Simon Wessely

Professor Sir Simon Wessely, M.A., M.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., M.R.C.Psych., is a British psychiatrist based at King's College London and is President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He became Director of the Chronic Fatigue Research Unit at King's College London in 1994, setting up a clinic for chronic fatigue syndrome at Maudsley Hospital, a psychiatric hospital.

Professor Wessely has written of his involvement in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) research. Serving as an advisor to the PACE trial investigators, Professor Wessely has defended the PACE trial, stating "this trial was a landmark in behavioral complex intervention studies."

Notable studies

• 1990, Old wine in new bottles: neurasthenia and 'ME'
• 1999, Personality and social attitudes in chronic fatigue syndrome.
• 1997, Chronic fatigue syndrome. A practical guide to assessment and management
• 2000, Diagnosis of psychiatric disorder in clinical evaluation of chronic fatigue syndrome
• 2005, The Placebo Response in the Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Full text)
• 2007, A Defence of the Randomized Controlled Trial in Mental Health
• 2009, Chronic fatigue syndrome: identifying zebras amongst the horses. (Full text)
• 2010, Failure to detect the novel retrovirus XMRV in chronic fatigue syndrome. See: XMRV
• 2016, Mortality of people with chronic fatigue syndrome: a retrospective cohort study in England and Wales from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Biomedical Research Centre (SLaM BRC) Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) Register The study has been criticized by James Coyne.

Books

• 1999, Chronic Fatigue and its Syndromes

2012 John Maddox Prize

In November 2012 Professor Wessely was awarded the Maddox Prize by Sense About Science who stated "Simon Wessely, Professor of Psychological Medicine at King's College London, was awarded the Prize for his ambition and courage in the field of ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) and Gulf War syndrome, and the way he has dealt bravely with intimidation and harassment when speaking about his work and that of colleagues."

The awarding of the prize has been criticized by Professor Malcolm Hooper.

Professor Wessely is also a member of the Advisory Council for Sense About Science.

Controversies & criticism

Accusations of abuse

Professor Wessely stated in summer 2011 that he had been the subject of abuse and threats of violence by patients objecting to his research. Professor Wessely claimed in an interview that research into CFS/ME made him feel unsafe, stating that specializing in the problems of war veterans "I now go to Iraq and Afghanistan, where I feel a lot safer."

Evidence of abuse and threats

In 2017, King's College London, Sir Wessely's employer, received a Freedom of Information Act request asking if any King's College had a record of any "substantiated claims of harassment of allegations of threats" to staff, which King's College refused to disclosure, claiming this information was exempt from from FOIA disclosure.

In 2012, the year after publication of the PACE trial, King's College London responded to a Freedom of Information Act request stating it held information on threats to Simon Wessely from "a range of individuals". The college refused to confirm or deny whether it has a record of Simon Wessely taking private legal advice about the alleged intimidation or whether he had reported any to the police, but the response implied that legal advice had not been provided by King's College London.

Accusation of "blocking research"

Dr Ian Gibson has criticized Professor Wessely's purely psychological approach to the disease.

Accusations of poor quality research

In 2000 Wessely & fellow researchers were accused of "unsupported conclusions derived from faulty analyses", and responded that "we've been attacked by gremlins" who changed the data on their manuscript. This was later revealed to have been happened at the BMJ, although Wessely was criticized for not keeping the original manuscript or data.

Camelford water supply contamination

In 1988 the public water supply in Camelford in England was accidentally contaminated with aluminium sulfate. Professor Wessely published a paper in 1995 playing down the effects of the pollution and suggesting significant psychological factors were involved. The government formally and unreservedly apologized in 2013, 25 years later, to those whose health was affected by the water supply contamination.

Past beliefs of stress in Gulf War Illness

Professor Wessely believed that stress was involved in Gulf War Illness, with an long-term psychiatric paradigm research and public view on it.

Scotsman retracts article criticizing Wessely

In 2003, Dr Margaret Cook, a hospital consultant, wrote an article in the Scotsman newspaper entitled ME sufferers have found an enemy in Wessely – so they need friends, which was quickly retracted.

Negative stereotyping and comments about patients with ME/CFS

Sir Simon Wessely, in an interview for the highly influential BMJ, referred to patients with ME/CFS, stated "[w]ith these people, it isn't that they don't want to get better but if the price is recognising the psychiatric basis of the condition, they'd rather not get better". A number of patients and some patient organizations have been critical of Sir Wessely's views and have highlighted certain comments made by Professor Wessely, including sections of his published academic writing, and summarized them.

Denigration by Design Update (Vol 2): A Review of the Role of Simon Wessely in the Perception of ME 1996-1999

Written by Margaret Williams, this contains many quotes by Simon Wessely, including some from his research or interviews, and highlights many of the generalized comments that Wessely has made about criticizing patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, including his agreement with negative comments made by other professionals, and his views that CFS is neither a serious nor a disabling condition.

The Mental Health Movement: Persecution of Patients

Professor Malcolm Hooper's report, subtitled A consideration of the role of Professor Simon Wessely and other members of the "Wessely School" in the perception of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the UK was written as a briefing for the UK government’s House of Commons Select Health Committee. The Mental Health Movement: Persecution of Patients describes how Simon Wessely, psychiatrists of the Wessely school and a few other professionals have "denigrated" patients over a long period of time, presenting patients as manipulating others for "secondary gain", and Wessely's attempts to re-classify myalgic encephalomyelitis as simply a fatigue condition called chronic fatigue syndrome, presenting it as a psychiatric rather than physical, neurological condition–even misusing the World Health Organization logo and incorrectly presenting the WHO classification of ME/CFS to do so.

Talks, interviews, and newspaper articles

• 1994, Is cancer all in the mind?
• 1993, Letter to Mansel Aylward at the Department of Social Security complaining about neurological classification of ME/CFS
• 2006, Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue: The true story of Gulf War Syndrome
• 2010, Chronic fatigue syndrome
• 2011, Interview with Professor Simon Wessely - The Times
• 2014, Psychiatrists and the pharma industry are to blame for the current ‘epidemic’ of mental disorders

Quotes

• Simon Wessely in his own words - compiled by M.E. Action UK
• Wessely's Way: Rhetoric or reason? - Margaret Williams and Malcolm Hooper
• Wessely's Words Revisited
• 1993, "The worst thing to do is tell them to rest", "exercise is good for these patients", "Benefits can often make patients worse".
• 1994, "I will argue that ME is simply a belief, the belief that one has an illness called ME".

Online presence

• PubMed - Simon Wessely
• Twitter
• Website

Directorships and Shareholdings

Simon Charles Wessely is a director and has held a total of 5 appointments. He is a director of the Science Media Centre (Company number 07560997).

Learn more

• Wikipedia - Simon Wessely
• 1999, Denigration by Design Update (Vol 2): A Review of the Role of Simon Wessely in the Perception of ME 1996-1999 - Margaret Williams
• 2003, THE MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT: PERSECUTION OF PATIENTS? A consideration of the role of Professor Simon Wessely and other members of the "Wessely School" in the perception of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the UK.
  Background Briefing for the House of Commons Select Health Committee - Malcolm Hooper
• 2003, Notes on the involvement of Wessely et al with the Insurance Industry and how they deal with ME/CFS claims

• 2011, Dr. Ian Gibson on BBC radio: Prof Simon Wessely has been blocking proper research into ME for years
• 2012, Letter from Countess Mar to Professor Simon Wessely
• 2013, Professor Sir Simon Wessely – Right or Wrong?
• 2013, Simon Wessely's Big Shift? CBT Icon Calls For Big Rituximab Trial
• 2015, Chronic fatigue syndrome gets yet another name

See Also

• Intimidation and bullying of PACE trial critics

• PACE trial
• Trudie Chalder
• Esther Crawley
• Claire Gerada
• Rona Moss-Morris
• Michael Sharpe
• Peter White
• Wessely school

PACE trial A controversial study which claimed that CBT and GET were effective in treating "CFS/ME", despite the fact that its own data did not support this conclusion. Its results and methodology were widely disputed by patients, scientists, and the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) - A disease often marked by neurological symptoms, but fatigue is sometimes a symptom as well. Some diagnostic criteria distinguish it from chronic fatigue syndrome, while other diagnostic criteria consider it to be a synonym for chronic fatigue syndrome. A defining characteristic of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM), or post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion (PENE), which is a notable exacerbation of symptoms brought on by small exertions. PEM can last for days or weeks. Symptoms can include cognitive impairments, muscle pain (myalgia), trouble remaining upright (orthostatic intolerance), sleep abnormalities, and gastro-intestinal impairments, among others. An estimated 25% of those suffering from ME are housebound or bedbound. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies ME as a neurological disease.

World Health Organization (WHO) - "A specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with public health. It was established on 7 April 1948, and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO is a member of the United Nations Development Group. Its predecessor, the Health Organization, was an agency of the League of Nations." The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) is maintained by WHO.

myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) - A disease often marked by neurological symptoms, but fatigue is sometimes a symptom as well. Some diagnostic criteria distinguish it from chronic fatigue syndrome, while other diagnostic criteria consider it to be a synonym for chronic fatigue syndrome. A defining characteristic of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM), or post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion (PENE), which is a notable exacerbation of symptoms brought on by small exertions. PEM can last for days or weeks. Symptoms can include cognitive impairments, muscle pain (myalgia), trouble remaining upright (orthostatic intolerance), sleep abnormalities, and gastro-intestinal impairments, among others. An estimated 25% of those suffering from ME are housebound or bedbound. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies ME as a neurological disease.

myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) - A disease often marked by neurological symptoms, but fatigue is sometimes a symptom as well. Some diagnostic criteria distinguish it from chronic fatigue syndrome, while other diagnostic criteria consider it to be a synonym for chronic fatigue syndrome. A defining characteristic of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM), or post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion (PENE), which is a notable exacerbation of symptoms brought on by small exertions. PEM can last for days or weeks. Symptoms can include cognitive impairments, muscle pain (myalgia), trouble remaining upright (orthostatic intolerance), sleep abnormalities, and gastro-intestinal impairments, among others. An estimated 25% of those suffering from ME are housebound or bedbound. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies ME as a neurological disease.

somatic symptom disorder A psychiatric term to describe an alleged condition whereby a person's thoughts somehow cause physical symptoms. The actual existence of such a condition is highly controversial, due to a lack of scientific evidence. It is related to other psychiatric terms, such as "psychosomatic", "neurasthenia", and "hysteria". Older terms include "somatization", "somatoform disorder", and "conversion disorder". Such terms refer to a scientifically-unsupported theory that claims that a wide range of physical symptoms can be created by the human mind, a theory which has been criticized as "mind over matter" parapsychology, a pseudoscience.

BMJ The BMJ (previously the British Medical Journal) is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal.