MAGICAL MEDICINE: HOW TO MAKE AN ILLNESS ... - Invest in ME

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However, as Crombez G et al point out: “it is at worst presumptuous and potentially dangerous to infer the
presence of other key features of somatisation from the mere presence of physical symptoms” (PAIN: Epub
ahead of print, 7 th May 2009). They continue: “Poorly constructed science that….over‐simplifies complex
constructs does not advance a field of enquiry…the failure or absence of a biological account of pain is an
insufficient reason to promote a psychological account”. Crombez et al conclude, as so many others have
previously concluded, that: “The current operational use may unduly lead to a ‘psychologisation’ of
physical complaints”.
Also of interest is the observation of Goodheart and Lansing (Treating People With Chronic Disease: A
Psychological Guide. American Psychological Association 1996: pp.98‐99): “Therapists may not use total denial
very often, but many deny either a partial reality or the severity of illness. The denial serves as a defense against
helplessness. Therapists are quite capable of constructing a wall of denial, which is evident when they ignore
information about the disease and assume a psychosomatic origin, which they believe they can cure.”
In relation to ME/CFS, such observations seem to be disregarded by the Wessely School. Instead, their
continued over‐reliance on the concept of somatisation is nurtured by their insistence that there should be
no investigations performed on ME/CFS patients other than very basic screening. Since no abnormalities are
likely to emerge on routine screening tests, a challenge to their theory cannot be effectively mounted on the
basis of abnormal test results in a clinical setting, so patients continue to suffer inappropriate dismissal of
their symptoms.
On the basis that what is not looked for will not be found, in her response to the 1998 Joint Royal Colleges’
Report on Organophosphates (CR67) with which members of the Wessely School were involved, the
Countess of Mar asked: “Why should the doctor and patient accept the limitations of scientific knowledge? Who is to
say that their searches are likely to be futile? I simply ask whether we would have been able to cure TB, eradicate
smallpox, prevent the infectious diseases of childhood or establish the link between asbestos and lung disease if the
medical practitioners of the time had accepted the limitations of scientific knowledge. After all the evidence the working
party heard and read, where is its natural curiosity? It repeatedly mentions that there is a lack of causality, yet it
makes no recommendations for causal research. Is this because…it does not wish to know?” (Hansard [Lords]: 9 th
December 1998:1011‐1024).
It is notable that the Joint Royal Colleges’ Report on OPs made almost identical recommendations to those
made two years earlier in the Joint Royal Colleges’ Report (CR54) on “CFS”: regarding diagnosis, physicians
were warned against “over‐investigation” which “may bias the consultation towards a narrow physical
orientation”; regarding management, physicians were warned against “multiple referrals from specialist to
specialist” and that “the management plan does not need to presuppose a particular aetiology”; regarding treatment,
physicians were advised to use “cognitive behavioural techniques to counteract beliefs and subsequent behaviours
which may develop (and which may) serve to perpetuate (symptoms)”, with physicians being warned that
treatment entails “identifying and modifying illness beliefs, fears and anxieties that may prolong disability”.
Inevitably, symptom continuation was blamed on the patient’s attributions, and future research was to be
on behavioural interventions. No mention was made of the known neurotoxicity of OPs.
It is of significance that organophosphates have since been shown to cause reproducible alterations in gene
regulation, especially in those genes associated with immune, neuronal and mitochondrial function (N
Kausnik, ST Holgate and JR Kerr et al. J Clin Pathol 2005:58:826‐832).
The organophosphate issue is not the only major health issue about which the Wessely School have been
comprehensively shown to be wrong; other examples are Gulf War Syndrome and the Camelford drinking
water issue.
Simon Wessely is on record more than once as denying the existence of Gulf War Syndrome (GWS, known
in the US as Gulf War Illness). In their official report (Lancet 1999:353:169‐178), Unwin, Hotopf, David and
Wessely et al, despite having performed no clinical examination or laboratory investigations on the veterans,