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