You stated in your article published in Medscape
and Journal of Clinical Endocrinology's “Whose Thyroid
Hormone is it Anyway?” and I quote:
"The majority of patients who demand thyroid hormone treatment for
multiple symptoms, despite normal thyroid function tests, have functional
somatoform disorders..."
The hypothyroid patient community finds your statement irresponsible,
inaccurate and insulting.
As a mark of real concern for hypothyroid sufferers, would you please publish a follow-up article in the same journals giving your reasons for coming to this conclusion, and, at the same time, providing evidence and appropriate references? I feel you have a responsibility to sufferers of thyroid disease, as well as workers in related medical fields, to provide a reliable and irrefutable explanation for your opinion.
I noted on Mary Shomon’s About.com/Thyroid Forum — http://thyroid.about.com/od/newscontroversies/a/weetman_4.htm — that you responded to her articles as follows:
Sorry but you have missed at least one crucial point - somatoform disorders are neither hypochondriacal nor psychiatric - I make the point that future research will show that there is basis for these that currently eludes us.
Will you give evidence and appropriate references regarding your “one crucial point” suggesting “somatoform disorders are neither hypochondriacal nor psychiatric”? Would you also please explain how you conclude that “future research” will be done to show such a basis, as well as giving TPA-UK your interpretation of somatoform disorders?
Dr Weetman's Reponse:
Dear Mrs Turner,
It seems to me that you do not understand scientific publication processes. If I am invited to write an editorial for a scientific journal, I reference it suitably. Readers can then read the references provided, and the references beyond that which they will be led into, to determine if my conclusions are correct, applying their own training to the analysis. If you have clear grounds for disagreement, the journal in question may publish your disagreement, provided it is backed up with scientific evidence.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Weetman