{"id":10615,"date":"2016-11-15T10:58:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T10:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=10615"},"modified":"2016-11-15T10:58:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T10:58:36","slug":"countess-of-mar-complains-about-bbc-portrayal-of-fitnet-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/countess-of-mar-complains-about-bbc-portrayal-of-fitnet-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Countess of Mar complains about BBC portrayal of FITNET trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Countess of Mar<\/a> has written <\/a>to the\u00a0Director General of the\u00a0BBC with a formal complaint about its portrayal of the FITNET trial from 1\u00a0Nov 2016 onwards.<\/p>\n

3rd November 2016<\/p>\n

Dear Lord Hall
\nFormal Complaint to the BBC re: the purveying of mis-information on 1st November 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is brought to your personal attention because it is such a serious matter.<\/p>\n

The BBC is required to be accurate and impartial, but James Gallagher (the BBC News
\nwebsite Health and Science reporter who was responsible for the item that made the BBC
\nheadlines from 5.30am on 1st November 2016) was neither accurate nor impartial.
\nOn BBC News 24 the breaking news ticker headline repeatedly announced across the screen:<\/p>\n

\u201cA successful treatment for children with CFS is being trialled by the NHS.”<\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s Charter says that its primary function is to inform, educate and entertain, but the BBC breached its own Charter by its 24-hour non-stop promotion of a study of myalgic
\nencephalomyelitis\/chronic fatigue syndrome in children and adolescents (the \u00a31 million
\nFITNET trial, which stands for Fatigue In Teenagers on the interNET) and which claims
\nsuccess for a behavioural modification intervention when there is no objective evidence of
\nany such success in either children, adolescents or adults.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the study had not even started to recruit participants: this was not made clear and it was heralded as \u201cLandmark chronic fatigue trial could cure two-thirds<\/a>” but that was later changed to the nonsensical “Landmark chronic fatigue trial could treat two-thirds<\/a>“. Chronic fatigue is not the same as ME\/CFS.<\/p>\n

The item was described thus<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cthe BBC and their scientifically illiterate journalists imaginatively and dishonestly spun this as a 2\/3 cure rate\u201d.<\/p>\n

The letter goes on to look at specific\u00a0aspects of the complaint and then ends:<\/em><\/p>\n

I ask that you ensure that the BBC issues a prominent retraction of its endorsement of and
\nsupport for the FITNET study and, to counter-balance its support for behavioural
\ninterventions for a proven and classified neuroimmune disorder, the BBC offers a
\ncommensurate right of reply to those with an understanding of the biomedical nature of the disease.<\/p>\n

Read full letter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Countess of Mar has written to the\u00a0Director General of the\u00a0BBC with a formal complaint about its portrayal of the FITNET trial from 1\u00a0Nov 2016 onwards. 3rd November 2016 Dear Lord Hall Formal Complaint to the BBC re: the purveying … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[202,174],"class_list":["post-10615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bbc","tag-countess-of-mar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-2Ld","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10616,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615\/revisions\/10616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}