United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

Don't worry. Guardian reporters can rely on hearsay evidence when it suits them. No "sources" required.

 

Building Trust in Science Communication: The Role of Journals & Journalists, Pre-& Post-Publication

Panelists: Ivan Oransky, Retraction Watch Fiona Fox, Science Media Center, UK Renee Hoch, PLOS Publication Ethics Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMyqS3ZwBfI

I've only watched bits of this, and it was only of interest because so much of what Fiona Fox says she believes is in opposition with what we've seen of her behaviour.

Also Oransky was there... if only Tuller could have come up with a briefing to convince him to get stuck in!

 

Typical to form, the SMC seems to be willfully participating in the blaming of lockdowns-that-were-very-limited-and-in-no-way-actual-lockdowns leading to reduced infections. It repeats the lie that those pathogens were not seen in the last 3 years, which is actually a big tell about medicine's blind spot: it happened to people, they just weren't ill enough to go see doctors for it so far as they are concerned this means no one was infected and now they have "immunity debt", which at least they refrained from naming but are still fueling it.

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-uk-strep-a-outbreaks/

This seems to be a critical blind spot: everything happening outside of healthcare facilities is not happening. For RSV many places saw higher prevalence last year. The cases were higher, but hospitalizations were lower, somehow = cases were lower. Or something like that. Making everything about healthcare from the perspective of ICUs has become a major flaw to the conduct of basic public health, adding to that the definition of mild illness.

The whole pretending that lockdowns were basically the end of all things, people locked in cages unable to move, is getting sillier and sillier. I don't see how medicine doesn't come out of this with zero credibility if this goes on.

 

Article in the Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist (CPBML)
Behind the science headlines

https://cpbml.org.uk/news/behind-science-headlines

 

A helpful reminder, to any journalists too young to remember when the Spiked weirdos were Living Marxism and prior to that the Revolutionary Communist Party, what a bizarre milieu Fox comes from, and why they shouldn’t trust the SMC an inch.

To the post above - no, the Maoists in the CPB have never been as good as the Trots at selling newspapers, so posting this review here has probably doubled its exposure.

 

I think you can probably rest assured that this will only be read by half-demented Marxist-Leninist nonagenarians. My mother belonged to the CPB in 1943 and is now 101. She saw the light in 1944 though.

 

Truly bizarre stuff; could not make it up.

 

Without wanting to delve into politics — moderators, please remove this post if it breaks rule 12 — it seems strange that a marxist-leninist party fails to see that the Waddell-Aylward biopsychosocial model is quintessentially capitalistic, in that it focuses on reducing healthcare costs and getting people back to work rather than providing them with the care (and medical research) they need, as described in Shakespeare 2016. Waddell and Aylward, after all, worked for healthcare insurance companies and served as government advisors.

Yet another instance of trusting what a prominent figure says because of whatever close ties they have with an organization rather than unbiasedly digging into the matter or, more simply, asking members of the party who live with ME/CFS.

 

Aylward worked in the UNUM centre. UNUM is/was a disability insurer: they pay money if you can’t work rather than a health/healthcare insurer who pay medical bills. My guess is Waddell is similar.

I think it’s important to make the distinction: I remember someone on our side dismissed the idea as a conspiracy theory that health insurers would be that bothered by trying to psychologise individual cases of ME/CFS (ETA: or say they were treatable with CBT/GET) as it wouldn’t save much per individual. However disability insurance claims will usually be worth six figures in Euros/pounds Sterling/US dollars (sometimes seven figures) over the course of a policy.

 

see this thread
https://www.s4me.info/threads/government-and-insurance-companies-establishing-the-bps-model.2319/

 

Moved post

Thread worth reading ..

James Coyne has also been active on X ( twitter) re Weasley , Carson et al
https://twitter.com/user/status/1706432858422952223


ETA coyne tweet

https://twitter.com/user/status/1706199744903619024

 

Post moved from the thread discussing the media coverage of a quack threrapy here



Bear with me.

But it seems the Science Media Centre have had a briefing for something to do with Long Covid (results of a trial called 'REGAIN' )

briefings | Science Media Centre

Does anyone have insight they could provide on how far ahead someone would know when something like this would 'report' ie how far ahead they know they are 'booking in' a briefing?

Because sure as anything I know that beyond that a comms plan for the time period leading up to it would then have been put in place..

and yes I'm saying part of that perhaps might include building on things that antagonise the patient community in the weeks leading up to it and have opportunities for articles to keep spouting the NHS stuff on it and so on

 

Bobbler, you might want to ask the mods to move your post to a Long Covid research thread.

There is "Expert reaction" here:

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...-with-long-covid-after-covid-hospitalisation/


to the BMJ paper:

‘Clinical effectiveness of an online supervised group physical and mental health rehabilitation programme for adults with post-covid-19 condition (REGAIN study): multicentre randomised controlled trial’ by Gordon McGregor et al. published in the BMJ at 23:30 UK time on Wednesday 7 February 2024.

DOI: 10.1136/bmj‑2023‑076506

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...-with-long-covid-after-covid-hospitalisation/

Copied to the thread about the research.

 

BMJ send out press releases to a huge mailing list several days ahead of an article being published - it may be longer for a research paper.

 

Thanks @Dx Revision Watch - this particular post was in the context of this ongoing thread. Because I've been wondering on the DD and timings of other things.

I don't know how far ahead a researcher knows when their report will be finished and published / begins lining up the conference so to speak?

I've no problem if there is a worth in a copy of this going on that thread for the trial,

and it's useful to link across to it.