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

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Such is the influence of the Wessely School that it is unsurprising that a litigant in the High Court was told
that Judges “regard ME as psychological self‐indulgence”.
From the evidence obtained under the FOIA, the outcome of the MRC PACE Trial may be expected to set
such a belief in tablets of stone.
The UNUMProvident / DWP / Wessely School ideology must be compared with what Canadian ME/CFS
expert Dr Byron Hyde said in 2003:
“Though ME/CFS usually represents significant disease processes, the underlying pathophysiologies causing these
disease processes are so varied that it is unreasonable and perhaps even dangerous to suggest or embark on any uniform
treatment.
“There has been an immoral intervention by the insurance industry into the philosophy of physicians and
health workers treating this group of disease entities. This corporate insurance company intervention has used
the mechanism of sponsoring medical symposiums to produce a uniform insurance‐friendly policy….negatively
influencing other physicians who may not be aware of this economic relationship”. (The Complexities of Diagnosis.
Chapter 3 in: Handbook of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Ed: Jason Leonard A et al. John Wiley & Sons, New
Jersey, 2003; see also: http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Organic_evidence_for_Gibson.htm ).
As Hyde also says: “All moderate to severe ME patients have one or more, and at times multiple…vascular
dysfunctions….The primary vascular change is seen in abnormal SPECT brain scans…(There is) cardiac
irregularity on minor positional changes or after minor physical exertion, including inability of the heart to
increase or decrease in speed and pump volume in response to increase or decrease in physical activity….In
many ME patients there is an unusual daytime tachycardia….(There is) circulating blood volume decrease: this is
a nuclear medicine test in which the circulating red blood cell levels in some ME patients can fall to below
50%, preventing adequate oxygenation to the brain, gut and muscles….Vascular dysfunction may be the most
significant causal basis of the multiple bowel dysfunctions occurring in ME….
“Drs Jay Goldstein and Ismael Mena, using Xenon SPECT brain scans, demonstrated that the physiological
brain function of an ME patient rapidly deteriorates after exercise. They also demonstrated that this
physiological dysfunction could persist for several days following any of several stressors.
“Psychiatrists should not ever be placed in charge of diagnosis and treatment of ME patients. It is simply
not their area of expertise and their meddling has at times caused great harm to ME patients.
“ME is always a serious, diffuse brain injury and permanent damage can be done to the ME patient by non‐
judicious pseudo‐treatment” (Missed Diagnoses: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Nightingale Research Foundation, 2009, ISBN 978‐1‐4092‐7571‐8).
(It should be noted that Dr Ismael Mena is one of the foremost worldwide experts in nuclear medicine and
has received the Distinguished Scientist Award of the Western Chapter of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.
It was as long ago as 1992 that he published evidence that a high percentage of ME/CFS patients have
cerebral cortical hypoperfusion in the temporal lobes, and that the accuracy and reproducibility of these
changes may demonstrate “primary inflammatory changes or secondary vascular impairment in these
patients”: Study of Cerebral Perfusion by NeuroSPECT in Patients with (ME) CFS. In: The Clinical and
Scientific Basis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 1992. Eds: Hyde B, Goldstein J,
Levine P; Nightingale Research Foundation Press, Ottawa).
That the UNUMProvident / DWP / Wessely School ideology seems to have been bought wholesale by the
British Government is a matter of utmost concern, not least because it is known to be driven by “policy‐
based evidence” rather than evidence‐based policy.