Letter to the Guardian: Review your Dr Crippen column

Dear Mr Rusbridger,

I am writing letter to you because modern technology is an unreliable way to communicate something so serious.

An e-mail can be rapidly opened, and read and deleted, and usually not by the person it was addressed to.

So, I thought I would contact you the old fashioned way, to draw your attention to an issue that is causing a great deal of distress and anger to a population of sick and disabled people – presently an easy target for those who carry a prejudice against disabled people.

In recent months you have had a column on your website that goes under the title “Dr Crippen”.

I understand that this “Dr Crippen” column http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/series/dr-crippen is penned by an NHS doctor who uses “Dr Crippen” to both keep his anonymity, and also to give an airing to views that he knows will be insulting or hurtful to those whom he chooses to victimise.

For the last 10 years I have run an Internet discussion group called MEActionUK, to raise awareness and keep members up-to-date with the news, politics and scientific research surrounding Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

My group now has over 530 members.

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk

We were recently alerted to your “Dr Crippen” column because “Dr Crippen” has yet again used his space on your website to denigrate the ME community for the purposes of his own entertainment and presumably his presumption that his comments will also entertain your readers.

As I understand things, 'The Guardian' newspaper is required to take the name and address of anyone who submits an 'article' to be published. This is done for obvious reasons.

But in the case of “Dr Crippen” we the public can see that this deliberately false identity has been established so that this doctor can given out subjective, misleading or even wholly false information about anything he chooses, in this case myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), without any recourse should that information be demonstrably factually inaccurate.

We would like to know why the readers of the Guardian do not have the right to know who this doctor is who hides behind the title of “Dr Crippen”.

Initially one may argue that he should keep his anonymity. However, he is registered and practicing NHS doctor speaking via your newspaper in public, giving your readers his “wisdom”. So, the answer is actually, yes – the identity should be known, because this doctor is paid out of the public purse from us, as taxpayers, and he could well carry his views into his consulting room and for all we know he could be denigrating or mistreating his own patients based on the bigotry displayed on the “Dr Crippen” page.

It is apparent from “Dr Crippen’s” own description of himself here http://www.nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/ that he is in no way does he have a medical speciality such as a virologist or immunologist for example, and therefore “Dr Crippen” does not have the necessary qualifications to comment on subjects out of his area of expertise."

The doctor himself is responsible for the content of his column, and we believe that, certainly in relation to his repreated derogatory comments on ME, he is breaking the General Medical Council's code.

Source: Good Medical Practice: Duties of a doctor.
The duties of a doctor registered with the General Medical Council.

http://ww.gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_medical_practice/duties_of_a_doctor.asp

'Never discriminate unfairly against patients or colleagues.'

'Keep your professional knowledge and skills up to date.'

'Protect and promote the health of patients and the public.'

'Treat patients politely and considerately.'

'Never abuse your patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession.'

'Work in partnership with patients.'

From his comments on ME, "Dr Crippen" can clearly be seen to be in breach of these GMC "Duties of a Doctor", most seriously failing to keep his professional knoweldge and skills up to date. It would be honourable and presumably a legal requirement, for 'The Guardian' to now provide to interested parties – details of who “Dr Crippen” really is.

This doctor can then be reported to the GMC for not meeting his duties as a doctor and failing to meet good medical practice.

If `The Guardian` refuses to reveal who “Dr Crippen” is, it sets a precedent allowing doctors to pontificate on serious diseases for which they have little knowledge and no authority - possibly misleading the public about such serious diseases, which in turn can be dangerous and risk damage to patient’s lives.

At present Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is the subject of a global investigation in connection with a recently discovered retro-virus entitled Xenotropic Murine Leukaemia virus related Virus (XMRV) that has also been linked to Prostate Cancer, and for that secondary reason your newspaper did report on the subject of ME.

It is interesting to note that your correspondent Sarah Boseley never bothered or perhaps was not permitted, to report the initial discovery of XMRV associated with ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - which was published in the highly regarded journal “Science” back in October 2009. This study by Lombardi et al took two and a half years to carry out its work. Three centres of excellence were used to compile and verify the results.

You can find those details here:- http://www.wpinstitute.org/xmrv/docs/wpi_pressrel_100809.pdf

The Independent carried this story as a front page splash along with an editorial, but the Guardian was totally silent aside from yet another attack on the ME community from “Dr Crippen” that went as follows:

“The militant wing of the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) brigade broke out the champagne when a recent article in Science reported that a retrovirus had been found in 67% of ME patients compared to under 4% of the general population. Sadly, the study only involved just over 100 patients and is thus inconclusive."http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/20/me-debate

Nearly every other serious newspaper both here in the UK and over in the USA, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, carried this news in great detail and they are still doing so.However, your journalist Ms Boseley, was, on the face of it more than happy to ignore the “Science” paper, and instead Ms Boseley waited several months to then write a detailed piece highlighting another study, multiply flawed and hurriedly cobbled together. A non-replication study, that had been carried out in just a matter of a few weeks here in the UK at Imperial College, that was barely peer reviewed yet urgently published in a Journal called “PLoS ONE”.

This Imperial study has been widely observed as being desperately pushed out with no other reason than to “cast aspersions” on the original ground breaking “Science” paper.

The paper from Imperial claimed that there was apparently absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any XMRV either in people with ME or in any healthy controls when, according to the study published in “Science,” roughly 63% of people with ME and 3.4% of healthy controls were discovered to have active XMRV. This raieses serious implications relating to risks to the blood supply due to cross infection.

It did not matter that Imperial’s patient selection process was totally different i.e. they decided not to bother to use the same two diagnostic criteria used over in the States by Lombardi et al. Nor did it matter that their methods of testing and analysis of samples were also totally different i.e. they tested whole blood samples and not concentrated white blood cells where XMRV is said to hide.

It is also interesting to note that The Guardian's most prominent science writer is Ben Goldacre, of the Institute of Psychiatry and his Ph.D supervisor is the liaison psychiatrist Professor Simon Wessely, who was one of the authors of the Imperial College/“PloS ONE” XMRV study.Professor Wessely supplied the patients tested; a fact which was prominently featured by the Guardian in January.

Professor Simon Wessely is an adviser to the Science Media Centre, which briefed the Press that the Science study published last October merely "purported to show a link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and a particular virus."

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/pages/press_briefings/index.php?&showArticle=437

One senses that the Guardian has, at worst a rather nasty agenda going on, or has perhaps been influenced adversely by some of its many “professionally connected” contributors;

It appears that on more than one level, concerted attempts have been made on the one hand to both ridicule and bait a specific patient population behind a wholly unprofessional pseudonym and on the other hand to ensure that good and well conducted peer reviewed research is given no attention by your newspaper, whilst poorly conducted research falsely claimed to be "replication research" receives generous yet unbalanced and inaccurate publicity thanks to the journalists who work for your newspaper and who may also have conflicts of interest by association.

Professor Malcolm Hooper, myself, and all those supporting this letter via the attached sheet and via my Facebook and Yahoogroups websites, would be very grateful if you could investigate these matters immediately. We would like a full explanation as to why your newspaper is conducting an agenda of misrepresentation, inaccurate, skewed reporting and the denigration of a minority of sick and disabled patients who, after all, have done nothing wrong. It is not the fault of patients for having the diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome handed to them by the medical profession and patients does not deserve to be lampooned as a consequence.

If nothing else we would like to be told the name of the doctor who hides behind the name “Dr Crippen,” so that he can be reported to the General Medical Council.

As far as the ME patient community is concerned - Enough is enough.

Yours sincerely,