MEspringal

Hello, MEspringal, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Thanks for your work on Peter Snow (doctor). The original awkward phrasing was my work, and your revision is much better. You might be like to take a look at WikiProject Medicine for other articles of interest. Thanks again.

Again, welcome!  Blarneytherinosaur ^gabby? 08:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

CFS

Pretty good edits on chronic fatigue syndrome. You seem to have access to good sources. At the moment the article is gradually improving, and your help is appreciated. Perhaps you could help decide which material is excessive/redundant, because it is now rather large.

Please have a look at {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}} and {{cite news}}. These are standardised reference templates that make it easier to generate refs. Generally, a full URL to PubMed is unnecessary if - in the "id=" field of {{cite journal}} you simply add PMID followed by the identifier. The Wiki automatically converts this to a PubMed abstract link. This applet will actually - on supply of the PMID code - generate the entire reference in a template.

Let me know if you need any further assistance! JFW | T@lk 10:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm in agreement. I nearly cried when I read your edits (OK, maybe not, but I was happy). I've never seen you edit before, so I was a bit skeptical. Then I saw what you wrote. Just a small counter to JFW, I would use pmid= instead of id=. I have found that id= may not get the PMID correct. But it might be better now. Contribute all you want to medical articles and help us keep the garbage alternative medicine out of these articles. Thanks again. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Dead discussion

Note that your reply was to a discussion that ceased in November, and early november at that. If you think the issues are still relevant, you might be better served through starting a new section. WLU (talk) 14:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Simon Wessely

Please stop making inflammatory remarks on talk:Simon Wessely. Our policy on living individuals applies to talk pages as well. Guy (Help!) 10:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You haven't stopped: [1]. The next time you violate Wikipedia's policy on treatment of living individuals, which applies to all project pages including talk pages, you will be blocked from editing. Please review the policy and rephrase whichever of your points are salient to improving the article without resorting to unsubstantiated vitriol against the subject of the article. MastCell ^Talk 22:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

CFS and post exertional symptoms

Hi MEspringal, I essentially agree with what you have been saying, so I want to explain the context of my comments relating to the evidence of post-exertional symptoms in CFS. I posted the text on the talkpage: [2] - Tekaphor (talk) 09:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Simon Wessely

You made some additions to Simon Wessely. I cannot imagine you are not aware of the page's history, the sensitive nature of the subject, or our policy about biographies of living persons. It is therefore even harder to understand how you could post highly inaccurate material confusing ME, CFS and MCS and using inadequate sources. Needless, to say, said content has been removed, and any attempt to reinsert it without discussion will be met with protection of the article. JFW | T@lk 11:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

In fact, on review of your previous warnings I have decided to block your account for one week. Please reflect on the WP:BLP guideline, and how it might perhaps be better not to edit the Wessely article at all. JFW | T@lk 12:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Bit of an over-action based solely on (allegedly) getting one out of several references wrong, no? Shouldn't this sort of thing be soley for vandalism and untruths?

I was going to revise the edit after checking some I'd made on the CFS articles in case I'd made some mistakes. Thanks to this, however, I can't edit that either. Still, can't have mistakes on WP can we. And I have to say this sort of overreaction is off-putting anyway.

As for your contention that I was "confusing ME, CFS and MCS", firstly, I don't think that should constitutes blockable offense (including for reasons that follow). Secondly, since you take such an interest in the field you will be aware of Wessely's paper "Functional Somatic Syndromes, One or Many?", in which he himself claims... well, I'll let you and everyone else read for yourself:

"Various names have been given to medically unexplained symptoms. These include somatisation, somatoform disorders.and functional somatic ymptoms. we define a functional somatic symptom as one that, after appropriate medical assessment, cannot be explained in terms of a conventionally defined disease. Functional somatic syndromes pose a major challenge to medicine. Those symptoms are associated with unnecessary expenditure of medical resources. Chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with worse disability than conditions such as heart failure. three quarters of patients had symptoms more than 10 years after presentation. Thus, functional somatic complaints constitute a large.and costly health-care issue that urgently requires improved management. Many of these (functional somatic) syndromes are dignified by their own formal case definition and body of research. We question this orthodoxy and ask whether these syndromes represent specific diagnostic entities (eg. irritable bowel syndrome, premenstrual syndrome, fibromyalgia, hyperventilation syndrome, tension headaches, globus hystericus, multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome) or are rather more like the elephant to the blind man -- simply different parts of a larger animal? [...] Such patients may have variants of a general functional somatic syndrome. If we accept that functional somatic syndromes are considered together, we open the way for more general strategies for their management [...] We propose an end to the belief that each different syndrome requires its own particular sub specialist. A previous generation of physicians noted overlaps between "psychosomatic syndromes". Unfortunately, none of these theories were accompanied by empirical support and consequently have disappeared from our current thinking. We argue that their re-instatement is overdue". (Wessely S, Nimnuan C, Sharpe M, "Functional somatic syndromes: one or many?" Lancet 1999:354:936-93)

Just to be clear, the operative phrasing is, "like the elephant to the blind man -- simply different parts of a larger animal?" and "Such patients may have variants of a general functional somatic syndrome.", and "A previous generation of physicians noted overlaps between "psychosomatic syndromes". [...] We argue that their re-instatement is overdue."

i.e. the very case is being made for the undifferentiated "confusion" of "artefactual" diagnoses in one undifferentiated heap, the relaying of which you are objecting so athletically to.

So which part of that is it unacceptable to use a quote/reference on WP? Which part of that breaks WP:BLP? The Professor's views on ME/CFS, MCS and other uh, "functional somatic syndromes", are already clear and in the public domain, in the research databse, in his conferences transcripts, editorials, talks and books. I don't need to make anything up or resort to tabloidism, and neither do you have to hide anything. Why are you shooting the messenger? Will I be banned now for quoting these quotes?

The simultaneous claim from that passage which is only compatable is that they are not discrete "conventional" diseases but a single overarching "psychosomatic syndrome", a "belief" system:

"I will argue that ME is simply a belief, a belief that one has an illness called ME", and, "The Royal Free Disease itself is part of the world of myth" ("Microbes, Mental Illness, the Media and ME: The Construction of Disease". 9th Eliot Slater Memorial Lecture, Institute of Psychiatry, London, 12th May 1994)

I think that should speak for itself, a quote of a very non-neutral opinion. There are others like it as well, just say the magic number.

I'm mystified over how/why much prevarication is occurring over such black and white statements. It is not myself who is conflating ME, CFS and MCS. (ANd Jfdwolff, coming from someone who at times confuses CFS with chronic fatigue could be seen to be a bit rich.)

It should be noted of course that now the CDC retrospectively acknowledge ME as discrete, "well-documented outbreaks of disease" and "ME is accompanied by neurologic and muscular signs and has a case definition distinct from that of CFS" (CDC declaration on terminology and definition, on 26th Dec 2007. [3]

Can you point to anywhere in peer reviewed papers that Wessely's opinion has run diametrically contrary to his views quoted above and where he actually agrees with the above statement of the CDC that ME is not a "myth" and is and should be "dignified by" its "own formal case definition and body of research"?

Anyway I'm going to take a needed break from this.

MEspringal (talk) 14:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a note as I've just noticed this. Jfdwolff himself makes the claim that the term ME is "demonstrably incorrect" ("...WHO ICD-10 G93 which somehow still uses the demonstrably incorrect term")[4] so he is I believe far from neutral in his determinations of this matter. MEspringal (talk) 15:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not the individual quotes that are grounds for blocking. It is the fact that you shop around someone's work, use whatever you think will reflect negatively on his person, and phrase it in such a way that is seems immoral to regard CFS/ME as a psychological illness. The allegations of a conflict of interest have been dealt with before.

You were warned about this before, and further attempts to repeat the exercise will simply lead to longer blocks. Enjoy your break, and I would suggest you simply stay away from that article. JFW | T@lk 06:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

AN/I about WLU's latest CFS edits

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:WLU. Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 16:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)