The Times Rod Liddle's Narrow vision on ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis)

by Tony Britton on August 6, 2011:

Rod Liddle was as immoderate as the outrageous behaviour he was criticising (“Shoot the medical messenger — see if that’ll cure you”, Comment, last week). There are around 193,00...0 myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/ chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients in Britain, and most have never threatened scientific researchers. So why paint a picture — “malingering mentals”, “foaming paranoia” — tarring thousands with the actions of a few?

There is a legitimate debate about which model — biomedical or biopsychosocial — best fits the illness, but it’s not true that evidence for the former is “non-existent”.

More than 90% of official grant spend on ME/CFS in the past decade has gone on research into cognitive-behavioural approaches. These are the “palliative treatments” Liddle refers to, but even their advocates recognise that they benefit only a small minority over and above standard medical care, and are not the answer to the biomedical enigma at the heart of ME/CFS. Its sufferers deserve better.

Dr Neil Abbot, ME Research UK


See also: Harvard Medical School: EEG spectral coherence data distinguish chronic fatigue syndrome patients from healthy controls and depressed patients

See also: More psycho crap from the Times, this time from David Aaronovitch who can't be bothered to read the biomedical evidence that ME is a severely disabling infectious, neurological disease

See also: More psychiatric masturbation in The Times

See also: M C S A NEWS: The only apparent benefit of continued research into psychiatric causes for ME/CFS lies in the pocketbooks of CBT psychiatrists

See also: Cerebrospinal fluid profiles can differentiate between Lyme disease, ME/CFS and healthy controls

See also: Post-exercise acid exposure 50 times higher in ME/CFS patients vs healthy controls, with no reduction with repeat exercise

See also: Dr. Hilary Jones, When you say, "ME is controversial", did you check that with Alison, Annabel and Sophia? Now, I'm sure you didn't, because all three died of ME. Yes you read that right, …