Just saw this: The Misleading Research at the Heart of Disability Cuts | HuffPost UK Politics It links to a longer report: http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-date/in-the-expectation-of-recovery.html I’ve read the longer report and then been googling stuff too. The research used as an example is on ME/CFS, but some of the same researchers (Chalder, Moss-Morris) are also doing biopsychosocial fatigue research on MS, with the MS society. From just the free summaries available, some of their MS research looks like it has the same problems with it. Is anyone at the MS Society aware of the problems with these researchers work? Is this something we should be trying to do something about?
1 Like
The tactics the conservatives use to manipulate the minds of the populous have become obvious in other areas too.
One example is the way they ousted Ukip after Ukip became a huge threat before the general election. The method was to raise the profile of the SNP and the Greens. It worked!
Currently they are manipulating the London Mayoral election result.
They are manipulating the eu referendum…look at that rubbish put out about people being £4300 pa worse off if we leave. Comparing GDP to the cost of living is not a valid comparison, there is no connection, but the Tories are relying on the fact that not a lot of people know that.
This is not a valid government and they need to be ousted. The MS Society should take up this baton.
Flo
arggh!
those people (that is putting it far too politely) make my blood boil.
pinning all my hopes on jeremy corbyn and labour getting in.
c x
2 Likes
Hi Florence the snp raised thier on profile hear in scotland along with blitzing the torriie party they also trumped the labour party in scotland .
Wee are looking forward to thier scotish benefits agency coming online can’t be worse than we have now surely.
1 Like
I think that while there are problems like those described in this report are allowed to go on, it’s going to be difficult to get any real improvement.
1 Like
I just got sent a news article from the Disability News Service about new work criticial of the biopsychosocial model: ‘Biopsychosocial’ basis for benefit cuts is ‘cavalier, unevidenced and misleading’ – Disability News Service I’m worried that the MS Society seems to be funding this sort of work from researchers involved in causing problems elsewhere: “CURRENT PROJECTS Developing a biopsychosocial model and self-management treatment for fatigue in paediatric multiple sclerosis:” “Oct 2014 - Sep 2017 £76,279 Developing a biopsychosocial model and self-management treatment for fatigue in children and adolescents with MS. MS Society (Moss-Morris, R., Chalder, T., Heyman I., Hemingway, C.)” Department of Psychosis Studies | School of Academic Psychiatry | King’s College London This doesn’t look good to me.
The researchers obviously come from the “Who cares as long as we get more funding?” school.
I have to say that £76K is not a lot in research terms.
In my former role as a researcher it would have paid for about 7 months of my time.
In my former role as a research manager it would have paid for about 4 months of my time.
I guess that the problem starts when folk with no knowledge of real research start signing contracts.
Juggling with the experimental conditions part way through is the sort of thing that would bring an undergraduate dangerously close to a Fail.
But “Who cares as long as we get more funding?”
Read the Huffington Post link, and the next one, and the one that linked to and was appalled to think of teh money being wasted on such work. The so-called results play right into the hands of people who want to cut funding for the disabled.
Geoff
1 Like
[quote=“DoctorGeoff”] I guess that the problem starts when folk with no knowledge of real research start signing contracts. [/quote] I think that a lot of people assume that medical researchers can be trusted to do worthwhile work. Looking at lots of articles about the ‘replication crisis’ it seems like this is not the case, and that the culture of just trusting researchers has allowed a lot of bad practices to spread. We need to be fighting against money being spent on poor research, and get out of assuming that more spending on research must be a good thing. [quote=“DoctorGeoff”] Read the Huffington Post link, and the next one, and the one that linked to and was appalled to think of teh money being wasted on such work. The so-called results play right into the hands of people who want to cut funding for the disabled. [/quote] It is worrying. Especially that it’s been going on for so long, and is still continuing now.