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

64
Of concern is the fact that this book is listed by NICE as one of its references in its 2007 Clinical Guideline on
“CFS/ME”, because not only do Waddell and Burton discuss “biological obstacles” in relation to rehabilitation,
they also assert: “Symptoms are by definition subjective and therefore at least partly a matter of perception”.
“CFS/ME” is thus decreed to be a “perceptual problem”, but this argument is not based on either logic or
medical science.
Notwithstanding, in their 2005 book Waddell and Aylward are unambiguous, indeed asserting: “The
solution is not to cure the sick” but to get the sick removed from benefits, since “no‐one who is ill should have
a straightforward right to Incapacity Benefit”.
This book sets out to separate “symptoms” from “disability”. Whilst disease is acknowledged to be
“objective, medically diagnosed pathology”, “symptoms” and “sickness” are not to be accepted as incapacity to
work, and “illness” is to be reversed by cognitive restructuring of the person’s aberrant beliefs that they are
sick.
The authors assert that: “symptoms are bothersome bodily or mental sensations”; illness is merely: “the subjective
feeling of being unwell” and: “sickness is a social status granted to the ill person by society……Sickness and disability
do not necessarily mean incapacity for work”.
Importantly, the intended eradication of ME/CFS seems to have been facilitated by both NICE and the MRC
PACE Trial, both of which state that they have called the disorder “CFS/ME” in order to include both
symptoms and disability, thus providing a route for those with “symptoms” to be “rehabilitated” by means
of CBT and GET and then removed from benefits.
One of the PACE Trial’s Principal Investigators, Woodstock attendee Michael Sharpe, had paved the way for
this in his 2002 article “The report of the Chief Medical Officer’s CFS/ME Working Group: what does it say
and will it help?” (Clinical Medicine 2002:2:5:427‐429):
“CFS, sometimes known as ME, has long been a controversial topic.
“Patients’ organisations have been notably effective in lobbying parliament. Largely as a result of this political
pressure…the then UK Chief Medical Officer took the unusual step of commissioning a special working group to report
to him on the most effective methods of treatment and management for this condition.
“Five professional members resigned because they felt the recommendations had departed from the evidence
base and were biased towards a biomedical rather than biopsychosocial perspective.
“The working party report uses both CFS and ME but declines to recommend one term over the other, preferring the
compromise “CFS/ME”.
“For many ME implies not only a ‘real illness’ but also a fixed and permanent disease like multiple
sclerosis. This is a matter of concern to those who regard the condition as potentially reversible with
appropriate treatment.
“An associated issue is whether CFS/ME is best regarded as a ‘medical’ or as a ‘psychiatric’ illness.
“In practice, the choice of treatment depends on whether the condition is assumed to be ‘permanent’ to be adjusted to by
pacing, or seen as potentially reversible and to be actively treated with rehabilitation.
“Important controversies about the nature and management of CFS have been largely side‐stepped in the report and its
conclusions often read as an uneasy compromise. The adoption of the name CFS/ME symbolizes this”.