http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Wesselys-Words-Revisited.htm
Wessely=92s Words Revisited
Malcolm Hooper 30th July 2011
with acknowledgement to members of the ME community
Tom Feilden=92s notably excited introduction to his interview with
Professor Simon Wessely about the disorder ME on the BBC=92s Today
programme on 29th July 2011 exemplified a failure to exercise the
requisite journalistic neutrality when reporting a =93story=94
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9550000/9550947.stm).
Feilden seemed excessively eager to inform the nation about Wessely=92s
claims of how he, a genuine scientist, is harassed and threatened by
patients with ME to the extent that his mail has to be routinely
scanned before he is allowed to access it and how he needs police
protection as he has received death threats.
A dramatic and disturbing story by Wessely, but is it true or is it,
as some people believe, an attempt to denigrate sick people and direct
attention away from the ever-growing body of biomedical evidence which
invalidates his own now-disproven beliefs about the disorder?
When challenged in the past to provide actual evidence =96 corroborated
by the police -- of such threats to his life, did Wessely produce any
evidence? The police take death threats seriously so each would be
allocated a crime incident number. Have any of these alleged death
threats been substantiated? Have there ever been any prosecutions and
have they ever been reported in the press?
What must Wessely=92s =93protection=94 cost the nation in the currently
straightened economic climate, and do a few immoderate emails and
postings on the internet by desperate patients pushed to the brink by
Wessely=92s consistent denial of the very existence of the disease from
which they suffer warrant such costly =93protection=94?
As for the =93threats=94 allegedly suffered by Professor Myra McClure and
Dr Esther Crawley, it seems they may be a matter of interpretation.
Quite certainly, it is known that Professor McClure has dealt with a
correspondent=92s valid concerns about her work by sending a receipt six
weeks later which said =93Your message was deleted without being read=94
(http://tinyurl.com/3pftbtl) and Dr Crawley has admitted that she has
not received explicit death threats but has interpreted one email in
particular to constitute a death threat
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b012nlcv).
Feilden seemed unaware that claiming vilification and abuse by ME
patients is a regular pattern of behaviour exhibited by Wessely over
the years, usually when yet more published evidence further disproves
his belief that ME is perpetuated by patients wrongly attributing
their symptoms to a physical disease. At such times, Wessely often
appears to deflect media attention away from the emerging biomedical
science by portraying himself as the victim of endless harassment from
vicious and intimidating ME patients.
Is such behaviour not one of the tactics of denial used by =93deniers=94
and =93revisionists=94 of whatever discipline? It is common practice for
=93deniers=94 to claim that =93pressure groups=94 are active against them a=
nd
are attacking both them and the truth and to claim that there are
=93orchestrated campaigns=94 against them (=93The Mental Health Movement:
Persecution of Patients? Background Briefing for the House of Commons
Select Health Committee=94. Professor M. Hooper; December 2003:
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Select_CTTEE_FINAL_VERSION.htm).
Can it be co-incidence that this latest well-orchestrated campaign of
media coverage of the alleged threats to Wessely and his colleagues
who share his views about ME has been mounted hard on the heels of the
publication by Carruthers et al of the International Consensus
Criteria for diagnosing ME compiled by 26 researchers and clinicians
from 13 countries (Journal of Internal Medicine; Accepted Article:
doi:10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x)?
The sound biomedical evidence upon which those criteria are based
completely vitiates the belief of Wessely and colleagues about the
psychiatric nature of ME, so what does he do?
He once again claims he is being vilified and threatened by patients
with ME and he publicly denigrates and =93attacks=94 them by asserting
that they would rather have a disease caused by a retrovirus than
admit they suffer from a mental disorder.
There are many who hold that it is Wessely et al who are orchestrating
a media campaign against patients with ME, not the other way round.
The campaign to =93eradicate=94 ME by Wessely et al cannot be denied and
the documented referenced evidence can be accessed at
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk
In 1990 Wessely asserted that ME exists =93only because well-meaning
doctors have not learnt to deal effectively with suggestible patients=94
(Psychological Medicine 1990:20:35-53).
In 1991, he cited medical comments made between 1880 and 1908 on
patients with neurasthenia, with the very clear implication that such
descriptions apply equally well to today=92s ME patients: =93always
ailing, seldom ill; a useless, noxious element of society; purely
mental cases; laziness, weakness of mind and supersensitiveness
characterises them all; the terror of the busy physician=94 (BMB
1991:47:4:919-941).
His dismissal and rejection of the biomedical evidence on ME has
continued unabated.
On 6th October 2003 in her regular column =93Doctor=92s Notes=94, Dr
Margaret Cook, former wife of the late Robin Cook MP, wrote an article
about Simon Wessely in The Scotsman entitled =93ME sufferers have found
an enemy in Wessely =96 so they need friends=94, commenting: =93It seems
that he has been central to the psychiatric perspective that ME does
not exist at all, and that the related =93Chronic Fatigue Syndrome=94 is a
mental condition best managed by a psychiatric therapeutic
approach=85.He has downplayed the need for research into diagnostic
markers=85and such is his influence that no state funding is forthcoming
to support any other research than his own=85.You can tell=85that he is
used to dictating principles and having everyone in his orbit humbly
accept his gospel=85When you have enemies like him, you need a powerful
lot of friends=94.
Wessely was both hurt and angry by that article and he demanded its
retraction and an apology from The Scotsman, which meekly complied and
as a result of his threats of litigation duly dispensed with the
services of Dr Cook as a columnist.
Of note in relation to Feilden=92s broadcast is that in Wessely=92s reply
to Dr Cook published in The Scotsman, he stated he had spent 15 years
of his life looking after sufferers from ME.
That does not chime with the fact that for the most part he has denied
the very existence of ME =96 how many other =93caring=94 doctors have amuse=
d
themselves by orchestrating a campaign in the BMJ about =93non-diseases=94
and proposed that ME be one of those =93non-diseases=94, along with
freckles and big ears, as happened in 2002?
Patients with ME know what Wessely really thinks about them, as his
published views leave no room for doubt or conjecture (for
illustrations of his descriptions of ME/CFS patients, see =93Quotable
Quotes about ME/CFS=94:
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Quotable_Quotes_Updated.pdf).
Later in October 2003, Wessely asserted that those who disagree with
him and believe that ME is an organic disorder -- to whom he referred
as =93the radicals=94 -- are (quote) =93crazy=94 and that they are =93engag=
ed in
fantasies, lies and gross distortions=94, that the =93radicals=94 are left
=93fighting yesterday=92s battles=94 (seemingly because he believes he has
established that ME does not exist except as a false belief), that
they need a =93reality check=94 and =93their behaviour is outrageous=94
(private communication).
Those words hardly concur with his claims to be a caring clinician who
has looked after people with ME all his professional life.
Responding to Wessely=92s claims of vilification and denigration by
patients with ME that he made seven years ago, in his letter of 7th
January 2004 to The Scotsman, Dr John Greensmith pointed out: =93It is
deplorable if he has been so treated, no matter how controversial his
views. It is instructive, however, to examine how Professor Wessely
has raised passions to this level of fervour by, perhaps, more than
any other single individual, being responsible for making the area as
controversial as it is=94.
Referring to Wessely=92s use of the term =93battleground=94, in a letter of
9th January 2004 to The Scotsman, DM Jones pointed out: =93It is
astonishing that he seemingly is blind to the fact that that this
situation has arisen almost entirely due to his own prolific output
and that of his like-minded collaborators, denying the existence of ME
on the one hand and reclassifying (his) preferred term =91CFS=92 as a
mental and behavioural disorder in the =91WHO Guide to Mental Health in
Primary Care=92 on the other=85.Professor Wessely should be held
accountable for his own role in this controversy over CFS/ME, which
provides the basis for this =91battleground=92 and which has had such
disastrous consequences for so many patients=94.
Importantly, as Erik Johnson noted, Wessely has stated: =93Right from
the start, ME has been identified with a refusal to accept the
doctor=92s verdict=94 (Co-Cure EDU: 9th January 2004). Johnson drew
attention to the dictum of Sir William Osler: =93Listen to the patient.
He is telling you his diagnosis=94, commenting that Wessely=92s name
=93threatens to stand as the epitome of physicians who refuse to listen
to their patients=94.
In another letter of 9th January 2004 to The Scotsman, Dr Joseph Lenz,
a clinical psychologist, hit the nail on the head: =93Science has no
greater enemies that those who seek to confuse an issue, and those who
create the most confusion are invariably those who believe that they
already know the truth=94 (Co-Cure EDU: 10th January 2004).
This being so, can =96 or should -- one take at face value what Wessely say=
s?
One moment Wessely states, as he did on 12th May 1994 in his 9th Eliot
Slater Memorial Lecture: =93I will argue that ME is simply a belief, the
belief that one has an illness called ME=94 but ten years later he
states, as he did in his article in the Scotsman on 5th January 2004:
=93I have been saying for 15 years that this is a real illness=94.
Clearly both statements cannot be true.
Presently, Wessely has seized the opportunity to weave the theme of
his alleged personal harassment into his responses in the current
issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience published online on 27th July
2011 (Viewpoint: Chronic fatigue syndrome: understanding a complex
illness: doi:10.1038/nrn3087): in answer to the question =93What is the
best way for the field to make progress?=94, his answer was: =93So long as
decent clinical and basic scientists continue to engage with the field
it will make progress, although sadly that no longer includes
myself=85.The ongoing antagonism that has been directed towards so many
of the scientists who failed to replicate the original (XMRV) finding
and who thus came up with what the extremists see as the =91wrong
answer=92 has alienated yet another group of scientists from getting
involved in this area=94.
What Wessely and the media fail to acknowledge is that it was the
utterly triumphant and contemptuous comments of certain of those
scientists whose studies failed to replicate the original XMRV study
published in Science (2009:326:585-589) that so incensed some people
with ME, many of whom have daily to run the gamut of undisguised
disdain amounting to abuse meted out by those who are supposed to be
supporting and helping them cope with a devastating disease.
In the interests of common justice, Tom Feilden would do well to
investigate the reasons why people with ME are so angry by checking
the easily verifiable facts and then to redress the balance by
reporting with equal enthusiasm the other side of the =93battleground=94
because, compared with Wessely=92s 25-year campaign of dismissal and
denigration of extremely sick people that has resulted in no
appropriate healthcare provision and in the relentless harassment by
the DWP of people with ME, there may be those who consider that,
whilst abusive emails and death threats are never in any circumstances
to be condoned, complaints to the GMC are entirely understandable and
legitimate.
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