|
By Kevin Short.
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is a serious life-changing physical illness, recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO): listed at ICD-10-G93.3 as an organic-biomedical neurological disorder. Characterised by ongoing or post infectious (e.g. coxsackie enterovirus) pathology, the disease appears to be similar to post-polio syndrome (an enteroviral-triggered disease).1 Whilst viruses alone are capable of causing chronic long-term disease, increasingly, research is implicating the additional effects of the massive post-war growth in toxic immune-endocrine-nerve disrupting environmental chemicals - such as organophosphate pesticides. If anyone tells you there is not conclusive evidence of physical disease in M.E. they are either lying (more of which below) or ignorant – for research findings see the following:
The Clinical and Scientific Basis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Dr Byron Hyde M.D., The Nightingale Research Foundation, ISBN: 0-9695662-0-4. Order from bookshops or at: http://www.nightingale.ca/nightd.html
Enteroviral and Toxin Mediated Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Other Organ Pathologies by Dr John Richardson, The Haworth Press, Hardback ISBN: 0-7890-1127-1, Paperback ISBN: 0-7890-1128-X. Order from bookshops or at: http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product.asp?sid=VGTR105ERV168MN51CNVXQNK6KGNEH1A&sku=2153&AuthType=2
Engaging with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME): Towards Understanding, Diagnosis and Treatment by Professor Malcolm Hooper. Order by post from: Professor Malcolm Hooper, School of Sciences, Fleming Building, University of Sunderland, SR2 7EE, United Kingdom.
The Late Effects Of M.E. - Can they be distinguished from the Post-Polio Syndrome? by Dr E G Dowsett free at: http://www.ott.zynet.co.uk/polio/lincolnshire/library/dowsett/lateeffectsme.html
M.E. sufferers are discouraged from donating blood/organs and research has demonstrated multi-system physical pathology - with SPECT and PET brain scans revealing physical tissue damage and severely reduced cerebral blood-flow – made worse by exertion. Autopsies have confirmed such damage/infection. Some 240,000 adults and children are affected in the UK alone, a quarter of whom are severely affected and 10% of cases result in earlier death.2 Millions are affected worldwide and are a massive burden upon health, social security and insurance budgets. This cost is the real reason why ME/CFS sufferers have been subject to an outrageous political campaign of disinformation and attempts to label physical disease as the product of erroneous psychiatric belief. The chief assailant has been Professor Simon Wessely of King’s College London who, in spite of all the research evidence to the contrary, stated that "M.E. is simply a belief, the belief that one has an illness called M.E."3 The ‘Wessely-School’ group of psychiatrists have ceaselessly worked to negate all of the biomedical research findings and serve the vested interests of Insurance Companies, the DWP and other hidden interests. An ABSOLUTE MUST READ on this are:
- The Mental Health Movement: Persecution of Patients? A Consideration of the Role of Professor Simon Wessely and Other Members of the "Wessely School" in the Perception of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the UK
by Professor Malcolm Hooper. Available free at: http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/ME-CFS_docs/The Mental Health Movement - Persecution of Patients.pdf
- SKEWED: Psychiatric Hegemony and the Manufacture of Mental Illness in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gulf War Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
by Martin J Walker, Slingshot Publications, ISBN: 0-9519646-4X. Available by mail order (enclose a cheque/postal-order for £12 payable to Slingshot publications) from: Slingshot Publications, BM Box 8314, London, WC1N 3XX.
Also available from: http://www.cygnus-books.co.uk/mind_body_spirit_books/skewed.htm
Ever mindful of budgets, In the UK, Government Ministers have been captured by the psychologising views of the Wessely School, Insurance Industry and the DWP 4 and are pursuing their ‘Pathways to Work’ project - which is set to gain momentum from 2005. A situation where sufferers of a physical neuro-immunological disease (M.E.) will be routinely referred to psychiatrists as mental health patients – and subject to harmful ‘treatment’5 upon pain of benefits withdrawal – is being set up. This is NOT exaggeration and I would direct you to the extremely worrying comments of Wessely-School psychiatrist Dr Michael Sharpe:
"Those who cannot be fitted into the scheme of objective bodily illness yet refuse to be placed into and
accept the stigma of mental illness remain the undeserving sick of our society and health service."6
In spite of all the biomedical evidence to the contrary, these vested-interest psychologisers continuously maintain their anti-science mantra: that ‘M.E. is perpetuated by mistaken belief and sick-role behaviour’. Their well-funded lobby
machine relentlessly bombards parliament and the media with disinformation - and they flood medical and trade journals with extremely low quality psychiatric ‘research’ papers.7 Inevitably, all of this adversely affects the views of time-pressed GPs who are simply too busy to read all the bio-medical research papers themselves. Adding to this problem is the fact that Wesselyite psychiatrist, Professor Peter White, has even managed to have ME/CFS listed under the heading of "Functional or Psychosomatic Disorders: Medically Unexplained Symptoms" in the main general textbook recommended by the BMA and used by most GPs and medical students.8
Peter White is currently the leader of what is widely held to be a massive scientific fraud: with the so-called ‘PACE’ trial - sponsored by the DWP, DTI and Medical Research Council, and wrought with the vested interests of insurance and private health care providers. It is set to (falsely) show that psychotherapy and exercise can ‘cure’ M.E., even though
the trial admission criteria actually excludes most true M.E. sufferers (WHO ICD-10-G93.3) and includes those with psychiatric fatigue states (WHO ICD-F48) of just 6 months duration. This is an appalling affront to both the WHO disease classification and the International panel of biomedical experts - which drew up the erudite ME/CFS: Clinical Working Case Definition, Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols or ‘Canadian Criteria’ in 2003.9 To add insult to injury, the MRC’s own ‘PACE Trial Identifier’ documentation even has the temerity to openly state their assumption that membership of a self-help group and access to sickness benefit prolongs illness!10
Already there are cases of adult M.E. patients admitted into psychiatric hospitals, and the appalling situation of very sick M.E. children being compelled to go to school and subject to Social Services ‘child protection proceedings’. Indeed, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health recent ‘treatment’ guidelines amount to the sanctioning of medical child-abuse, and will result in setback, disability and family break-up. Things are however set to get worse for all UK M.E. sufferers as the new ‘Regional ME Treatment Centres11’ - and DWP benefits access – are to be based upon psychiatric falsehoods. This is, as Professor Malcolm Hooper puts it, ‘persecution of the sick and a national scandal’.
As if this were not all bad enough, the two main ‘M.E. charities’, Action for ME and the ME Association (& Medical Advisor Dr Charles Shepherd), are widely viewed to be self-serving and damaging the interests of true M.E. sufferers:12 The so-called ‘M.E. Alliance’ is a self-appointed Sham. Both AfME & MEA magazines grossly mislead their readers – by understating the serious and urgent political situation facing M.E. sufferers. AfME does not hold itself democratically accountable to its members. It is openly collaborating with the deceitful psychiatric lobby and being paid large sums of money for its participation in the fraudulent PACE trial. It is also under investigation by the NHS Fraud Squad. The MEA’s Dr Shepherd has consistently undermined the WHO listing of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (and the protection this gives to patients), and repeatedly obstructed the proper separation of psychiatric fatigue patients from true M.E. sufferers via full biomedical patient-screening by the NHS. Indeed Chris Ellis, the former Chairman of the MEA, made such damning statements about the charity – and Dr Shepherd in particular – that they just have to be read to be believed.13 Evidence of such matters is set out in the MUST READ documents:
In conclusion, M.E. sufferers/families must get informed and FIGHT – like MS patients did. We can all do our bit. We have science, truth and some excellent doctors/researchers on our side – and we can win. We need to raise money for political and legal battles facing us (but don’t give the money to AfME/MEA or the ‘ME Alliance’), so please:
1 See: Dr E G Dowsett, The Late Effects Of M.E - Can they be distinguished from the Post-Polio Syndrome? Cited overleaf.
Also see: The Polio Paradox: Uncovering the Hidden History of Polio to Understand and Treat "Post-Polio Syndrome" and Chronic Fatigue by Dr Richard L Bruno, Time-Warner Books, Hardback ISBN: 0446529079, Paperback ISBN: 0446690694.
2 Due to organ failure, etc, later in life - see Dr Betty Dowsett’s paper cited above.
3 In Wessely’s presentation to the 9th Eliot Slater Memorial Lecture (Slater was a Council Member of the EUGENICS SOCIETY) – see: http://www.sayer.abel.co.uk/MES-Nnazi.html and: http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/wessely_speech_120594.htm
4 Also, the APPGME (All Party Parliamentary Group on ME) appear to have largely succumbed to this plausible well-funded lobby. For an example of such hidden influences, see Martin J Walker’s The Ghost Lobby at: http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/
5 This ‘treatment’ is based upon the misapplication of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), a form of psychotherapy. CBT can be useful if used properly - to help patients come to terms with real physical illness, but it is not a ‘cure’. When CBT is abused, as is proposed, to brainwash patients with a scientifically-proven physical disease (M.E.) that their illness is due to ‘mistaken belief’, it will lead to setback and increased long-term disability. However, CBT is only one part of the double-whammy psychiatric ‘treatment’ - which also includes progressive GET (Graded Exercise Therapy). The latter has already been shown to be positively damaging to M.E. patients – SPECT scans, for example, have clearly shown that such exercise starves the brain of blood/oxygen (see Dr Byron Hyde’s book cited above, page vii). Given that patients are likely to have welfare benefits reduced or withdrawn ‘for refusing [such] medical treatment’, this will all amount to clinical negligence and persecution on an industrial scale [see note 3].
6 Page 75 in Professor Malcolm Hooper’s paper: ‘The Mental Health Movement: Persecution of Patients…’ cited above.
7 Such is the power of said political lobby; there is increasing bias towards psychiatry and away from biomedical science in medical journals. Indeed, of the British Medical Journal, Glasgow University’s senior lecturer in Clinical Neurosciences, Dr Abhijit Chaudhuri, stated: "the BMJ has a selective bias towards research that supports a psychological view of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome irrespective of the quality of the presented material." – In BMJ Rapid Responses to Maja Stulemeijer et al, 3 January 2005.
8 Kumar & Clark, Clinical Medicine, Fifth Edition, by Parveen Kumar & Michael Clark, W Saunders Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0-7020-2579-8. Naturally, the section author is Peter White himself – a man with long-standing ties to the Insurance Industry.
9 These ‘Canadian Criteria’ were produced by the expert international team led by Dr Bruce Carruthers in 2003. This is the most important document ever published in the defence of M.E. patients and is available at: http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/
10 See The PACE Report by Jane Bryant, op cit, at: www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/PACE/
11 Scandalous job ads for these ‘Treatment Centres’ at: http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Clinical_Fatigue_Job_Descriptions.htm
12 Ditto for the web group IMEGA-e -which repeatedly suspends groups like Norfolk, who deviate too far from the Wessely mantra.
13 See emails: ‘Messages # 1578 & 1964 – Statement[s] from the MEA Chairman, Chris Ellis, 26 January 2004 and 18 February 2004’ at: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/THEONECLICKPROTEST/ and: http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/ *
Download this document in Word format:
ME/CFS Politics in a Nutshell (UK) by Kevin Short
 |
