I am still not at all well, but will today deal with
a recent
editorial in the British Medical Journal, signed by professors Myra
McClure and Simon Wessely, that well illustrates what I wrote
yesterday and before on the postmodern, irrational, unscientific, actually
media-directed though originally in the BMJ or PLoS published purported
scientific research or scientific editiorials concerning ME (which is a
disease I - a psychologist and logical philosopher have now since 32 years).
Below you find the full text as published on line in the BMJ, references and
all, with just one addition: Capital letters in square brackets in
front of each paragraph that link to my comments following this reproduction
of this BMJ-editorial. These comments all end with an underlined "Back" that
when clicked leads back to the beginning of the paragraph I comment.
And please note - if you read Dutch and did not read
my small methodical essay of ME and Postmodernism of yesterday, you are
strongly suggested to do so - that the BMJ is a scientific journal,
or at least its editors and publishers claim it is, a claim that I do
not deny with respect to other subjects than ME, whereas the text I
reproduce and comment on below is mostly in the nature of propaganda
and deception, and seems to have been written with the end to
propagandize the pseudo-science as regards ME by the Wessely school of
psychosomatic psychiatry and to deceive journalists and scientists as to
what is really happening in the field of ME - which is basically that REAL
scientific biomedical research into the possible organic causes of ME has
been succesfully blocked for twenty years now by the pseudo-science and
propaganda of the Wessely school of psychosomatic psychiatry.
But judge for yourself - here is the full original text: the capitalized
letters in square brackets link to my comments on the paragraphs the
capitalized letters start.
Quote:
Published 25 February 2010,
doi:10.1136/bmj.c1099
Cite this as: BMJ 2010;340:c1099
Editorials
Chronic fatigue syndrome and human retrovirus XMRV
[A]
Three studies now refute the original study reporting the link
[B] In the
linked case-control study (doi:10.1136/bmj.c1018),
van Kuppeveld and colleagues describe their failure
to find evidence of a new human retrovirus in Dutch
patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.1
The study is the latest contribution to a controversy
that has surrounded two conflicting publications on the
retroviral aetiology of this syndrome.2
3
[C] The saga
started, not with chronic fatigue syndrome or a virus,
but with an enzyme (RNaseL) that plays a pivotal role in
antiviral defences when activated by the interferon
released in response to infection. Variants of the
gene encoding this enzyme have been linked to an
increased susceptibility to prostate cancer, and this
led to the identification of a new virus in prostate
tissue that was related to, but different from, known xenotropic
murine leukaemia viruses4;
hence the designation xenotropic murine leukaemia
virus-related virus (XMRV). Sequence analyses showed
that it is not an endogenous human virus, and the fact
that eight clones derived from eight different patients
are slightly different from one another confirms it
as a new virus that has found its way into a human
population.
[D]
Abnormalities in the RNaseL gene of patients with chronic
fatigue syndrome had been reported in some studies,5
but not in others.6
Nevertheless, this prompted the search for evidence of XMRV
in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. The resulting
study claimed that 67% of patients with chronic
fatigue syndrome were XMRV carriers, compared with
3.7% of healthy controls.2
[E] The news
was received philosophically by most retrovirologists,
who are used to claims of associations between
retroviruses and diseases that fail to withstand the
test of time. Most researchers into chronic fatigue
syndrome were also sceptical, mindful of the problems
of defining the syndrome, its imprecise boundaries,
and almost certain heterogeneity. It was not that they doubted
a viral cause in some patients because this had already
been shown,7
8 but the possibility that any single agent or risk
factor could account for more than two thirds of cases
seemed implausible on the basis of what has already
been established.9
[F] But if the
research community was underwhelmed, people with the
syndrome were not. If true, these findings would have
transformed the understanding of the illness and
opened up new avenues of treatment. Some saw this as
a definitive response not only to those few
professionals who, they claim, continue to doubt the
reality of the syndrome, but also to the larger number of
professionals who believe that, irrespective of
causation, rehabilitative treatments can reduce
symptoms and disability. It is depressing that the
first, untenable, view is too often confused with the
second, a perspective that offers hope to patients and is backed
by evidence.
[G] First and
foremost, however, as with any discovery, the data
must be unequivocal, and the finding has to be confirmed by
others. In January 2010, our own group found no evidence
of XMRV in a well characterised cohort of 186
patients with chronic fatigue syndrome in the United
Kingdom.3
Van Kuppeveld and colleagues’ study adds to this
negative evidence. Although the study is small, the
patients are well defined and matched in age, sex,
and geographical location. The polymerase chain reaction used
to amplify XMRV gene sequences has been well controlled
and its sensitivity is sufficient to detect low virus
copy numbers. XMRV was not detected in this Dutch
cohort, a result that comes in the wake of a third
study published this month,10
which also failed to identify XMRV in 170 patients
with chronic fatigue syndrome.
[H] There has
been much talk of different protocols being used in
the four studies. These technical differences are irrelevant
provided amplification is controlled by inclusion of a
"housekeeping gene"—to show that a known human gene
can be amplified under the conditions used—and the
sensitivity of the assay is known, as was the case in
all three European studies.
[I] Meanwhile,
a different strategy is also being considered to
reconcile these different findings: that new blood samples
should be taken from patients with diagnosed chronic
fatigue syndrome and sent to laboratories capable of
carrying out the analysis. This is unlikely to be
soon.
[J] Three
studies have now generated data that are in stark contrast
to those of the original study. However, at least two
explanations for this are still possible. The first,
and more unlikely, explanation is that XMRV infection
is geographically confined to the United States. The
second is that the virus is infecting an atypical
cohort. This may well be so. Although the patients were not
well described in the original study, van Kuppeveld and
colleagues provide the additional information
reported at a conference last year that the patients
in question came from an outbreak of chronic fatigue
syndrome at Incline village on the northern border of
Lake Tahoe in the mid-1980s. Whether or not this was
a genuine cluster was never established,11
but an association with viruses, such as Epstein-Barr
virus and human herpesvirus 6, has already been
suggested.12
It is possible that XMRV is implicated in the Lake
Tahoe episode but does not play a substantial role in
most cases of chronic fatigue syndrome elsewhere.
[K] The results
from other US laboratories investigating XMRV and
chronic fatigue syndrome are eagerly awaited. If the link fails
to hold up, it will be another bitter disappointment to
affected patients. Nonetheless, the current debate
will still bring critical attention to the causes of
chronic fatigue syndrome, and XMRV may turn out to be
important in the pathogenesis of other diseases.
Cite this as: BMJ 2010;340:c1099
Myra McClure, professor of retrovirology
and honorary consultant in genitourinary medicine1,
Simon Wessely, professor of psychological
medicine2
1 Jefferiss Research Trust Laboratories,
Wright-Fleming Institute, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College
London, London W2 1PG, 2 Institute of Psychiatry,
King’s College London, London SE5 8AF
m.mcclure{at}imperial.ac.uk
Research,
doi:10.1136/bmj.c1018
References
- Van Kuppeveld FJM, de Jong AS, Lanke KH, Verhaegh GW,
Melchers WJG, Swanink CMA, et al. Prevalence of xenotropic murine
leukaemia virus-related virus in patients with chronic fatigue
syndrome in the Netherlands: retrospective analysis of samples from
an established cohort. BMJ 2010;340:c1018.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Lombardi VC, Ruscetti FW, Das Gupta J, Pfost MA, Hagen
KS, Peterson DL, et al. Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV,
in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Science
2009;326:585-9.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Erlwein O, Kaye S, McClure MO, Weber J, Willis G,
Collier D, et al. Failure to detect the novel retrovirus XMRV in
chronic fatigue syndrome. PLoS One 2010;5:e8519.[CrossRef][Medline]
- Urisman A, Molinaro RJ, Fisher N, Plummer SJ, Casey G,
Klein EA, et al. Identification of a novel gammaretrovirus in
prostate tumors of patients homozygous for R462Q RNASEL variant.
PLoS Pathog 2006;2:211-25.[Web
of Science]
- Suhadolnik RJ, Reichenbach NL, Hitzges P, Sobol RW,
Peterson DL, Henry B, et al. Upregulation of the 2-5A
synthetase/RNase L antiviral pathway associated with chronic fatigue
syndrome. Clin Infect Dis 1994;18(suppl 1):S96-104.[Web
of Science][Medline]
- Gow J, Simpson K, Behan P, Chaudhuri A, McKay I, Behan
W. Antiviral pathway activation in patients with chronic fatigue
syndrome and acute infection. Clin Infect Dis 2001;33:2080-1.[CrossRef][Web
of Science][Medline]
- White PD, Thomas JM, Kangro HO, Bruce-Jones WDA, Amess
J, Crawford DH, et al. Predictions and associations of fatigue
syndromes and mood disorders that occur after infectious
mononucleosis. Lancet 2001;358:1946-54.[CrossRef][Web
of Science][Medline]
- Hickie I, Davenport T, Wakefield D, Vollmer-Conna U,
Cameron B, Vernon SD, et al. Post-infective and chronic fatigue
syndromes precipitated by viral and non-viral pathogens: prospective
cohort study. BMJ 2006;333:575-8.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Hempel S, Chambers D, Bagnall A, Forbes C. Risk
factors for chronic fatigue syndrome/myaglic encephalomyelitis: a
systematic scoping review of multiple predictor studies. Psychol
Med 2008;38:915-26.[Web
of Science][Medline]
- Groom HCT, Boucherit VC, Makinson K, Randal E,
Baptista S, Hagan S, et al. Absence of xenotropic murine leukaemia
virus-related virus in UK patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.
Retrovirology 2010 Published online 15 February.
- Holmes G, Kaplan J, Stewart J, Hunt B, Pinsky PF,
Schonberger LB. A cluster of patients with a chronic
mononucleosis-like syndrome: is Epstein-Barr virus the cause?
JAMA 1987;257:2297-303.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
- Buchwald D, Cheney P.Petersen D, Henry B, Wormsley
SB, Geiger A, et al. A chronic illness characterized by fatigue,
neurologic and immunologic disorders, and active human herpes type 6
infection. Ann Intern Med 1992;116:103-16.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
Unquote.
Comments
[A] Let's start with noting that real medical and
biochemical scientists and patients reject the name "Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome" for their illness, since this seems to be a name expressly
designed to trivialize, deny and pooh-pooh their real illness.
Next, the main content and purpose of the whole editorial, that
seems to have been written with the purpose to be mailed to the
daily papers and other media, and not with the purpose of furthering
real science, but rather with the purpose of blocking and defaming
any real biomedical reasearch into ME, is this first sentence:
Three studies now refute the original study reporting the link
This turns around the quantifier "Three" and the term "refute",
both of which intentionally falsify or misrepresent what is going on.
First, there simply is NO REFUTATION of "the
original study": To
say or write so shows gross scientific incompetence or - of course - the desire to
deceive.
All that has happened is that there was an "original study", in the
highly reputable scientific journal "Science", based on much careful
peer-reviewed scientific research, that established the existence of
XMRV and argued a link to prostate cancer and to ME.
This link may really exist or not and it may really be causal or
not (in that people with ME and other diseases may have a weakened
defense against this retrovirus), but the sort of studies professors
McClure and Wessely refer to simply are not of the kind that "refute"
the findings in "Science".
At best, they do not support it, and they may be taken as evidence
that contradicts or weakens the notion that XMRV and ME or XMRV and
prostate cancer are somehow causally related (or indeed statistically
correlated).
Second, the "Three" studies that are falsely claimed to "refute"
these findings (1) are published in much less reputable scientific
journals (2) after much less careful research (3) are in part not even
peer-reviewed, while (4) have been co-written by parties and persons
that belong to or are associated with the Wessely school of
psychosomatic psychiatry and (5) as usual these persons give no hint
of the fact that this is so.
Third, a fundamental problem with the "Three" studies that are
falsely claimed to "refute" these findings is methodological: These
"Three" studies are based on so called patients with ME that have been
selected on the basis of OTHER criteria than the patients in the
original study.
To say - in a purportedly "scientific" medical journal like the BMJ
- that these "Three" studies "refute" the original studies is to
investigate sacks of oranges that are claimed "scientifically" to be
pears on the ground that they are fruits, so as to conclude
triumphantly "in scientific" conclusion that these oranges are not
pears.
For this is essentially what has happened: Whereas the
original study came from a carefully researched sample of patients with severe ME
according to the Fukuda and Canadian criteria for ME, the "Three"
studies that are falsely claimed to "refute" these findings are based
on the Oxford criteria, that in part logically exclude the
Canada criteria.
But as I said... the purpose of this whole "Editorial" of the "BMJ"
is - so far as I can see, for this is not science but propaganda - to
be sent to the media to bamboozle journalists and trick them into
publishing in the media that
Three studies now refute the original study reporting the link
Well: They do not, and professors McClure and Wessely are easily
intelligent enough to know this, for which reason they must
consciously lie or misrepresent. Back.
[B] The basic problems with that Dutch study - apart from
the competence of Dutch scientists, that very well may not be great at all
if the Dutch 2008 Parliamentary Report on the decades of long decline of the
Dutch universities and schools is even half true - are two.
First, it issues from the Dutch collaborators and implementors of Wessely
school of psychosomatic psychiatry, which is to say, from persons and
institutions that have an axe to grind.
Second, and more seriously, the patients they selected have not been
selected with the proper criterions, and this seems to have been done on
purpose (although that may be difficult to prove).
Also, in this paragraph the term "syndrome" (also in the title) is repeated,
with refers to the fact that, whether called "ME" or "CFS" or "ME/CFS", it
is true that the patients who satisfy any set of criterions for such
diagnosis, are diagnosed by a set of symptoms that may well be called a
syndrome, without their being a known proven cause for the disease.
And this strongly suggests the possibilities that (1) there may be patients
with different diseases that satisfy the same or similar sets of symptoms
and (2) samples from patients with ME (as I prefer to write), especially
when selected by different sets of criterions to determine whether they have
ME, may well be sampled from different groups.
Back.
[C] One may suppose that for e.g. professor Simon Wessely
ME is a "saga", but for patients with ME it tends to be a tragedy,
especially since professor Simon Wessely personal saga and fame are based on
the thesis that such patients are, in his own words, "the undeserving sick", who
are not really ill and do not really deserve the help nor the biomedical
research ill people do reserve.
Also, in propagandistic pieces of pseudo-science as the present one,
professor Wessely generally does not lay out his own theory on the causes of
ME, that surely are either pure genius or total quackery:
Professor Wessely
believes himself to have discovered (or so he implies), all in explicit
and complete contradiction with the
World Health Organization's rulings on ME, that with the approximate 17
million people with ME nothing is really wrong except that they have "a
dysfunctional belief system" that makes them falsely believe they are
ill when they feel ill; falsely believe they are in pain when they feel
pain; and falsely believe they are too exhausted to work when they feel too
exhausted to work.
All of this, in these 17 million people, and in the tens of thousands of
medical doctors, medical specialists and medical biochemists who claim that
most of these are really and seriously ill, according to professor Wessely,
constitutes proof positive of their dysfunctional belief systems,
mental issues, and the urgent need to be subject to massive doses of
Cognitive Behavourial Therapy (CBT) and Graduated Exercise Therapy (GET), all to be
given by members from his own psychosomatic school of pseudo-scientific
psychiatry, so as to cure them from their delusions and/or malingering.
Back.
[D] Here professors McClure and Wessely again overstate
their case, weak as it is:
The resulting study claimed that 67% of patients with chronic
fatigue syndrome were XMRV carriers, compared with 3.7% of
healthy controls.
NO: This was not so much "claimed" as that it was found and
then reported, in a very reputable scientific journal also, after
having been carefully peer-reviewed.
But OK...if this is the way to do science: It is true that the friends and
coworkers of professor Wessely, in part directed by him, then quickly
claimed that they have done what they claim to be scientific research in
which they claim to have found that the blood of patients that they claim
have ME/CFS does not contain XMRV - if what they claim is claimed correctly.
Back.
[E] The claim by professors McClure and Wessely that
The news was received philosophically by most retrovirologists,
who are used to claims of associations between retroviruses and
diseases that fail to withstand the test of time
is again written with a propagandistic purpose, it seems, and so as to confuse and
obfuscate what is at issue:
The term "philosophically" as applied to "retrovirologists" and their
attitudes is at best vaguely grandiose, but probably meant to suggest
"skeptical" by innuendo, whereas the term "most" is not based on any
research, and again simply innuendo.
And the whole quoted sentence is wishful thinking on the part of McClure and
Wessely, that again seems inserted to manipulate mood rather than to write
objective science, for there such gratuitous statements have no place.
Professors McClure and Wessely continue the above thus, thereby showing a
somewhat surprising lack of rational cogency:
Most researchers into chronic fatigue syndrome were also
sceptical, mindful of the problems of defining the syndrome, its
imprecise boundaries, and almost certain heterogeneity.
As stated, this is mostly innuendo that unpacks the innuendo in the previous
sentence, but pray... if there are these "problems of defining the
syndrome, its imprecise boundaries, and almost certain
heterogeneity" then clearly and logically the propagandistic and false claim
with which they opened this awfully irrational BMJ-editorial viz.
Three studies now refute the original study reporting the link
must be very probably either false or not based on proper evidence.
The rest of this paragraph may pass, although they sound as if psychiatrist
Wessely can read the minds of "Most researchers into chronic
fatigue syndrome", but perhaps he really does believe so. In fact, I think
he and his co-author knowingly lie or misrepresent, and lead up to their
next paragraph, that again consists of innuendo and mood rather than
science. Back.
[F] First, that
the research community was underwhelmed
is again Wesselyan misrepresentation or wishful thinking, with little or no
evidence, except for the claimed "research community" he himself heads.
Second, the terms and tenses "was", "were", "would have" and "saw" do not so
much refer to any facts as to how professors Wessely and McClure would like the
established facts and ongoing theorizing about XMRV and its possible
relations to ME to be seen and reported in the media.
Third, the phrase
the larger number of professionals who believe that, irrespective
of causation, rehabilitative treatments can reduce symptoms and
disability
is an intentional misrepresentation: There is no evidence whatsoever about
which proportions of capable medical and/or biochemical scientists
believe precisely what about XMRV and its possible relations to ME, whereas
there are
at least a large "number of professionals" who believe that the
"rehabilitative treatments" that are used especially in Great
Brittain by the psychosomatich psychiatric school of Wesselyan
pseudo-science do NOT "reduce symptoms and disability" but in fact
cause them or make them worse, and may very well kill people,
because they are forced to exhaust themselves while they are too ill to do
so.
And to write and suggest that this Wesselyan documented cruel maltreatment
of British patients with ME (see ....) offers
a perspective that offers hope to patients and is backed by
evidence
is simply a lie about British patients, many of whom fear and despise
professor Wessely and his medical and psychotherapeutical underlings,
because they are well aware what happened to Kate Gilderdale,
Sophia Mirza
and others: Their lives were destroyed under the aegis of the pseudo-science
of the psychosomatic school of Wessely and co.
Back.
[G] As to the opening statements of this paragraph:
First and foremost, however, as with any discovery, the data must
be unequivocal, and the finding has to be confirmed by others. In
January 2010, our own group found no evidence of XMRV in a well
characterised cohort of 186 patients with chronic fatigue
syndrome in the United Kingdom.
The first statement is nominally true, if rather sanctimonious - for its
authors know or should know that in the case of ME the data are not
"unequivocal", and that they are confounded and confused precisely because
professor Simon Wessely and his co-workers have been busy for more than 20 years to
confound and confuse them e.g. by using and proposing criterions to identify
patients with ME that differ from those that qualified
scientists do, and that differ from such as the World Health
Organization supports, just as the conclusions about ME of the psychosomatic
pseudoscientific psychiatric professor Wessely are since decades in
contradiction with the rulings of the World Health Organization, surely a
body of medical experts of far higher qualifications than those of professor
Wessely (who seems to have published much, but very little or nothing that
somebody not of his school of thinking can take rationally serious).
The following is grossely misleading, though its first sentence is nominally
true, or would be if the second is:
Van Kuppeveld and colleagues’ study adds to this negative
evidence. Although the study is small, the patients are well
defined and matched in age, sex, and geographical location.
That the study is "small" weakens its impact, once again underlining there
is and has so far not been any refutation of the
original study.
Furthermore, the patients are not "well defined", but seemed to have
in fact consisted of the frozen blood of several tens of Dutchmen that
around 1990 (!) were somehow by someone on the basis of some criterions that are
not like the criterions of the original study claimed to be "patients with
ME".
Finally, the rest of the quoted statement is mere say so without any
evidence. That is: The probability is that the patients used by Van
Kuppeveld may not have had ME according to the criterions used in the
original study that McClure and Wessely falsely claim to have been refuted,
and besides there are quite a few problems with the methods Van Kuppeveld
used that McClure and Wessely don't deign to discuss, probably because it
undermines the conclusions they propagandize.
The rest of this paragraph I pass, except with remarking that personally I
have never had anything but an open mind about XMRV and its relation to ME,
if any: I do not know what is the cause of ME nor whether XMRV is a
plausible candidate as its cause; but I do know that the sort of writings I have
read of professor Wessely about ME are not rational science, and the
same applies to this socalled "Editorial of the BMJ".
Back.
[H] The next paragraph starts as follows:
There has been much talk of different protocols being used in the
four studies. These technical differences are irrelevant provided
amplification is controlled by inclusion of a "housekeeping gene"
Here I only have the say so of McClure and Wessely. I much doubt they are
right, and much doubt they write the truth as they know it, and I do know
the matter is not at all settled and is and should be under discussion.
In any case, the major problem I see (and I am not a biochemist, and can't
confidently pronounce on biochemical research, although I note that
professor Wessely also is not a biochemist and does, and is not taken
seriously and
in fact refuted in many of his claims by real medical
scientists like professor Malcolm Hooper) is that the criterions used
to select patients to test their blood for the presence of XMRV do differ
considerably, and besides that the methods McClure and Wessely claim to have
used have been criticized by people with more biochemical knowledge and
status than I have or indeed than at least Wessely has.
Back.
[I] The next paragraph is particularly false, although it
seems to be fair enough:
Meanwhile, a different strategy is also being considered to
reconcile these different findings: that new blood samples should
be taken from patients with diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome
and sent to laboratories capable of carrying out the analysis.
In fact, what should have happened but Wessely and co. refused to do is that
from the beginning, after the original XMRV-study was published, proper care
should have been given to assure that follow-up research was indeed based on
the same kinds of patients, selected with the same criterions, and that
their blood was to be investigated by the same sort of procedures.
Wessely and co. made precisely that impossible by quickly generating two
purported "scientific studies", published in a minor journal, without proper reviews,
that contradicted the original findings - on the basis of different
criterions for selecting patients and on the basis of different
procedures of assay.
And the third so-called "study", by Van Kuppeveld etc. is just more of the same,
and by a group of supposed scientists working under the aegis of the Dutch
Wessely, professor Van der Meer, who like Wessely has been writing and
saying and implying for decades that patients with ME are not really ill and
are mentally deluded if not malingering, and should "therefore" not
get the help patients with other illnesses do get, except massive doses of
CGT and GET, to cure them from their madness and to force these "undeserving
sick" to do some physical work, if not by free will then by force (such as
sectioning or withdrawal of their dole money). Back.
[J] The next paragraph starts again with a statement that
reads as if it is written for the BBC-news:
Three studies have now generated data that are in stark contrast
to those of the original study.
The reason they have done so may very well be - as argued above - that these
three studies have been intentionally set up to generate precisely that
manner of "data".
In any case: They do not contradict the data found in the original study, if
only because both the groups of patients used and the methods of assay used
differ from those used in the original groups and methods, and so far as I
can see to such an extent that the results of these "three studies" - all by
co-workers of Wessely, all with a similar interest in maintaining his sort
of pseudo-science - are not rationally comparable to the results of
the original study.
The learned authors continue
However, at least two explanations for this are still possible.
The first, and more unlikely, explanation is that XMRV infection
is geographically confined to the United States.
Next to these "two explanations" there are quite a few more rational
explanations, of which I just gave one:
The so-callled "research" by Wessely, in this case and in many other cases
where ME is involved (and other subjects also), is methodically, rationally
and scientifically flawed, quite possibly on purpose, because Wessely
speaks, writes and acts for political or economical parties that have strong
interests to save on money paid out to help ill people.
The one reason that professors McClure and Wessely give does indeed also seem unlikely
to me, especially since some people with XMRV have been found in England and
Germany. And this at the same time suggests another, more probable
explanation the authors should have mentioned: That the finding of this very
recently found XMRV-virus may be considerably more difficult than is allowed
for by Wessely and his co-workers, and by the authors of the so-called
"three studies", including McClure and Wessely.
Next, I come to a particularly neat piece of spindoctoring, namely the other
possible explanation McClure and Wessely deign to mention:
The second is that the virus is infecting an atypical cohort.
This may well be so.
This is remotely possible, for which reason again McClure's and Wessely's
claim that the original study has been "refuted" is simply
false, but it is
far more possible and probable that there is the involvement of "an atypical
cohort" or two or three, for it seems that "atypical cohorts" are
precisely what the authors of the "three studies" seem to have used,
intentionally so it would seem (if they are not grossly incompetent, that
is), namely such as were selected by other criterions than were used in the
original study and assayed also by other methods than were used in the
original study.
Next, the text of the learned authors in the middle of this paragraph is
ambiguous - and indeed the Lake Tahoe material has been, it would seem,
intentionally defiled by American co-workers of Wessely's school. This has
been treated elsewhere, and I skip it, other than noting the language is
ambiguous.
Then there is this piece of stunning impertinence:
an association with viruses, such as Epstein-Barr virus and human
herpesvirus 6, has already been suggested
where the reference shows this was "already" so in... 1987, since which date
professor Wessely has been busy denying this, namely with insisting ME is
all in the mind, that those who claim it has an organic cause have a
"dysfunctional belief system", and by slandering patients with ME
and the doctors and scientists who support them, by denigrating their
human dignity, and bgy lying about the seriousness of their many complaints, and
by trying to block any research and funding of genuine biomedical research
into the possible cause or causes of ME.
The final sentence of the paragraph
It is possible that XMRV is implicated in the Lake
Tahoe episode but does not play a substantial role in
most cases of chronic fatigue syndrome elsewhere.
suggests that the earlier mentioned ambiguity should be resolved in the
sense that the original study used blood from patients of the Lake Tahoe
outbreak, and seems to have been written with an eye on the eventuality that
the finding in the original study remain standing.
Here then the eventual reply by professors McClure and Wessely is already
sketched out: If so, they will argue that one can have something like ME due
to XMRV, but this then is limited only to those patients from the Lake Tahoe
outbreak - a bit like saying: copper conducts electricity, except when
Wessely and co. investigate it, for then it only conducts cant. As proven in
"three studies"! Back.
[K] The final paragraph starts thus:
The results from other US laboratories investigating XMRV and
chronic fatigue syndrome are eagerly awaited. If the link fails
to hold up, it will be another bitter disappointment to affected
patients.
The first sentence is mere astro-turf, but true as far as it goes. The
second statement is very vague, since "affected patients" is not quantified
(with terms like "many", "most", "all" etc.) for which reason it says very
little.
Speaking for myself, it will not be "another bitter disappointment"
if it were shown that XMRV is not the or a cause of ME, and so far I have
not believed it is, but only that the original study uncovered an
interesting possibility for finding out more about ME.
What is true is that some patients will be quite disappointed, but part of
the reason for this disappointment is precisely due to the doings, sayings
and writings of professor Wessely about "the underservedly sick" with ME,
since he has been telling the world and medical doctors for more than two
decades now that patients with ME are deluded, mad, malingering,
neurotic
and neurasthenic, apparently for no better reason that this serves his
career and his financial and other interests, that may well include the
intentional harming, slandering, offending, denigrating or hurting ill
people, since he has been doing so with such remarkable success for such a
long time, while really having no good rational evidence whatsoever
except his own hardly sane sayings and writings about ill persons, and his
academic titles in the so called science of psychiatry.
The final sentence
Nonetheless, the current debate will still bring critical
attention to the causes of chronic fatigue syndrome, and XMRV
may turn out to be important in the pathogenesis of other
diseases.
is again a slick and sly attempt to falsify matters: Since there is no such
thing as "chronic fatigue syndrome" outside the somewhat cloudy and
fraudulent minds of professor Wessely and his co-workers, who dreamt up the
term so as to deny that ME is a real disease, which is what the World Health
Organization holds since 1969 to this day, the only plausible cause of
chronic fatigue syndrome is fraudulence of perversion in those setting up
and defending the term; and since none of the "three studies", so called, by
Wessely and his co-workers have in any way refuted that XMRV is or may be
causally related to ME their conclusing phrase is what I prefer to call, if
you pardon my French, phony sanctimonious lying.
Back.
Conclusion
I conclude that the BMJ has allowed the publication of a dishonest piece
of pseudo-scientific propaganda, misdirection and misrepresentation -
and my main question must be to its editors:
WHY do the editors of the BMJ allow that a position about ME,
its cause and its treatment, that is since decades in flat
contradiction with (1) the rulings of the World Health Organization and with
(2) many findings of highly reputable medical and biochemical scientists, of
higher reputations and abilities than professor Simon Wessely, is being
furthered in the BMJ and by professor Simon Wessely, especially since the
theories of Wessely about ME (caused by a "dysfunctional belief system"
etc. according to his in my opinion somewhat deluded mind - if he is not a
complete fraud, that is) are clearly unscientific and irrational (or at best only "scientific"
and "rational" according to a small segment of mostly British or American
psychiatrists with little or no real bio-medical competence or education),
and - MUCH more damningly - because the medical and social practices based
on those rather insane or sadistic theories have harmed tens of thousands of
people in Great Britain enormously, and must have driven many people to
suicide, as in the case of Kate Gilderdale, while persons like Sophia
Mirza
and others were cruelly and grossly maltreated on the basis of professor
Wessely's halfbaked claims, opinions and hang-ups?
Isn't it true that if professor Wessely and his few but powerful psychiatric
co-workers are mistaken or simply lying about ME the health,
the human
rights, indeed the lives of many tens of thousands of British citizens have
been destroyed over the past two decades?
Since when is it moral or indeed legal to proceed in such a way? Since when
may persons be refused medical, social or financial help, while all the
evidence is that they have been ill and in pain since years, only because a
handful of psychiatrists - surely hardly a reputable science, surely a
"science" that for the past hundred years has been shown to have been
patched together mostly from delusions or ill-based guesses - says that tens
of thousands who say they are ill and in pain are not ill and in pain?
Since when have morality, decency and rationality left the thinking and
practising of British medical doctors, or at least that group that follows
up or covers for Wessely and his co-workers?
Since when is it moral and legal to deny ill people help; to slander their
human integrity and dignity; to lie about their mental health and their
physical health; and to make it impossible for biomedical researchers to get
funding for research into the causes of ME?
And why does the BMJ, at long last, not dedicate a whole issue to the
rational discussion, by reputable scientists, of professor Malcolm Hooper's
"“Magical Medicine, how to make a disease disappear”", that seems to be a point by point
and argument by argument
refutation of professor Wessely's writings, and is surely written by
someone with more knowledge of biochemistry than the mere psychiatrist
Wessely?
And finally, why do British doctors and biochemists and biomedical
scientists who oppose Wessely's opinions and stances about ME not get
the right to publish extensively in the BMJ or to write editorials in it
about the pseudo-science of Wessely and his co-workers?
Since when - at least since the Middle Ages - is it rational and moral that hundreds of thousands, nay: millions of persons,
are denied help, denied funding, denied medicines, and
denied biomedical research into their condition simply because a few
persons with a degree in a pseudo-science like psychiatry claim they are
malingering or have "dysfunctional belief systems" or are claimed to be
psycho-somatizing, on the ground that whatever illness present day medical
science has not discovered "therefore" does not exist and so "must" be
"psychological"?!
Since such abuse of psychiatry on a social scale is hitherto, outside Great
Britain, the US and The Netherlands only known from the Soviet Union?
P.S. For the moment, the above must do - if
corrections are needed, I have to wait till later to insert them, no
doubt because my "dysfunctional beliefs" are causing me pain and
exhaustion since decades, even though I got an M.Sc. in psychology
with the best possible marks in the same period.
