"Simon Wesseley is the problem not the solution"

indie_view_one wrote:
Wednesday, 29 April 2009 at 06:17 pm (UTC)

Is Jeremy Laurance aware that Simon Wesseley has also written papers stating that illness due to the Camelford Water Poisoning was due to hysteria? A slight problem with his theory has been that autopsies of some who were seriously ill from this event have show extremely elevated levels of Aluminium in their brains. Perhaps it was worry they were ill which sucked all the aluminium into the brain or perhaps it was drinking from a water supply contaminated with 20 tonnes of Aluminium Sulphate.

The Independent would be acting like proper journalists if they investigated whether it is appropriate for psychiatrists like Simon Wesseley to act as Government advisors on illnesses like ME/CFS while working as consultants for the medical insurance industry. The insurance industry have an interest in classifying such illneses as psychiatric conditions (despite the WHO classification of ME as a neurological condition) since they have to pay out on far fewer policies.

Is the Independent aware that no Biomedical research on ME/CFS has been funded by the Medical Research Council in the last 12 years? All projects have been funded by charity - even work by Dr Jonathan Kerr on gene expression which may lead to a diagnostic test. Between 2002 and 2008, at least thirty-three Biomedical research projects into ME/CFS were turned down by the Medical Research Council because psychiatrists like Simon Wesseley were among those deciding which projects were funded and turned down any which did not look at ME/CFS from a psycho-social approach.