Research requires funds and universities have overhead costs. The contributions of the Wessely School to research on ME/CFS are described in earlier posts. Here I start a series of posts on the funding sources of the universities involved.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely is the Regius Professor of Psychiatry, Director of King’s Centre for Military Health Research and, until recently, President, Royal Society of Medicine, 2017-2020.
Sir Simon Wessely is an eclectic presenter who taps effortlessly into a large store of knowledge from science, literature and the arts. He is a strategic thinker, who chooses his words carefully and deliberately. On this occasion, his topic is: “Everything you always wanted to know about mental health but were afraid to ask”.
Sir Simon is on home turf, an easy wicket on which to play smooth, well-timed strokes, with plenty of panache. No beating around the bush, Sir Simon’s first slide goes straight to the point: his competing interests. Here I quote directly from Sir Simon’s Swiss Re slide:
Competing interests
• Lots of funding from UK Research Councils, Wellcome, medical, military and veterans charities, UK Ministry of Defence and US Departments of Defense.
• Never had a penny from Pharma• But frankly, my university will take money from anyone provided it comes with overheads.
Really? Can this be true?
Well, erm, yes, it is. In a later post, I will list a few specific funding sources.
A Significant Figure
In case it had escaped our attention, Sir Simon’s next slide shows a glimpse of the high circles he moves in.
A photo of a meeting with Mrs Theresa May, UK Prime Minister 2016-19.
Global Burden of Disease
The following slide turns to the meat of the presentation, mental health, and the huge global burden of disease, especially neuropsychiatric disease:
Medical Unexplained Symptoms
Curiously absent from Sir Simon’s slide is the category of Medical Unexplained Symptoms. According to the Royal Society of Psychiatrists:
- About 1 in 4 people who see their GP have such symptoms.
- In a neurological outpatient setting, it is 1 in 3 patients or more
Stress is mentioned, insecurity, smoking, drinking, drugs, self-harm, internet abuse, almost everything to do with mental health, but nothing about MUS.
Skipping over 30 slides, available here – until they are taken down – Sir Simon finishes as he started, with humour and panache. Slide 34:
WHY I NEVER GIVE ADVICE
Then, slide 35:
BUT IF I DID…
• Never neglect the co morbidities
• Please don’t encourage anything that gives us more labels/diagnoses
• Be careful with your language – it can influence for good and ill
Sir Simon draws to a close with slide 36’s
Poetic Ending
“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will
undertake tho’ for a fee some professional experts will. There is nothing namable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay.”
“Billy Budd”, Herman Melville. 1888
I will return to this interesting conclusion later.