Intimidation and bullying of PACE trial critics

Engaging in the intimidation of PACE critics has taken place for many years.

Keith Geraghty: "after I published articles that were critical of the PACE trial, two of the PACE authors W&S lodged complaints about me and my work to my host University. Emails and phone calls to ones bosses is very intimidating."

Caroline Struthers: "I was intimidated and upset when Larun wrote to my boss to complain about me when I posted @julierehmeyer's article on my personal FB page." Lillebeth Larun is author of the Cochrane review of exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome. Struthers had posted Rehmeyer's Stat article ''Bad science misled millions with chronic fatigue syndrome. Here’s how we fought back.''

Professor Sharpe attempted to obtain a retraction or correction of the article by Rehmeyer, and also of an article by Professor Steven Lub et titled How a study about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was doctored, adding to pain and stigma.

Dr Emma Reinhold: "I tweeted that I hoped PACE would be discredited and tagged Ben Goldacre, not knowing his connection with Simon Wessely. Within 3 days Simon Wessely followed me on Twitter. His wife sent me a facebook friend request and the RCGP said they had received 'complaints' and were considering cancelling the EDS Spotlight project (which I had just been appointed to run but had not received a contract at that stage) to produce the EDS toolkit for GPs. We were told by RCGP we couldn't mention fatigue in the context of EDS. We refused to comply as this is contrary to the evidence . The RCGP is the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Carol Monaghan: [Professor Sharpe] has told me that my behaviour is unbecoming of an MP.

Professor Esther Crawley has attempted to silence and intimidate David Tuller.

Other attempts to suppress criticism
An attempt was made to block publication of a Journal of Health Psychology, Special Issue: The PACE Trial by claiming that it had not been peer reviewed.

According to Professor Jonathan Edwards "If you criticize PACE in the UK, there is a quiet phone call to your employer and the next morning you are asked to a meeting to reconsider your contract. I get emails from people to whom this has happened. The only reason why I am the only UK academic to call out on PACE is that I am retired so do not have an employer."

Patients that were critical of the PACE trial were targeted by a smear campaign that variously portrayed them as violent militants or activists engaging in a campaign of harassment.