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

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“Chair: We have consistently said in this group that, if we stand on one thing, it is that (ME/CFS) is a
neurological condition – it is a biological condition, not a psychological condition”.
The Minutes also record concern (and the evidence) about the fact that NHS services that were in existence
for ME/CFS patients have actually been replaced and the specialist doctors who were running those clinics
have not been allowed to take part in the new “CFS” services.
As Jill Cooper from Worcestershire pointed out: “There is no point in clamouring for more NHS resources if
staff are being centrally ‘trained’ to view ME/CFS as a psychosomatic illness”.
The Minutes record that Sir Peter Spencer, CEO of Action for ME, referring to a meeting of the CNCC
(Clinical Network Co‐ordinating Centres that provide only CBT and GET for people with ME/CFS) at which
he had been present, said: “Professor Stephen Holgate gave…a very strong pitch based on his personal experience of
the frustration that ME patients have with the attitude towards the illness which was being taken by the
people who are producing the current treatments”.
It was pointed out and minuted that to leave ME/CFS patients with no (appropriate) care is “a breach of duty
of care”, a situation that is unlikely to change as a result of the MRC PACE Trial.
It is abhorrent that vulnerable and extremely sick patients should still be forced to justify their disease
because of the ulterior motives of a group of influential psychiatrists who persistently dismiss the reality
and severity of ME/CFS and upon whose diktat both State and insurance benefits necessary for basic
survival are intentionally denied to those with ME/CFS.
This situation, however, seems to suit the UK Government nicely. Even an arch‐ME agnostic such as Dr
Theodore Dalrymple (pseudonym of psychiatrist Dr Anthony Daniels) wrote in his article “Spoiled for
Choice” in the Daily Telegraph on 18 th September 2009: “When you go to your doctor, he is more likely to do
what the Government has told him to do to – or for – you than what, as a professional, he thinks he should do”.
The sheer volume of illiteracy, misrepresentation, inconsistency and what appears to be frank
misrepresentation to be found in the MRC PACE Trial literature is extremely disturbing to the extent that it
appears to be little short of professional abuse of patients with ME/CFS, who for decades have rightly
refused to accept the Wessely School’s unproven and ill‐informed dogma that ME/CFS is a behavioural
disorder.
Regrettably, agencies of the State lack the patients’ depth of knowledge and continue to be ensnared by the
Wessely School’s meticulously woven web of myths, which also seems to have contaminated the Judiciary.
As Sheila Campbell pointed out (MEAUK, 21 st April 2009), Mr Justice Simon (the High Court Judge who
heard the unsuccessful Judicial Review that set out to challenge the NICE Guideline on “CFS/ME”) failed to
differentiate between a belief and a scientific fact and drew his conclusions based on the false premise that
he was dealing with two different points of view, when such was not the case – one is a belief, the other is
supported by coherent and extensive medical and scientific evidence.
An opinion is a “personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty” (http://tinyurl.com/cyy5k6).
A view is “an expression of a belief that is held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof”
(http://tinyurl.com/c5xn32).
A fact is “a concept whose truth can be proved” (http://tinyurl.com/cq5ugk).