PERSONALLY SPEAKING

"The field of mental health is highly subjective,

capricious, and dominated by whims, mythologies,

and public relations.

In many ways it is a pop culture with endless fads but

with no real substance."

Dr. Walter Fisher

Assistant Superintendent

Elgin State Hospital

“Power, Greed and Stupidity in the

Mental Health Racket”.

According to self-professed experts, my muscle weakness is simulated, and my medical perception erroneous. My maladaptive behaviour, faulty coping strategies and learned helplessness have resulted in an obsession about tests which, if encouraged, will perpetuate my illness. My muscle pain and fatigue are related to psychological morbidity and my gender (female) predisposes me to suggestibility.

I now also know that my preference for the "easy life", drives me to acquire the "privileges of the sick role". This is confusing for I did not understand that having to decide what one can afford in any one week is a privilege. For example can I pay for the electricity as well my food? Still as “experts” do, they have it covered. Just in case a diagnosis of malingering was a bit of a stretch, they could always fall back upon my (presumed) previous "psychiatric disorders" as the cause of the whole darn shebang.

Along with other ME sufferers who believed themselves to be balanced individuals of at least average intelligence, we all now know what our true characters are. The “experts” left us in no doubt that as a group, we are a pathetic, snivelling, neurotic, lazy, lying, devious, unintelligent lot with utterly inadequate personalities just waiting - even as we denied the need - to be taught how to think and behave; how much and when to exercise; and to swallow the psychiatric drugs the "therapists" are itching to shove down our throats.

There is just one problem. The self-professed “experts” who have judged us in this way, have never met us; well… so few of us as to make it hardly worth mentioning . To most of us, they are strangers.

From a personal perspective, I have never met any of them; I have never seen any of them and I have never even spoken to any of them on the telephone. It is hardly surprising therefore, that I take these judgments very personally. Just who are these character assassins, these modern day Jack-the-Rippers whose knives slash at and tear out our very guts?

There was no shortage of information and in the course of my research, I found the Jack-the-Ripper analogy not entirely inaccurate. Indeed I found reference to a whole bunch of very shady characters you would not want to meet on your own in a dark alley.

Starting in 1920, a book entitled "Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life" was published. It was written by Alfred Hoch, professor of psychiatry, and he recommended that "mental defectives" be eradicated as a "healing treatment". (1) This progressed to a euthanasia programme known as "T4" which was established in April 1940, and by 1944, nearly 300,000 "mental defectives" had met their deaths at the hands of psychiatrists. (2)

Clearly there was no shortage of willing executioners.

Ernst Rudin, Professor of Psychiatry, and member of the German Society for Racial Hygiene, was clearly delighted. "Only through the Fuhrer did our dream of over 30 years, that of applying racial hygiene to society, become a reality," he said.

Hendrik Verwoed, Prime Minister of South African from 1958 until his assassination in 1966, was the originator of the apartheid regime. He was also a psychologist who trained in Germany in the 1920s when "ethnic cleansing" was strongly recommended by many of his peers.

In a 1983 report, the WHO stated: "Although psychiatry is expected to be a medical discipline which deals with the human being as a whole, in no other medical field in South Africa is the contempt of the person cultivated by racism, more precisely portrayed than in psychiatry."

The former Prime Minister of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic, had been a patient of psychiatrist, Radovan Karadzic. Karadzic and his colleague, Jovan Raskovic, orchestrated torture, rape and murder in Bosnia throughout the 1990s.

Then there were innovative people like Italian psychiatrist, Ugo Cerletti, who, in 1938, was so inspired by the convulsions of pigs that had been electrically stunned prior to slaughter, that he introduced the same system as a "treatment" for human beings.

In his paper, "Neuropathology and Neurophysiology, Including Electro-Encephalography, in Wartime Germany" (3), Leo T. Alexander, Psychiatrist, and Chief Medical Adviser during the Nuremberg Trials, had this to say about the treatment of shell shocked German troops:

Quote: "Regarding the handling of neurosis problems, Dr. Jahnel (a psychiatrist from the Kaiser Wilhelm Research Institute) feels that in the first world war, one had confronted this problem in a helpless manner. He feels this problem has now been solved by means of suggestive treatment with the aid of painful electric currents, as well as by the policy of not letting the patients attain the goals which the illness served. In the last war, the patients definitely felt that they could attain things by their illness…." As already mentioned the same mindset still exists where people who suffer conditions like ME and GWS are concerned.

Alexander continued: " Once a patient went unconscious from the effects of the electricity, the caretakers then had to attach four electrodes to the hands and feet of the patient. Dr. Gelny ran high voltage through them and after ten minutes at the most the death of the patient would set in." Not only is his terminology novel, but so is his concept of "caretakers".

To show that barbaric and criminal behaviour was not confined to German psychiatrists, the intrigued Alexander went on to experiment with ECT himself. He found that when he raised the electric current too quickly, it caused patients to contort and fracture their spines. With no apparent remorse, he explained, "I produced painful…spinal fractures in 3 patients in fairly rapid succession." (4)

One has to ask, are people like Alexander, doctors or monsters?

“Treatment” did not stop at fracturing the spines of those who were already traumatized. American, Walter Freeman, became famous for his frontal lobotomies. Without the benefits of a sterile theatre, gowns, gloves or masks, he and his team "anaesthetized" patients by means of electric shock "treatment", and then with a surgical mallet, he drove an ice-pick like instrument through the eye socket and into the brain where he literally jiggled it about. Clearly he saw no need for scientific exactitude.

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society," said one Dr. Jose M.R. Delgado, Associate Director of Neuropsychiatry, Yale University Medical School. He continued: "The purpose is physical control of the mind……Man does not have the right to develop his own mind." (5)

He, apparently, regarded himself as no mere man. In his mind, he was God.

It took many years before the authorities were persuaded to investigate what went on behind the walls of Harry Bailey’s deep sleep clinic, in Chelsmford Hospital in Sydney, between 1963 and 1979. His "therapy" entailed a barbiturate induced coma of long duration during which patients were subjected to repeated bouts of ECT; females were sometimes afforded extra attention in the form of Bailey’s sexual "favours".

When it finally took place, the inquiry lasted for 288 days and revealed that while the files of 18 fatalities were missing, 183 died either in hospital or within a year of being discharged. About 5000 people went through Bailey’s hands. More than 1,100 of them were "treated" for anything from depression and drug addiction, to anorexia and even some for "ticklish coughs", and of these, 977 left the clinic brain damaged.

In his report, Justice J.P. Slattery described Bailey as "…two-faced, devious, dissembling and unprincipled….." He referred to Bailey’s sexual relations with female patients as "a disgraceful breach of medical ethics." And of the hospital itself, "….there was a systematic cloak of secrecy about the treatments, a blanket on the disclosure of information relating to it and a fraudulent cover-up of deaths and other incidents at the hospital."

Rather than face a trial, Bailey committed suicide. Many of the survivors have been awarded compensation.

These incidents barely scratch the surface.

Ewen Cameron, psychiatrist and one time president of both the American Psychiatric Association and the World Psychiatric Association, was a supporter of the Nuremberg Code which outlawed experimentation without the patient’s informed consent. He was held in very high esteem by his colleagues.

Nevertheless, in 1950 he accepted a large sum of money from the CIA in return for carrying out experimental "depatterning" on his unsuspecting patients at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal as part of the CIA’s mind control operation.

"Operation knockout" destroyed the personality of the subjects by means of electric shocks up to 40 times above what was then the recommended safety level. Some were subjected to a drug-induced stupor that lasted on occasion as long as 90 days, and for 2 to 5 weeks, they were brainwashed by politically "correct" messages on a continuously playing audio tape.

Quote: "The Agency doctors would continue committing serious breaches of their sacred oath; would still, if need be, use treatment methods that were reckless and dangerous to life….The [CIA’s] director [would look] beyond the borders of the United States to Canada, to Montreal, to Dr. Ewen Cameron. The psychiatrist and his unsuspecting patients would be the Agency’s flag bearers into the unknown world of influencing memory, changing personality, and disturbing the mind." ("Journey into Madness - The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse", by Gordon Thomas, 1989.)

In March, 1980, eight of Cameron’s former patients sued the CIA and the Canadian Government over the mind control experiments and were awarded $750,000 on the understanding that they would never discuss the case in public again. Interestingly and as indicated, the Government was also held responsible.

In 2001, an investigation into the practices of Dr. Selwyn Leeks, who was head of the Lake Alice Hospital children’s unit in New Zealand in the 1970s, took place. But here we are in 2003, and the affair seems to have melted away.

Quote: "Craig Paterson, executive director of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, said that the allegations were eroding public confidence in the medical system….It was not psychiatry and it was not medicine…It was child abuse and it was torture…"(New Zealand Herald 18/10/2001.) It was torture which the political authorities as well as Paterson’s own organization and the medical council, could have brought to a halt but were happy to allow to continue until it could no longer be hushed up.

Appalling stories of children being punished with painful injections of paraldehyde and electric shock "treatments" were finally published by the media. In some instances, the children were forced to administer the latter to other children, increasing the current as directed. Some spoke of sexual abuse by staff members, but perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all, was that many of the details of Leeks’ administration have been withheld from the public.

As for Leeks, he claims that the incidents were grossly exaggerated; that his methods were "aversion therapy" which on the whole was quite successful. The same could no doubt have been said of the shell shocked German troops who were given "aversion therapy" until (quote) “death of the patient set in”.

"For those who are complaining, it obviously didn’t last, or didn’t last as long as it might have," said Leeks. (6). How very inconvenient for him. Leeks moved to Australia and continues to practice in Melbourne.

We will probably never know what went on behind the scenes and why such a monster has been allowed to remain free to continue his practices. Unusual but small comfort, was the apology the victims received from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clarke. After years of battling, compensation was finally paid but, given the horror of the experience, it was but a pittance highlighting how little value is placed on the lives of such victims.

Torture is the theme running through these few examples of the gross misbehaviour of some psychiatrists, and even though it is common, it was still a surprise to find an article on the subject in The Lancet (Vol 357; May 19, 2001). It was entitled "History of medical involvement in torture - then and now".

Quote: "Torture….. was an oppressive instrument used in the preservation of power, and this last function of torture is especially relevant today."

Quote: "Doctors were also a type of torture advisor, especially when the accused was ill or weak. They had to recommend methods of torture that the accused could survive…[and] " (1) they gave advice as to when to stop the torture to prevent sudden death, (2) they had to assess whether unconsciousness was real or simulated; and (3) they treated the bruises and fractures of the accused to improve their health enough to allow torture to continue."

Quote: "….traditional methods mainly used physical pain, whereas modern torture also involves psychiatric-pharmacological and psychological techniques….[which] are used often because they leave no visible evidence…..; torture today must be impossible to prove, which would not be possible without medical skills."

Quote: "A glance at the historical involvement of doctors in torture shows that medical complicity in torture has a long tradition, and is still active." We have seen the truth of this in the handling of Iraqi prisoners during the Gulf War.

So much for the Hippocratic Oath! And what are the toxic substances that are used to torment? They are the same substances innocent citizens are prescribed by members of the medical profession and in particular, psychiatrists. Ask anyone who has suffered adverse effects to psychotropic drugs - they may not have heard of the word AKATHISIA but they certainly understand its definition: "a unique form of inner torture that, prior to the development of psychiatric drugs, probably never existed".

And still it goes on. Seeking more of us for fodder, was Australian, Professor Ian Hickie who, in 2001, claimed that (quote): "Sixty percent of people who visit general practitioners have a mental disorder according to a groundbreaking study of 46,000 patients.

"The research, published today in a special supplement to the Medical Journal of Australia, indicated a need for routine screening, Professor Hickie said." (Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July, 2001)

The "groundbreaking study" was based on one of those questionnaires of which psychiatrists seem to be particularly fond, and which were distributed to doctors’ waiting rooms. It was upon answers to questions such as: "In the last two weeks, have you had a (a) headache (b) back pain (c) felt tired (d)….." that Hickie and his fellow "scientists" came to their remarkable conclusion.

What the article did not tell us was, who funded the "study"? There can be no doubt that the drug industry must have been absolutely delighted with the outcome.

To conclude, the following are some of the other antics committed by certain medical “experts” – people who have judged us greedy malingerers – seekers of the benefits of the sick role.

In 1996, Carl Lichtman, a New Jersey psychiatrist, was ordered to pay $2.8 million and $200,000 to the state for defrauding 36 insurance companies.

In 1998, Canadian psychiatrist, John Orpin, was jailed for 6 years for sexually assaulting female patients. Earlier he had been convicted for defrauding the Canadian government health insurance plan.

In 1998, Massachusetts adolescent psychiatrist, Antonio DeGuzman, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for fondling three young male patients.

In 1999, Dr. Wulf Aschoff, child psychiatrist, and former head of Germany’s Albert-Schweitzer clinic, was charged with photographing and videoing naked children and playing with their genitals.

In 1999, during a federal investigation into the fraudulent billing practices of Virginian psychiatrist, Carl Robert Showalter, photographs were found of boys masturbating. Showalter was shown participating in some of the pictures. He defended this practice by claiming it was "therapy".

In 2000, Utah psychiatrist, Robert Weitzel, was convicted on two counts of manslaughter and three counts of negligent homicide over the deaths of five elderly patients.

In the same year, Australian psychiatrist, Roderick Doyle Motum, shot a male prostitute.

In November, 2001, psychiatrist, Colin Bouwer, was sentenced in the High Court in New Zealand, for the carefully planned murder of his wife, through the administration of a cocktail of drugs over a period of time. His mistress, also a psychiatrist, vowed she would wait for him.

Instead of acting in the interests of the voting public, elected politicians turn a blind eye to the criminal behaviour of those who sit in judgment upon us while believing themselves to be above the law.

During the past decade, and for the first time in history, patient anger has grown loud and strong - a situation that those at whom the anger is directed, find intolerable.

May those who reject the facts; who have the power to right the wrongs but don’t; who lie; who cheat; who commit fraud, and who abuse, torture and kill, take this article as personally as I take their criminal behaviour.

References:

1. Ernest Hunter, M.D. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry , 9 April, 1993, p.151

2. "Psychaitrists: The Men Behind Hitler: Thomas Roder, et al. Freedom Publishing, LA, 1995, p.48.

3. CIOS Item 24. Medical File No. XXVII – I, 25 July, 1945

4. Page 182 of the April 1952 edition of Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology.

5. U.S. Congressional Record, 1974

6. "Terrible Legacy of Lake Alice". New Zealand Herald 27/10/01

Gurli Bagnall

2003

An open letter to Professor Peter White

19 November, 2007


Dear Professor White


Re: Your response to: “Whiter than White” by Margaret Williams.
 


For accurate information on ME, logical analysis, referenced statements and integrity, I have never hesitated to recommend researcher and author, Margaret Williams. It was therefore with interest that I read your response to her recent comments regarding the radio interview in which you participated.

I must say that your reaction was entirely predictable and having read it, I then listened to the interview in question. 
 


You included your email address in your response, and I took that as an invitation to your readers to express their opinions.
 


In matters of public interest, satire and cartoons have the power to diffuse anger and violence and from that point of view, certain members of your profession have cause to be grateful to the authors and artists who have made good use of the rich material arising out of one medical scandal after another. This relates in particular to the psychiatric field.

While satirists and cartoonists do not have the power to deliver justice, they do take away dignity from those who deserve, in some instances, no less than criminal prosecution. 
 


Here we are in the year 2007 with promises of patient/doctor partnerships and the assurance that ME is recognized as a neurological disease; fine words, but nothing has changed. We still hear jokes such as: “The difference between God and a surgeon is that God KNOWS he is not a surgeon.” And as relevant today as it was ten years ago is the quote: “Doctors will get off their pedestals when we get off our knees”.

It is clear to those who follow developments that the dangers of iatrogenic disease, disability and death have reached the point where medical treatment is now the leading cause of suffering due to health issues. Many books have been written on the subject and patient concerns are constantly ridiculed by the medical profession and those influenced by it, as we see in ME. Time and again, history shows that decades after various concerns were first aired by the lay community, the medical profession issues a statement: “It has been discovered that….” To put it simply, 
your profession is not above taking credit for progress once it could no longer subdue the facts.

The advice we have been given and the pills we have swallowed, have resulted in epidemics in obesity, diabetes, cardiac disease, eating disorders and psychiatric conditions to name but a few. If you become an in-patient in hospital, the chances are that you will take an unwelcome guest home with you - an untreatable super bug.
 
The medical profession and psychiatry in particular, is manufacturing its own business to the financial advantage of itself, the pharmaceutical industry and hangers on. The disadvantaged are the sick, the dying and their families. 
 


A Google search on psychiatric abuse reveals horrors that have no place in a civilized society. There one sees conflicts of interest, physical and mental abuse, negligence, torture, malpractice, fraud and more. 
 
You may attempt to dismiss the entries as nonsense and the work of a few cranks; you may say that only those easily swayed (such as ME patients) believe them. But that is not so. It is those who have never experienced anything described therein who are naïve and who could blame them for not wanting to believe that such obscenities occur? On the other hand, those who HAVE experienced “preventable medical error” or seen it happen to family members and/or friends, know the truth of it. Their numbers are growing and they are becoming increasingly angry at the knowledge that this situation has been allowed to grow out of control.

They gave the loyalty demanded of them to a profession that has betrayed them. 
 
When you speak of the research needed into ME, they think of the valid research results you have dismissed or ignored. When they ask for treatment to relieve their pain and other physical symptoms, you offer CBT, GET and psychotropic drugs. When you protest that you DO believe ME is physical, you add “As well as psychological” in the same breath. When they ask for the tests that have already picked up anomalies in others, you dismiss those tests as irrelevant. 
 


Your comment during the interview that you believed some tests were too hard on the patient was not convincing. When it comes to ME, few doctors give a hoot about how hard anything is for the patient. The truth of the matter is, that patients want the tests and almost without exception, your profession refuses to make the referrals.


I quote from your response: “Being a psychiatrist in the field of CFS/ME, I am used to being misquoted, misunderstood, or quoted out of context…” Others faced with a similar situation might wonder why the controversy revolves around ME and little else. They might ask of themselves, “Could it be that I am wrong?” 
 


If Joe Doe says that black is white, he is ridiculed. If Psychiatrist X says the same, his colleagues stand on their heads and whistle through their toenails in their determination to convince all that it is true. One of their number can simply not be seen to be wrong! How dare anyone suggest that it could be so!
 


Sadly, Professor White, medical history is full of examples of medical beliefs that defy common sense. And it is full of examples of the same mistakes being made over and over again.
 
If you truly believe ME is a physical disease as you did (sort of) say, why are you meddling in something that does not concern you? Do you meddle in oncology? Dermatology? Cardiology? I suspect that would frowned upon, so why meddle in neurology?
 


Members of the medical profession are supposed to belong to society’s intellectual elite. The general behaviour belies that supposition. In fact, given their resistance to learn from their mistakes, doctors must surely be amongst the slowest learners in society.



A few years ago, your colleague, Michael Sharpe, came up with a novel way of using patient anger to his advantage. He stated that it had been accepted as one of the diagnosing symptoms of ME. That was certainly news to me and I wondered, accepted by whom? The WHO? Those engaged in legitimate research and/or patient care? Of course not!

That comment had the potential for causing more harm than had already been done and was a sure way to crank up the anger a notch or two! Perhaps that was the intention?
 
That the strategy was self-serving cannot be denied. It also highlighted the facts that (1) there is no relationship whatsoever between genuine science and psychiatry, and (2) those who espouse psychiatric opinion are not necessarily smart.

Regrettably stupid, too, are those who forget the lie they told yesterday (e.g. “Those most prone to ME are high-flying, educated, white women in managerial positions”) and tell a new and contradictory one today (e.g. “Those most prone to ME are the poorly educated in the lower socio-economic bracket”.) 
 
And here’s the irony. It is people of this ilk who believe respect is theirs as of right. It is also people of this ilk who have the gall to attack the integrity and intelligence of the sick and vulnerable.

You have already discovered for yourself that ME sufferers no longer feel inclined to doff their caps and genuflect at the sight of an approaching stethoscope.
 
Psychiatric therapists administer CBT - they tell people how to think and behave - yet the number of suicides, marriage break-ups, and criminal charges (mainly for sexual abuse and fraud) are higher in psychiatry than in other branches of medicine. 
It hardly seems a safe place from which to draw a role model. 
 


I cannot think of one good reason why an ME sufferer should take advice from average run-of-the-mill psychiatrists or accept anything they say as the truth. In general, the short-comings lie, not with the patients as they would have us believe, but with the same self professed “experts”.
 


Gurli Bagnall 
 


19 November, 2007

BEYOND THE CROCODILE TEARS.

(Comments on article by Anne Atkins)

Gurli Bagnall

“…it is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental

importance, that justice should not only be done,

but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

Lord Hewart

Rex v Sussex

Someone once said, “Justice? Who’s talking about justice? We’re talking about the law!” but in the case of Kay Gilderdale who assisted her daughter to die, compassion and common sense prevailed. Justice was done and seen to be done, and the over-zealous prosecution and persecution of Kay which had compounded the suffering, did at least receive a slap on the wrist.

Along with the international ME community, I heaved a sigh of relief that this was so.

This essay was generated by the anger I felt on reading Anne Atkins’ article published in MailOnline 31 January, 2010.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1247348/ANNE-ATKINS-I-know-curse-ME-Im-sorry-wrong-let-Lynn-die.html

It presented an argument which can best be described as hypocritical, patronizing, ignorant, vengeful and simplistic to the point of being nonsensical.

Everyone has the right to air their views as long as they do no harm. One would expect Anne who claims to be governed by her religious principles, to be truthful at the very least but instead she displays a disrespect for the beliefs of others as unworthy of consideration. In doing so, she shows herself to be both arrogant and foolish. This is compounded by the fact that she tries to stifle differing views by arguments that are fiction from beginning to end.

At the same time, I reluctantly confess to feeling some sympathy for her. It is hard to escape the thought that she has been exploited – taken as an ill-informed person easily led by a strong personality and used for that person’s nefarious purposes. Is she shocked at the thought that this person bears ill-will towards a vulnerable, desperately ill section of the international community?

In every word she wrote, I saw Simon Wessely. From the miraculous cures and case histories she presented I can well understand that “her own family has known the curse of” depression and possibly other mental disorders. However, nothing in her article concerned the neurological disease, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).

Knowing the methods of psychiatrist, Simon Wessely, all I can say to Anne is that if her brother, Shaun, was genuinely cured by him, then it was definitely not ME for, contrary to his claims, Wessely repeatedly demonstrates his lack of expertise in that field.

While expressing her admiration for Kay’s years of devotion to her daughter, she then pointed the finger at all of her supporters for being “gung-ho” about the law and made it clear that the court’s decision was wrong. The impression one is left with, is that had the decision been Anne’s to make, Kay would now be in prison. The hypocrisy was sickening.

In challenging the verdict, Anne muddled her way between the laws of the land and the laws of what I presumed is her religion. In regard to the former, she showed herself once again, to be ill-informed and in regard to the latter, she attempted to impose her personal intolerance and fanaticism upon the rest of us who have our own beliefs which are no less valid than hers.

The law is generally presented in terms of black and white; shades of grey are not permitted. All too often a prosecution is not so much about justice as it is about revenge – but not necessarily for the victim of the crime. The victim of crime such as rape and grievous bodily harm, often receives little, if any, consideration at all. The revenge is in regard to a person who has had the temerity – whether justified or not – to act against a man-made law.

Kay was most assuredly innocent but there was a case to answer so at whose door should charges have been laid?

Many in the ME world have had to make a similar choice to those who were trapped in the uppers floors of the twin towers when the planes struck.

http://www.twin-towers.net/tt_video.htm

Their choice was to either die by leaping into space or face incineration. What would Anne have done? What would the Rabbi she consulted, have advocated?

The ME sufferer who takes his or her own life in most cases may have faced a slow, painful death due to medical neglect compounded by inappropriate and dangerous treatment. To make matters worse, the denial of state benefits (on medical advice) is common and becoming more so in some places. Who will pay the rent, do the shopping, the housework, prepare meals and clean up the wet and soiled bed?

What gems of “wisdom” can Anne offer?

Someone is answerable for every so-called suicide of an ME sufferer. I believe charges belong at the feet of the exploiters and purveyors of false information; of those who pull the strings of the easily influenced such as Anne. I further believe they committed murder by design, with malice aforethought…and from a distance.

Also from a distance they watched the hounding of Kay which made a mockery of the contention that Britain is a civilized democracy.

The judge who sat on her case, goes some distance to restoring a measure of faith and to him, I say: Thank you.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7002405.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245930/Kay-Gilderdale-cleared-attempted-murder-daughter-Lynn.html

Incredibly governments, elected by the people to care for the efficient and fair administration of the state, sit on the sidelines and do nothing.

How foolish it would be for us to ignore this behaviour accepting instead the words of (quote): “the smart commentators and senior politicians, who will exude an air of experienced superiority over the naïve and gullible who dare to give the time of day to anything the politicos sneeringly call a conspiracy theory. It is the new insult from the established classes. It is also bad journalism and politics.” (Norman Baker MP, from the Preface of his book: “The Strange Death of David Kelly”.)

Can any deny there is the stench of decaying rat amongst the debris of political corruption when taking into account the secret file on ME held in the UK with Medical Research Council (MRC) involvement? It is to be held unopened until the year 2071, and if anything points to governmental corruption and complicity, that does. What are they hiding?

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/The-MRC-secret-files-on-ME.htm

At least one reason is clear; we’ve seen it all before with the deliberate exposure of military personnel to nuclear fallout, Agent Orange and a variety of chemicals which contributed to the Gulf War Illnesses, to name but a few. Future compensation payments are less likely to bankrupt the country if most of the victims are dead.

It is all relevant to the ME situation; strange that Anne somehow forgot to mention any of these matters.

A good example of justice v revenge, is the sway Roy Meadow had over the British courts for many years. Common sense was lost under the weight of his vindictiveness towards women, a situation that most judges seemed to be more than willing to allow.

How so many of them found Roy Meadow’s evidence of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy – a disorder he invented – more credible than the distressed, innocent and grieving women they sentenced to prison for murder of an infant, highlights judiciary prejudice at its worst. Meadow did eventually pay a price for his years of arrogance, stupidity and abuse of power, but it was nothing compared to the price paid by his victims.

http://www.fassit.co.uk/sir_roy_meadow.htm

The Evening Standard (London) published an article by David Cohen, on January 23, 2004 . it was entitled: He Doesn't Like Women, Says Ex-Wife.

Quote: “Gillian Paterson, the former wife of Roy Meadow, buried her head in her hands, then looked up, her face screwed in anguish.

’It's tragic,’ she said. ‘My heart goes out to those mothers - to lose your children and then be accused of killing them…I wish somebody could have stopped him.’

She went even further. ‘Roy is a misogynist’, she said baldly. ‘I don't think he likes women….although I can't go into details, I'm sure he has a serious problem with women.’"


Apart from the Gilderdale verdict, Anne clearly holds authority in high regard. Where, I wonder, does she stand on the Meadow issue? Does it make any difference to her that there are still an unknown number of women in prison who were/are victims of a psychologically unbalanced individual? Would she describe protesters of this situation as having a gung-ho attitude to the law?

The authorities are made up of a group of fallible – in some cases even criminal – people. If we as voters allow them to continue to ride rough-shod over us and not demand their accountability, then we deserve all we get. Public debate clears the path for progress and those who would stifle it as Anne has attempted to do, must face the consequences.

Ask the question: When in medical history, has there been an anti-medical movement as large and as angry as the one we now see? The answer is: never. This is unprecedented; unheard of. The ME community is doing all it possibly can, but those who suffer it are generally very ill; the rest of society soon forget, believing that this could never happen to them.

Most of us could quote several cases of injustice and Anne’s article brought such thoughts racing through my mind. If indeed Simon Wessely, his merry men and adoring women, had had a finger in this particular pie, they really scraped the bottom of the barrel.

This essay is not about Wessely but since the toe of his boot is apparent throughout, he does require a mention. I confine my comments to the following. From observation of him over the years, it is hard to say where his expertise lies. Certainly it is not in the neurological field in which he is meddling. He sees normal human reactions and emotions as mental disorders and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) a treatment for physical diseases. He refuses to discuss research and genuine scientific findings; does he have the knowledge and understanding to do so? Perhaps not.

He excels in compiling questionnaires for “diagnostic” purposes but on examination, it is not difficult to see that they are designed to produce a desired result. If that ploy does not work, then as he explains (in the British Medical Journal), the answers are “adjusted for confounding factors”. See the following quote:

BMJ 2001;323:473-476 ( 1 September )

Prevalence of Gulf war veterans who believe they have Gulf war syndrome: questionnaire study

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7311/473

Quote: “We examined factors that could potentially be associated with a belief in having Gulf war syndrome, such as number of exposures reported, number of vaccines received, and knowing other people with Gulf war syndrome. We adjusted for confounding factors that had the potential to distort the results such as education, rank, whether serving in the army at the time of the questionnaire, and health outcomes, including distress, fatigue, physical symptoms, and physical functioning, that may have influenced individual's beliefs and behaviour.”

If seeking a diagnosis, my advice is to give Professor Simon Wessely a wide berth.

Wessely’s main strength lies in his gift of the gab but his memory often lets him down and contradictions abound. A good example is that of the type of person most likely to be affected by ME or, as he prefers, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Once it was said to be a disorder suffered by hysterical women, then it became known as the Yuppie Flu which afflicted young, wealthy, up-and-coming go-getters. They were hard to convince, so Wessely’s attention moved laterally to the lower socio-economic group which are also blamed for being the most vulnerable to Gulf War Illnesses. Not so, say those still surviving – be they general, captain, chaplain or medical personnel.

Wessely has produced a new vocabulary sufficient to compile his own dictionary. The speed with which his bleating followers have availed themselves of these words and terms would be hilarious if they did not deliberately put them to harmful us – as indeed was the clear intention.

Mention has already been made of a secret file which must remain sealed until the year 2071.

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/The-MRC-secret-files-on-ME.htm

This affords Wessely and his ilk the official protection they need to continue the abuse of seriously ill people; Wessely is a person Anne admires.

Leaving aside the crocodile tears, the hypocrisy, the accusing wagging finger and a whole range of inconsistencies, there are still many aspects of her article that do not ring true and do her no credit. Having made her own judgements and comparisons, I make no apology for doing likewise.

Anne offered unsolicited advice on how to deal with a loved one’s request for assistance with suicide under similar circumstances to those which Kay endured. She recommends a reply such as: “I can’t darling. It is a very serious crime.”

It is not the reluctance to act upon such a request that offends; that is understandable. It is the reasoning – the justification for denying it.

Anne made no secret of the fact that her son suffered undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome, from a young age. He had been (quote) “persuaded he was a freak, unable to fit in and a constant nuisance to teachers who bullied him ceaselessly to conform.”

Considering later developments, I wondered if he, at the age of ten, had had the support of his mother.

I wondered if the little boy who had climbed onto a roof with view to killing himself by jumping, had felt comforted by the word “darling”. Had it softened the blow to a child in knowing his mother loved him less and considered him less worthy, than a poorly defined and ill-conceived man-made law? Somehow I doubt it.

I went through the article again hoping to see reference to her defence of her son. Did she storm into the headmaster’s office and read the riot act? Did she drag the offending teachers from their classrooms and tell them in no uncertain terms, to desist; to stop the bullying? Did she put her arms around her boy and tell him she loved him and he was not alone? Or did she, like his teachers, consider him to be naughty and a nuisance?

Having laid the blame on his teachers, she then turned her pointing finger in the direction of Dr. Philip Nitschke. It seems they have both appeared on some programme or other and later she “ ...realized how angry I was. Twelve years earlier, aged ten, our son had been one of those he seeks to help.”

She added: “Had Dr. Nitschke had his way in 1997, he could have killed my brilliant, compassionate and sensitive son, now probably the happiest and most balanced – and kindest – person I know.”

First the teachers were responsible, then Dr. Nitschke but what about Anne herself?

How truthful has Anne been? Nitschke offers (or offered) advice on VOLUNTARY euthanasia to adults in unendurable circumstances. To my knowledge he does/did not offer counselling of this nature to children, nor does he advocate jumping off a roof as a method of suicide.

I take issue too with the fact that Anne, in common with others of like mind, omitted the word VOLUNTARY simply because it does not suit her argument.

If a case can only be argued with untruths, then there IS no case.

The vision I see in my mind at this moment is that of Wessely trying to hold back the hoots of laughter as he considers that on this occasion, it is she who will be scraping egg off her face, and not he.

Shame on them both.

Gurli Bagnall

New Zealand

February, 2010

CONSPIRACIES AND BETRAYAL: Is NICE really nice?

“Not another conspiracy theory?” The cry will go up as this book hits the shops. It will be

heard especially from the smart commentators and senior politicians, who will exude an air

of experienced superiority over the naïve and gullible who dare to give the time of day to

anything the politicos sneeringly call a conspiracy theory. It is the new insult from the

established classes."

Opening paragraph of the Preface in:

“The Strange Death of David Kelly”

by Norman Baker MP

Norman Baker is a brave man. He dared to blow the whistle.

During the last decades the behaviour of which he speaks, has become increasingly

prominent. We see it in nearly every aspect of society as the powerful flex their muscles and

serve themselves before serving those who elected them to office.

The above quote came to mind as I read the extract from the letter to Paul Davis from the

Countess of Mar. God alone knows, as sufferers of ME, we are on the sharp end of the stick

when it comes to such accusations.

The Countess of Mar’s switch in allegiance seemed incongruous and before making any

comment, I made it my business to seek information from other sources. I was assured that

everything I had read was true.

From seemingly every quarter in the UK, the sense of confusion and despair comes through

loud and clear. Lost to us, is the person of integrity and intelligence we believed the

Countess of Mar to be. As a friend, she spent years fighting fearlessly in our corner with an

understanding of the issues from a personal perspective and from her investigation into

behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

The Countess of Mar’s actions leave a bitter taste. Where her energies had once been spent

championing the human rights of ME sufferers, those energies are now devoted to the cause

of those she once reviled and those who have set themselves on a course with the destruction

of ME victims in mind.

As to her motives, we can but surmise. That which we can be certain about, it that this is no

theory. It may well be a conspiracy; it is certainly a betrayal - a betrayal that will doubtless

add to the many hardships the ME community already live with.

Now more than ever, we need to remember a number of things.

In particular we should not underestimate our own intelligence and common sense nor

should we forget or allow the "experts" to forget the iatrogenic statistics as far as they

are known. Both belie the explanation that ME sufferers are mentally disturbed and

this diagnosis is made purely for the benefit of the so-called diagnostician.

The Countess rightly points out that CBT and GET are the only “universal treatments”

officially on offer; the implication being that we should therefore accept them. If you were

told that the “universal” menu for the evening meal was a delicious bowl of DDT, would

you eat it?

Within living memory, the universal treatment for asthma and even epileptic seizures, was a

smart smack in the face usually delivered by the (old school) battle-axe of a hospital sister or

matron. Very recently, an attempt was made to bury the discovery that peptic ulcers are

mainly the result of a treatable infection. “Universal treatments” were far more profitable,

but they resulted in a great deal of damage. Years on a bland diet and antacids destroyed the

digestive system; sheer neglect resulted in perforations, internal haemorrhages, unnecessary

surgery and sometimes, death. As for CBT....those demeaning lectures on an inadequate

personality.....

Can the medical profession be trusted to get it right; to behave ethically; to treat you with the

respect you deserve, to do no harm etc etc.. (The only statistics available are hospital records

and they alone show that one third of diseases, disabilities and deaths occur as a result of

preventable medical “error”.)

Remember the wording used in the recruitment of “therapists” to administer CBT/GET at

the CFS/ME clinics around the UK, and know that the main (figurative) requirement was a

stout pair of jack-boots.

Conspiracy “theory”? The denials, rejections and silences surrounding the results of

genuine research into the physical causes and effects of ME, are not theories. They are fact

and without doubt, conspiracies.

How can the Countess justify her actions?

Gurli Bagnall

Patients’ Rights Campaigner

22 November, 2008

PROVE IT!

I would like to thank Tom Kindlon for his recent 
Co-Cure postings on quotes from Dr. Bill Reeves (of CFS research at the CDC) 
and his second in command, Dr. James Jones.


BILL REEVES


Reeves compared his ruptured quadriceps tendon to ME – or CFS as he chooses to call it. The point he was trying to make in claiming to have found CBT useful as he struggled to get about on a crutch, is not clear.

Perhaps the message meant, if it was good enough for him, it should be more than good enough for a bunch of lay-abouts and people who only imagine they are ill. 
 


The point that he neglected to mention, is that, first and foremost, without argument or even question, Reeves’ physical injury was treated appropriately. Had this not been so, instead of boasting about his “cleverness”, he would either have kept quiet or created an uproar. 
 


If, after the appropriate treatment he still needed a shoulder to cry on in the form of CBT, that was his business and personally I couldn’t care less. In fact it leaves one almost speechless to think that he, as a doctor, “…did not understand what was happening, how to cope with it and what to expect.”
 


In the UK, an ME sufferer is offered CBT, GET, mind altering drugs and nothing else. What they WANT is the same right Reeves took for granted – appropriate treatment. As for CBT, after years of practice in coping alone, most already know what is happening and what to expect. The offer of mind bending services by “therapists” who don’t know their ME from their jackboots, is both ludicrous and offensive.
 


My message to Reeves is: “Spare us!” He demeans those who suffer a severe, painful and incurable neurological disease so what sympathy can he expect for an injury that will heal in a few months? 
 


JAMES JONES
 


Dr. James Jones is Reeves’ second in command. They share the same views on ME and both know those views are false. No ifs, buts or maybes! They know. 
 


I base this on the assumption that having graduated from medical school, they must surely have IQ levels that allow understanding of the physical significance of the scientific findings regarding ME. 
 
Instead and like a broken record, they persist in bombarding all and sundry with their theories and along with like-minded colleagues, frequently become angry, sulky and petulant when patients, carers and ethical researchers, refuse to accept that their “opinions” over-ride the scientific findings.
 


Such behaviour is not the result of consideration for the well-being of sick people, but rather of self interest with associated profits/gains. Jones labours under the delusion that whatever garbage comes from his pen, providing it is pretentious and gives the impression of being scientific, it will impress. 
He is wrong. 
 
The reality is that if ten of his colleagues were picked at random and asked to analyse the article from which the quotes were taken, the result would be ten very different versions and even then, most would be left scratching their heads as they continued to thumb their way through their dictionaries.

Jones has given us a rich selection of confusion-creating statements to choose from. Here is one:


“…the odds for CFS was quite different between females and males, particularly with high allostatic load variables. The odds ratio was 5½ if the allostatic index was greater than 6 in females, it was 2.3 in males, but - in other words when we do our population studies and we look for illness and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, we are really measuring a syndrome or are we simply measuring - studying individuals who have had marked accumulated life stress and are developing the illnesses that one developes when you’re 50 years of age or more?”

In charitable mood, I thought if I understood the meaning of the word “allostatic” I might make some sense of it. There was however, a major stumbling block; I consulted several references but none of them listed “allostatic”. The closest was allopathy, a noun from which it MIGHT have been derived. Even so, it still made no sense.

If it exists, someone will no doubt alert us to a reference which contains “Allostatic”; nevertheless I challenge Dr. Jones to explain the above statement and prove its veracity. 
 
[Allopathy = the method of treating a disease by using remedies to produce effects different from those caused by the disease treated (contrasted with homeopathy). 


Of CBT Jones said:
“…it’s really an extraordinarily slow program. But in essence you’re training the individual and they’re training themself (sic) that being physically active is OK and that lying on the couch is not OK.”

At best, this comment is ignorant, at worst, it is cruel. My personal view is that this author is not fit to train anyone to do anything.

After reading these passages, an acquaintance who is accustomed to reading professional journals did not mince his words. His considered opinion was expressed in just one: “Bullshit!”
 


Psychiatrists who have the welfare of their patients in mind, will tell you that one thing members of their profession do not like, and that is to be asked to PROVE IT. If the patient is told he has a chemical imbalance in the brain and will need medication for life, say: PROVE IT! 
 
Ask if the patient has a deficiency in prozac or any other kind of psychotropic substance. If he says yes, he is a liar. Such substances are not naturally occurring in the human body.

If he still insists the patient needs the substance, ask if it is addictive, causes tardive dyskinesia, akethisia, diabetes, CNS injury, mental confusion, suicide, birth defects (and more), in most users. If he sneers and calls you naïve, you can once again and with absolute certainty, call him a liar.
 


Ask the “expert” to PROVE that his diagnosis is correct and all he can say with any truth is that it is listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM). That manual does not require him to take one drop of blood or piece of tissue for testing or to provide proof of any other sort that any condition is present. Even so and as if he has x-ray eyes, he expects his patients to believe him. Such arrogance in itself, can be interpreted as a mental disorder. 
 


The very method by which this manual is compiled is a scandal. How do the ever increasing numbers of mental illnesses find their way into it? Science plays no part – it takes but a show of hands. The following is a hypothetical situation: 


THE PROPOSAL: Huge profits could be made if the itch of insect bites was presented as a disease of the mind. 



QUESTIONS ARISING: Can we get away with it? What should it be called? How should it be promoted?
 


ACTION AFTER QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN DEALT WITH: “Can we please have a show of hands? The ayes have it!”
 


It’s as easy as that. A new disease is born and will be entered into the next edition of the DSM.
 
 This is what people like Reeves and Jones call “science”.

REEVES AND JONES HAVE NEVER PROVED THAT M.E. IS A MENTAL DISORDER, BECAUSE THEY CANNOT. 
Both men ignore the scientific facts; both men persist with the psychiatric model; both men have an agenda. That agenda is a money making scam from which the drug industry, a large section of the medical profession and other hangers-on, profit. It is here that their specialties lie.

To Reeves and Jones I say that if this is not true - if this is NOT their agenda - PROVE IT!
 


Agendas such as this have become epidemic. They are rife within the health industry. Less than five minutes on a google search produced the following:

PUBLISHED IN: Medical News Today, 19 August, 2009. TITLE: Medical Fraud Creates Unknown Amount of Waste.
 
QUOTE: “The Miami Herald reports that two Miami-Dade physicians have been found guilty of an HIV-infusion scheme to defraud Medicare….in a Medicare racket with four other doctors [they were] accused of prescribing $19.5 million in obsolete infusion drugs for HIV patients who generally didn’t need or receive the therapy.”

PUBLISHED IN: Los Angeles Times (local, Southern California) 9 July, 2009.
TITLE: 20 arrested in Medi-Cal fraud targeting disabled patients.
 
QUOTE: “Twenty people were arrested this morning in a $4.6 million Medi-cal fraud scheme that law enforcement officials allege used unlicensed individuals to provide in-home nursing care for disabled patients.”

PUBLISHED IN: Fox News , 14 March, 2005
TITLE: FBI Cites Massive Medical Fraud Investigation.
 
QUOTE: “California clinics allegedly paid thousands of patients to undergo unnecessary surgical procedures and then billed insurers and employers for as much as $1.3 billion in fraudulent medical services…officials said Friday that their investigation of the operation has revealed a much bigger and more complex fraud network involving dozens of doctor, up to 100 clinics … Government and insurance company investigators say they were struck by the size and scope of the alleged fraud operation, which they have dubbed ‘Rent-a-Patient”.

PUBLISHED IN: guardian.co.uk, 18 September 2009
TITLE: British doctor faces action over claims of ‘ghost writing’ for US drug company.
 
QUOTE: The wider phenomenon has come to light through documents disclosed in the US courts which have revealed a culture in which doctors agree to “author” studies written by employees of drug firms. The doctors may have some in put but do not have access to all the evidence from the drug trial on which the paper’s conclusions are based…In another alleged example, a consultant cardiologist claims an expert listed as an author on a medical paper died before the research began. 



In August, 2009, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) published a report entitled “Aiding Torture” which was based on the CIA Inspector General’s Report of May, 2004.
 
QUOTE: “The [Inspector General’s] report confirms that the CIA inflicted torture on detainees interrogated while in US custody as part of the agency’s counter-terrorism activities and exposes additional interrogation techniques that had not yet been reported. It also demonstrates that health professionals were involved at every stage in the development, implementation and legitimization of this torture program…[they also] actively participated in abusive and illegal interrogations, thus betraying the ethical standards of their professions…
”



ME sufferers know all about the betrayal of ethical standards and of sadistic medical abusers. 
 


The above quotes and reports are not about honest, upstanding citizens. They are about an ever increasing number of greedy people who have the gall to call themselves doctors; who take clear pleasure in causing suffering on a grand scale; who relentlessly abuse their powers. And because they are cowards, they are people who would snivel, wail and wring their hands if the tables were turned.


These are people who regard the sick as being guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

The Reeves and Jones of this world, have still not got the message. Their ranting, raving and indignant outbursts, no longer work. Given the clear agenda and general behaviour, the comment: “But I’m only trying to help!” logically begs an answer to the question, “Help yourself to what?”

How many of us still have respect for those who regard it as theirs of right? The message never seems to get through – respect has to be earned.

I challenge Reeves and Jones to store their useless questionnaires for emergency toilet paper, and do some real work for a change.
 
If they truly believe that ME is the result of a distorted mental process, then PROVE IT. 
 
If they are really innocent of wrong-doing, then PROVE IT.

Just spare us the opinions, concocted words and grand bamboozles. We’ve had enough!
 
 


Gurli Bagnall

October, 2009