MAGICAL MEDICINE: HOW TO MAKE AN ILLNESS ... - Invest in ME

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Professor Anthony David’s response to this was notable; he stated that Altmann et al’s result overlooked
“the bias inherent in self‐selection of cases” and “the cases may already have had unexplained symptoms and cognitive
problems”. Anthony David (Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at Guy’s King’s and Thomas’ School of
Medicine, where he works with Wessely) also said: “The reopening of the Camelford case is regrettable as the
people concerned may worry anew about their health” (BMJ 2000:320:1337).
The death toll has since risen – see The Daily Telegraph, 20 th April 2006: “Alzheimer’s fear grips poisoned water
town” by Medical Editor Celia Hall.
More recently, Exley and Esiri described severe cerebral congophilic angiopathy coincident with increased
brain aluminium in a resident of Camelford (JNNP 2006: doi:10.1136/jnnp.2005.086553), causing Walter
Lukiw, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Centre, to note
that as over‐expression of stress‐sensing, pro‐inflammatory and pro‐apoptotic genes have been observed in
aluminium sulphate‐induced neurotoxicity, “careful attention should be paid to the neurological status and
neuropathological outcome of the thousands of unfortunate victims at Camelford” (eBMJ, 21 st April 2006).
Professor Margaret Esiri is one of the country’s leading neuropathologists, and Dr Chris Exley is an expert in
aluminium exposure.
In December 2007, the West Somerset Coroner Michael Rose ordered the police to re‐open the Camelford
pollution case following allegations of a cover‐up (Guardian, 13 th December 2007; also reported by BBC
News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7142515.stm ).
Responding to this announcement, Sue Waddle, spokesperson for the charity ME Research UK, a magistrate
and the mother of a daughter severely affected by ME, wrote to The Guardian on 16 th December 2007: “I and
many others await with interest the outcome of any police inquiry. A 1995 paper by two psychiatrists asserted that
mass hysteria and / or anxiety were responsible for the supposed suffering of those in the Camelford area at the time.
(One of these ‘experts’) has also given his expert opinion on many other ‘non‐illnesses’ and ‘unfounded health worries’.
He happens to be the Government expert on electricity pylons, mobile phone masts, Gulf War Syndrome and myalgic
encephalomyelitis. What has prompted the Coroner’s call for an inquiry is irrefutable, empirical evidence from the
organs of some of the victims who have died. I cannot see how psychological problems can cause the build up of
enormous amounts of aluminium in the brain – much less viral infection in the spinal cord of victims of ME”.
In February 2009, following a FOIA request, it was reported that the Coroner warned Ministers of the
“serious political consequences” of not assisting his inquiry. In a letter requesting £110,000 for further medical
research, Coroner Michael Rose told Health Secretary Alan Johnson MP that he was “fearful for the
ramifications once it becomes known that the lives of thousands in Cornwall are put in jeopardy…”. The Minister,
Ben Bradshaw MP, took three months to respond to the Coroner, whose request was refused by the
Department of Health. From letters released to the Western Morning News, it is known that Mr Bradshaw
urged the Coroner to “reconsider” his (Mr Bradshaw’s) request for the publication of a Government‐ordered
Report into the long‐term health effects of the incident to be delayed but the Health Minister was not to be
moved: “We have mechanisms to fund policy‐related research, but such work is commissioned by issuing a call for
proposals for research to address the problem at hand and tendering. We then use peer review to commission the most
appropriate and promising proposal”. The Coroner responded: “I do not say this lightly….but can you imagine
anything more prejudicial to a Government‐backed review denying that there was any health risk when the jury may be
asked to accept the evidence of one of the country’s leading neuropathologists (Professor Margaret Esiri) who may say
the opposite?” (http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/northdevonsurfing/news/Water‐poison‐research‐needs‐
funding/article‐664972‐detail/article.html).
Clearly the medical evidence did not support David and Wessely’s beliefs that the Camelford disaster was
merely contagious mass hysteria, any more than it supports the Wessely School’s notion that ME/CFS is