Michael Sharpe

Professor Michael Sharpe, M.A., M.R.C.P., M.R.C.Psych., is a British professor of psychological medicine at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He is a key author of the PACE trial helping to devise the Oxford criteria as a diagnostic tool for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Notable studies

 * 1994, The chronic fatigue syndrome: a comprehensive approach to its definition and study. International Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study Group (Abstract)
 * 1997, Chronic fatigue syndrome. A practical guide to assessment and management (Full Text)
 * 1998, Doctors' diagnoses and patients' perceptions. Lessons from chronic fatigue syndrome (Abstract)
 * 2002, The report of the Chief Medical Officer's CFS/ME working group: what does it say and will it help? (Full Text)
 * 2011, PACE trial
 * 2017, Response to: "Do more people recover from chronic fatigue syndrome with cognitive behaviour therapy or graded exercise therapy than with other treatments?" (Abstract)
 * 2017, Long-term economic evaluation of cognitive-behavioural group treatment versus enhanced usual care for functional somatic syndromes (Abstract)

Books

 * 1999, Chronic Fatigue and its Syndromes

Freedom of information act requests
Michael Sharpe has repeatedly criticised both scientists and patients who have highlighted flaws in his research, or used Freedom of Information Act requests to request the release of unpublished data from his scientific research, including the successful request for the unpublished data from the controversial PACE trial.

In 2008, a tweet by Sharpe led to over 100 Australians from the ME/CFS community requesting an apology and pointing out that Alem Matthees had been bedridden for 2 years since winning the PACE FOIA tribunal; Sharpe had claimed in his tweet that some FOIA requests and scientific criticism could not have been made by patients since they would have been too ill to do so. Sharpe deleted the tweet as a result of the open letter, which had been signed by many of Alem Matthees's family.

Wessely school
Michael Sharpe is often referred to as a "member" of the Wessely school, a group of psychiatrists who have been criticized for their dismissal of biomedical research into ME/CFS, promotion of the biopsychosocial model, and close ties with the UK welfare benefit system and the health insurance industry. Some of the Wessely school have been knowing to make unpleasant comments about patients.

The "undeserving sick"
Prof Sharpe once referred to people with ME/CFS as the "undeserving sick", stating his opinion that they were "not going to die" and criticizing patients for refusing to accept ME/CFS was a mental illness.

Books

 * 1995, Treatment of Functional Somatic Symptoms
 * 1999, Chronic Fatigue and its Syndromes
 * 2003, ABC of Psychological Medicine (ABC Series)
 * 2008, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (The Facts)

Media coverage and interviews

 * 2011, Comparison of treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome - the PACE trial -ABC.Net.AU Radio (with transcript)
 * 2013, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 2 - Lancet TV on YouTube (about the PACE trial)
 * 2015, Chronic fatigue patients criticise study that says exercise can help - Guardian 28 Oct 2015

Online presence

 * Twitter

List of publications

 * PubMed
 * University of Oxford - Michael Sharpe

Learn more

 * 2005, A Response to Michael Sharpe