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

Professor Janet Darbyshire, OBE
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Professor Darbyshire is Chair of the PACE Trial Steering Committee, which includes Professor Jenny Butler
(an occupational therapist), Professor Patrick Doherty (a physiotherapist) and Professor Tom Sensky (a
liaison psychiatrist and CBT therapist). Previous members include Professor Clair Chilvers. Observers
include Professor Mansel Aylward (see above and Appendix V).
Professor Darbyshire is an epidemiologist and science administrator who joined the MRC in 1974; she is the
Head of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit and Joint Director of the UK Clinical Research Network (UKCRN) Co‐
ordinating Centre, which is one of the key components of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC),
the latter being a partnership of organisations working to establish the UK as a world leader in clinical
research by harnessing the power of the NHS.
Professor Jenny Butler
Professor Butler is a member of the College of Occupational Therapists (of which she was Head from 2004 –
2006) and a member of the British Psychological Society. Her first degree was in applied psychology at the
University of Wales. She was made Honorary Fellow of the University of Cardiff in 2005 (where Professor
Mansel Aylward now works). She was Chair of one of the three NHS research ethics committees in Oxford
for over five years and was part of the inaugural committee for the Association of Research Ethics
Committees (UK). She is on record in the Minutes of the joint meeting of the TSC and Data Monitoring and
Ethics Committee on 27 th September 2004 as stating that she was “very impressed” with the CBT Therapists’
Manual, which included recommendations advised by Professor Tom Sensky (see below for his views on
ME/CFS).
Professor Patrick Doherty
Professor Doherty is a physiotherapist who now holds the Chair of Rehabilitation at York St John
University. He is Clinical Specialist in Cardiac Rehabilitation at York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and
is a member of the Department of Health’s dual tariff group for cardiac surgery and rehabilitation. He is
also President of the British Association for Cardiac Rehabilitation and is National Clinical Lead for Cardiac
Rehabilitation (NHS Heart Improvement).
(Professor Doherty’s expertise in cardiac issues thus ought to have placed him in an advantageous position
in relation to the cardiac problems in ME/CFS).
Professor Tom Sensky
Professor Sensky from the Division of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Imperial College, London is, like
Simon Wessely, a liaison psychiatrist and he practices cognitive behavioural therapy.
At the launch of The Psychological Medicine Network (established to “facilitate knowledge and information
sharing among staff providing psychiatric and psychological care for medical patients in London”, whose aim is “to
identify and unify those working in psychological medicine in London in order to create better networking
opportunities between individuals and services” and to “disseminate examples of good practice”) on 10 th December
2004 at Regent’s Park College, Sensky’s presentation was entitled “Somatisation and Primary Care”, in which
he made some disturbing statements (backed by his PowerPoint slides, some of which have now been
removed from the internet) about patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) in which he
includes CFS patients.
In addition to numerous cartoons that denigrate sick people (one of which shows a woman sobbing in front
of a doctor, with the caption “Madam, this is a consultation, not an audition”), Sensky’s slides state, for
example, that: