Angela Kennedy

From MEpedia, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia of ME and CFS science and history

Angela Kennedy was an advocate for the rights of the ME community from 2003-2015. She is a carer to her daughter who was given an ME diagnosis two years into her illness. She is a sociologist primarily researching in sociology of science, medicine, disability and health. Kennedy was active with the advocacy group The One Click Group from 2004-2006. She has written extensively on the PACE trial and its flaws, on psychogenic explanations for physical impairments, and on research methodology in the literature on ME/CFS and other conditions.

Book[edit | edit source]

Angela is the author of the book Authors of our Own Misfortune? The Problems with Psychogenic Explanations for Physical Illnesses.

Notable articles[edit | edit source]

  • 'The social myth of mind over matter' in response to Chalder et al ('Epidemiology of chronic fatigue syndrome and self reported myalgic encephalomyelitis in 5-15 year olds: cross sectional study' BMJ 2003; 327: 654-655) 26 Sep 2003.[1]
  • 'Re: your own worst enemy' in response to Thomas Szasz ('The psychiatric protection order for the "battered mental patient"' BMJ 2003; 327: 1449-1451) 29 December 2003.[3]
  • 'The term 'heartsink' is an insult to patients' in response to Scott Pereira (Immunology BMJ Career Focus 2004; 329: 113-a-114-a).
  • 'Some key issues neglected in this paper' in response to Thomas and Smith ("Primary healthcare provision and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: a survey of patients' and General Practitioners' beliefs" BMC Family Practice 2005, 6:49 doi:10.1186/1471-2296-6-49) 22 August 2006.[12]
  • 'Problems in the Pace trial' in response to White et al ('Protocol for the PACE trial: A randomised controlled trial of adaptive pacing, cognitive behaviour therapy, and graded exercise as supplements to standardised specialist medical care versus standardised specialist medical care alone for patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis or encephalopathy' BMC Neurology 2007, 7:6) 13 November 2007.[13]
  • 'Some problems with the London Criteria' in response to White et al ('Protocol for the PACE trial: A randomised controlled trial of adaptive pacing, cognitive behaviour therapy, and graded exercise as supplements to standardised specialist medical care versus standardised specialist medical care alone for patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis or encephalopathy' BMC Neurology 2007, 7:6) Oct 1, 2008.[14] The information on these criteria in this article was later shown to be inaccurate. There were no real problems with the criteria, revised in 2009 and published, and the arguments were irrelevant as they were not used in the trial. |
  • Response to Wessely et al ('Failure to Detect the Novel Retrovirus XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome', PLoS ONE, 6 January 2010) 13 Jan 2010.[15]
  • "The 'validity' of patient needs in 'CFS'?" in response to Drachler et al ('The expressed needs of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A systematic review' BMC Public Health 2009, 9:458) 1 February 2010.[16]
  • Stakeholder Submission to the American Psychiatric Association on the proposed DSM-5 Criteria made January 2011.

http://dxrevisionwatch.com/dsm-5-proposals/dsm-5-submissions-2011/2/

  • "Authors of our Own Misfortune? The Problems with Psychogenic Explanations for Physical Illnesses" (2012) Market Rasen, The Village Digital Press.[19]

Online presence[edit | edit source]

Learn more[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. Kennedy, Angela P (September 26, 2003), "The social myth of mind over matter", BMJ (response), 327 (654)
  2. Kennedy, Angela P (September 28, 2003), "The Doctor must not close his or her mind to all possible factors in regard to treatment", BMJ (response), 327 (654)
  3. Kennedy, Angela P (December 29, 2003), "Re: your own worst enemy", BMJ (response), 327: 1449-1451
  4. Kennedy, Angela P (Fall 2004), "When Doctors say 'Psychosomatic', What do they Mean?" (PDF), Quest (Canadian National ME/FM Action Network) (66)
  5. Kennedy, Angela P (May 28, 2004), "Some serious problems in Doctors' attitudes towards ME/CFS sufferers uncovered", BMJ (response), 328: 1354
  6. Kennedy, Angela P (June 4, 2004), "Some worrying doctor's attitudes towards ME/CFS sufferers uncovered", BMJ (response), 328: 1354
  7. Kennedy, Angela P (June 4, 2004), "Re: Medical Correctness", BMJ (response), 328: 1354
  8. Kennedy, Angela P (June 8, 2004), "Re: Medical correctness and evidence based medicine", BMJ (response), 328: 1354
  9. Kennedy, Angela P (June 8, 2004), "Re: Grey areas at the interface of psychiatry and medicine?", BMJ (response), 328: 1354
  10. Kennedy, Angela P (June 16, 2004), "GPs are powerless without better models", BMJ (response), 328: 1354
  11. Kennedy, Angela P (May 3, 2005), "Failure to consider the issue of differential diagnosis now inexcusable", BMJ (response), 330: 1012-1015
  12. Kennedy, Angela P (August 22, 2006), "Some key issues neglected in this paper", BMC Family Practice (response), 6 (49)
  13. Kennedy, Angela P (November 13, 2007), "Problems in the PACE Trial", BMC Neurology (response), 7 (6)
  14. Kennedy, Angela P (October 1, 2008), "Some problems with the 'London Criteria'", BMC Neurology (response), 7 (6)
  15. Kennedy, Angela P (January 13, 2010), "Failure to Detect the Novel Retrovirus XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome", PLoS One (response)
  16. Kennedy, Angela P (February 1, 2010), "The 'validity' of patient needs in 'CFS'?", BMC Public Health (response), 9 (458)
  17. Kennedy, Angela P (February 22, 2010), "What were the characteristics of the patient cohort?", Retrovirology (response), 7 (10)
  18. Kennedy, Angela P (January 3, 2011), "Questions about 'CFS' and 'ICF' selection criteria of cohort", PLoS One (response)
  19. Kennedy, Angela P (September 4, 2012), Authors of our own misfortune?: The problems with psychogenic explanations for physical illnesses (book), CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, ISBN 978-1-4792-5395-1
  20. Kennedy, Angela P (August 2, 2012), "Cost-effectiveness is irrelevant when safety has not even been addressed in the PACE trial", PLoS One (response)
  21. Kennedy, Angela P (March 21, 2013), "'SSD' reifies and rejiggles already unsound concepts of 'psychogenic illness'", BMJ (response), 346 (f1580)
  22. Kennedy, Angela P (November 18, 2015), "Bad thoughts can't make you sick, that's just magical thinking", Aeon
  23. Kennedy, Angela P (February 10, 2016), "Summary of my specific concerns about PACE with annotated bibliography", PACE Documents BlogSpot