreme of unusual someone might seem)?
and why did they really have to leave (ie they said because he was returning but us it because they’d been part of what was whistleblown against/ been part if an alliance with hockey and now they decided the fight was over?)?
Ann Campbell's statement about why she quit is on Pages 3 and 4 of the pulled December 2003 issue of ME Essential and her Chairman's Report for the AGM 2003 is on Pages 5 to 7:
https://dxrevisionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/me-essentials-december-03-pulled-issue.pdf
Why, following Saturday's AGM, I quit as Chairman and Trustee
Extract:
"Five years ago. an experienced Board of Trustees looked at the future needs of the MEA and after full and careful discussion made the decision to employ a Chief Executive to identify a long-term strategic direction for the future. This included a change in the administration of the charity to the Board governance and professional management model found in major national charities. The development of a trained, professional volunteer team, a new research model and the replacement of a single medical adviser with a panel of medical and research advisors from diverse specialisms were to be part of this strategy. Dr Shepherd has now indicated that if elected he will work to reverse the current strategy and policies agreed and developed by the Board during these last four years. He has also, in his public election statement to members, said that he has no confidence in the administration..."
At the end of Ann Campbell's statement, it says:
"Niccola Simpson also resigned from the Board of Trustees after learning the results of the elections. In her resignation letter, she wrote: "...as Charles Shepherd has been elected as well, I find myself in the position that I cannot work with him. I do not wish to go in the direction that he wishes to take the organisation."
It's over 22 years, now, since all this blew up. After Niccola Simpson had resigned from the board, I was in touch with her by phone and email for several years. I expect we discussed at the time what issues she had had with Charles, to what extent she had loyalties to Val Hockey, Ann Campbell and Dr Margaret Macdonald and why she felt she could not continue as a board member now that Charles had joined the board but I'm afraid it's hazy now.
Charles' contract as paid medical advisor had been terminated in May 2003:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1150994/
Head of ME association is sacked
Owen Dyer
2003 Jul 12;327(7406):88.
"Dr Shepherd's supporters accuse the association of drifting away from the purpose of founder members such as Dr Melvin Ramsay, who first proposed myalgic encephalomyelitis as a discrete physiological condition.
"Instead, they say, the association has come to accept a blurring of the distinction between ME and chronic fatigue syndrome and has adopted some of the arguments of that section of the medical establishment that believes the condition to be a somatisation disorder."
"...Denying a change in policy, Ms Hockey said that many of the charity's members have diagnoses of chronic fatigue syndrome, which may or may not be a medical condition distinct from ME. "The MEA provides evidence directed information—not opinion dressed as fact—from which people can make their own decisions.""
and what has Charles whistle blown about?
If you mean what had Charles whistle blown about back in 2003:
"...he claimed that the organisation has lost its direction and wasted its money."
"[Dr Shepherd] had his contract with the ME Association abruptly terminated for breach of confidence and making statements "likely to bring the MEA into disrepute.""
"Dr Shepherd said that the association was running out of money and expressed concern that funds earmarked for research in a special account might be used for other purposes. He also said that the resignation of three of its seven trustees had been kept secret and that the trustees had been replaced without input from ordinary members."
"Speaking to the BMJ, Dr Shepherd said, "I've basically been sacked for blowing the whistle on a financial crisis in which I felt the public interest overrode the terms of my contract.
"He said he has communicated his concerns to the Charity Commission, which has asked the association for assurances about the Ramsay research fund, an account devoted wholly to research funding.
"Dr Shepherd doubts if it could be protected from creditors if the charity were to become insolvent."
Sorry I can't be more specific about the views of Val Hockey, Ann Campbell and Dr Margaret Macdonald other than what they have said in magazine articles and statements.
Although my son became ill in early 1999, I wasn't involved in ME forums until mid 2002 and I wasn't a member of the MEA or seeing their magazines until late 2003. I wasn't aware of problems with the MEA until Charles Shepherd started publishing his concerns on various platforms in early 2003.
