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

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• levels of Substance P are elevated in patients with ME/CFS but not in patients with FM (Pain
1998:78:2:153‐155)
• patients with FM are not acetylcholine sensitive (Rheumatology 2001:40:1097‐1101) but patients
with ME/CFS are acetylcholine sensitive (Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids
2004:70:403‐407)
• endothelin‐1 is raised in fibromyalgia (Rheumatology 2003:42:493‐494) but is normal in ME/CFS
(Rheumatology 2004:43:252‐253).
As others have asked: whatever happened to evidence‐based medicine?
UNUMProvident Policy that underlies the MRC PACE Trial
It seems beyond doubt that Government policy is to target specific disorders for the primary purpose of
reducing the number of claims for sickness and disability payments and that this is being effected with the
assistance of the insurance company UNUMProvident (see Appendix III).
After the commercial interests of the disability insurance industry and its Wessely School “medical”
advisors became influential in the UK benefits system, the situation for those with ME/CFS took a serious
turn for the worse.
Dr Peter Dewis from the DWP Disability Living Advisory Board (who, together with Professor Mansel
Aylward authored the Disability Handbook before Dewis became Chief Medical Officer at
UNUMProvident) confirmed that before Attendance Allowance became the Disability Living Allowance
(DLA), decisions on eligibility for State sickness and disability benefits were made by doctors (hence the
“Handbook for Delegated Medical Practitioners”), but since the advent of DLA, such decisions are now
made by non‐medical personnel, and the “Disability Handbook” is a guide for these non‐medical decision‐
makers.
During his time at the DWP, Aylward was well‐known for his support for the Wessely School and for his
opposition to disability benefits being paid to ME/CFS claimants. During his tenure at the DWP, Aylward is
on published record as indicating his own and his Department’s disapproval of the UK Chief Medical
Officer’s 2002 Report on “CFS/ME” (the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, is on record
on 11 th January 2002 as stating that “CFS/ME” should be classified alongside multiple sclerosis and motor
neurone disease) and of preferring the opinion of the psychiatrists who resigned from the Working Group
because they did not get their own way in achieving the re‐categorisation of “CFS/ME” as a somatic
syndrome as they intended. Mansel Aylward’s long association with UNUMProvident is a matter of record
(see Appendices III and IV).
The Woodstock Connection
On 6 th – 8 th November 2001, key Wessely School activists attended the “Malingering and Illness Deception”
Meeting in Woodstock, near Oxford. Those attendees were Professors Wessely, White, Sharpe and Aylward.
All are involved with the MRC PACE Trial
Other attendees included staunch Wessely School psychiatrists Professors Christopher Bass and Anthony
David and – importantly – Dr John LoCascio, representing UNUMProvident.