The Medical Research Council’s secret files on ME/CFS

Margaret Williams, 10th December 2009

It is an established fact that the MRC has a secret file on ME that contains records and correspondence since at least 1988, which, co-incidentally, is about the time that Simon Wessely began to deny the existence of ME. The file is held in the UK Government National Archives at Kew (formerly known as the Public Record Office) and was understood to be closed until 2023, but this closed period has been extended until 2071, at the end of which most people currently suffering from ME will be conveniently dead

As one puzzled ME sufferer recently noted: “why on earth have a 73 year embargo on these documents on an illness where a load of neurotic people, mostly women, wrongly think they are physically ill?” ( http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MEActionUK/; 14th October 2009).

The MRC’s secret files on ME/CFS are closed (ie. unavailable to the public) for an unusually lengthy period of 83 years. The standard closure period is 30 years but ...