Empathy Deficiency Syndrome

Abbey Stanford describes herself as "a writer who has been living with a chronic neurological disorder since my early teens, but which was only diagnosed 3 years ago. I often write about disability and the effects of illness, as well as wider issues such as women and those from lower-income backgrounds. I often write with humour to address serious issues, especially those around my own health."

On Dec 28th she made a tweet which I rather tend to agree with.

People who take advantage of sick and suffering people, have a special place on my shit list. Another special place on that list belongs to people who pretend they are the champions of sick and suffering people, waving their science flags,

bravely fighting the quacks on behalf of the innocent. When in reality...

...they view the victims as punching bags not worthy of an ounce of common decency. 

Somehow, and I don't care how many science degrees you have, or how "evidence based" you claim to be,  it's kinda difficult to accept that loads of people are really going around pretending to have life-changing chronic illnesses for attention or because they are bored. Even a person with a mental illness that would cause delusions or pathological attention seeking still has a real illness. They are sick, and they deserve compassion, not derision from up on your high science horse.

Someone like SciBabe who has a couple of chronic conditions herself, shows her true colors in this now deleted post. Her Skeptic fans, even when confronted with evidence, which they are so fond of, still do a song and dance routine to try to cover for their favorite dirty joking porn critic as I quickly found out the other day.

Apologies for the epic screenshots, but I got such a laugh out of this exchange that I just had to share. Skeptics are not immune to the things they accuse so many others of. When confronted with evidence, they say that they change their minds. But in my experience they try to infer that you are a kook, and whip out all manner of logical fallacies. In this case, all to protect one of their club celebrities. And for what?

Skeptics claim to be fighting for the little guy - protecting the public from 'woo' and 'quackery'. But is their activity having a net positive effect and helping people that are suffering and sick? Or, is this behavior really just a cover for their hatred of certain groups of people?

Vaccinate your damn kids or we will stab them with a rusty nail! Why won't you listen to us?!?

They definitely have their favorite punching bags, and Lyme disease I've noticed is a big one. 

In this uniformed, painfully ignorant post from Rebecca over at Skepchick, she displays the same attitude as our previous examples.

"It’s because David doesn’t have Lyme Disease. His family claims he has “chronic neurological Lyme disease,” which, I am happy to inform you, does not exist. Congratulations, David, you’re cured!"

These Skeptics call 'chronic Lyme' a fake disease, but if they actually cared about helping people who are suffering, they'd be advocating for funding research into Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS) in order to answer the question of why some people remain ill after treatment with antibiotics instead of arguing over semantics.

The CDC says the cause of PTLDS is not known. Well, what are you waiting for, Skeptics? Aren't you guys the gatekeepers of all things science?

One surefire way to keep people from wasting time and money on miracle cures and scam artists like this is to develop accurate tests to look for the presence of the disease, thus answering the question of whether or not persistent infection is a cause of some people not getting well after treatment.

People with misunderstood and stigmatized ailments could really use help - but Skeptics are busy selling t-shirts, doing podcasts, and making You Tube videos and snotty memes. That debunking and self promotion takes precedence for these people really says it all, even if they are verbally stating that they care or even retweet Ms. Stanford's thread at the beginning. This is all an act.

Science was not created to use as a power play against people you don't like, to use sick people as a punchline or to pretend you are a champion of the people, fighting quacks on their behalf.

Real ethical skeptics and scientists put the knowledge they gain from the scientific method to good use to help people and solve problems. Even fake diseases can save lives.

History gives us plenty of examples where a syndrome or illness or cause thereof was denied by many in medicine or by Skeptics. Such closed minded individuals will not be the ones who solve our most pressing mystery ailments. Do not rely on them for an unbiased take when it comes to these issues. Look for those who show compassion and bravery to speak on behalf of those who are ill, advocate for patients, and support using science to find answers.