Who is Simon Wessely?

Wikipedia pages for Simon Wessely & Michael Sharpe could be updated to include a summary of the George Monbiot Guardian article & link in reference section. Is it something any of the S4ME members are able to do?

 

This has just reminded me of something. Many, many years ago I posted a bunch of "bad ME quotes", derived solely from my own reading, to a now-defunct Google (or was it Yahoo? or maybe even Usenet?) group. I think there may be some limited overlap with Williams' quotes, but plenty of "new" ones too.

Posting it in the forlorn hope that it might help to inform some future exploration of the profound epistemic injustice we face.

 

Looking at those quotes from Shorter, and remembering other nonsense he's said over the years about ME, he comes across as a very bitter, unhappy and hateful person. I wonder what happened earlier in his life that makes him fixated on one specific disease and on the continual smearing of its sufferers as wacky loons who are actually somehow capable of 'roping, capturing, and hogtying' the IOM, and composing such drivel as 'CFS lobbyists actually sat on the committee, and in the several public hearings the CFSers appeared in mass to pour out their tales of woe. ... The public hearings were a circus, with moaning and groaning victims right and left. How do you say to this kind of psychodrama: “We are scientists and insist on evidence other than the tireless repetition of your subjective complaints.'

And 'The tragic element is that becoming involved with a CFS advocacy group is a recipe for lifelong disability, further entombing the patients in their symptoms. Yet it is precisely the advocacy groups that are driving the whole carnival, that have captured this wacky committee of the otherwise august Institute of Medicine. This is the politics of health care at its worst: giving over to noisy advocates the responsibility for defining disease entities. It encourages patients to believe that they have a non-existent illness'.

He of course is blissfully unaware that quite a few ME patients are themselves scientists and might actually know what they're talking about, as opposed to his invented cliched stereotype that we are all uneducated loons. Meanwhile he writes in a very flowery, whimsical style, rather like the style of a children's story, which doesn't fit with the 'scientific' approach he's trying to depict himself as possessing. Yet, he is not a doctor or a scientist himself, just a history buff. I honestly wonder what made him so obsessed with ME patients; AFAIK, he doesn't have this obsession with other diseases. Does anyone know how his fixation on ME started off??

 

Edward Shorter 1992

'From Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Illness in the Modern Era'

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/From_Paralysis_to_Fatigue.html?id=MXlrAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y



The Amazon link for this book won't post.

'This fascinating history of psychosomatic disorders shows how patients throughout the centuries have produced symptoms in tandem with the cultural shifts of the larger society. Newly popularized diseases such as "chronic fatigue syndrome" and "total allergy syndrome" are only the most recent examples of patients complaining of ailments that express the truths about the culture in which they live.'



An in depth criticism of Shorter's Book 'From Paralysis to Fatigue'

By ME/CFS Skeptic

'From Paralysis to Fatigue: a critical review of Edward Shorter’s view on chronic fatigue syndrome'
POSTED ON FEBRUARY 14, 2021

https://mecfsskeptic.com/historian-edward-shorter-from-paralysis-to-fatigue/

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Please could the folk here send me some links to articles written about Simon Wessely? I mean ones that call him out (not the ones that claim that the sun shines out of his arse.)

I have a friend in the media who'd like to do some private research on him. Thanks.

 

I would advise extreme caution. There are so many bear traps, including unreliable and unsubstantiated claims. If in doubt about anything, better to leave it out. The potential damage to us of publishing anything which isn’t 100% accurate exceeds any potential gain.

Be sure to read ensure that your friend reads SW’s own website to understand how he has used past criticisms to his advantage. In my view, his website is full of inaccuracies and misrepresentations – which itself could be the subject of investigation – but it’s important to be able to differentiate between what is valid and what is not.

There may well be accusations that have been made that are true but can’t be proven. In those cases I think it is usually better to avoid them as there are ample criticisms that can be made of his work without resorting to hearsay evidence.

I’m not sure if it’s in this thread but your friend might be interested to read my letter to the FT which references a paper by SW: https://www.ft.com/content/a2bd17a9-41fb-48fa-8fae-445ff22d6bae

Finally, I would recommend that your friend consults people on here – publicly or privately before publishing anything.

 

New article about Wessely

An ME inquiry? Not likely when a pillar of the psychologising establishment has access to the halls of power

https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/20...tablishment-has-access-to-the-halls-of-power/

 

Excellent article.

The additional issue we face is that sharing articles such as this or the excellent Long Covid Advocacy 3 part series: https://longcovidadvocacy.substack.com/p/professor-catastrophe-simon-wessely

Make us sound like the militant conspiracy theorists that he has painted us as, so we are in a double bind.

Additionally he has a reputation for charming those who might help us and convincing them not to listen to us patients.

How do we fight that? How do we ever get our Post Office moment?

 

Only once he's retired. That's what power is all about. It will only make the fall harder, but progress in medicine happens at the pace of funerals.

Although one important thing here: the man did not promote himself to those positions, other people did, and his ideas have widespread support in the medical profession. It's because those beliefs are popular that he rose with them, not the other way around. He is definitely guilty of inflicting great ills on millions of people, but he did all of this in the open with enthusiastic support and admiration from his peers.