Psycho blah blah from the American P2P

The P2P:

"Conclusions. No current diagnostic tool or method has been dequately tested to identify patients with ME/CFS when diagnostic uncertainty exists. CBT and GET have shown some benefit whereas other interventions have insufficient evidence to guide clinical practice. GET appears to be associated with harms in some patients whereas the negative effects of being given a diagnosis of ME/CFS appear to be more universal."

Jeannette @ http://thoughtsaboutme.com/2014/09/24/p2p-dont-buy-the-hype-protest/

"Engaging the government allows them to claim that they took the community’s concerns into account when they have no intention of doing so. Their outreach to the patient community, the comment period, is a mirage.”

...

"Remember the changes that were made to the IOM panel in response to patients’ concerns about various suggested panel members’ conflict of interests? No? I don’t either. The make-up of the committee was not changed at all despite a few advocates researching the background of the proposed panel members and finding some troubling facts. The feedback of those advocates was entirely ignored. If the government wanted our input, they would have designed the whole process completely differently instead of merely having one token, hand-picked patient advocate at the P2P workshop purporting to speak for the entire community. Giving our input means legitimizing the farce. Don’t fall for it.”

...

"There is no doubt in my mind that P2P will harm patients greatly and I will have no part in that by being seduced into thinking that my engaging will result in any meaningful effect on the process."

...

""P2P: Don’t Buy the Hype! Protest!The reason why I will not cooperate with, or participate or engage in, the P2P process is very simple. HHS and NIH have shown time and time again that they do not have ME patients’ interest at hear...thoughtsaboutme.com

The failure to detect XMRV in patients is attributable to differences in the detection techniques employed

Maria Barton, August, 2011:

Our screen of patients with prostate cancer suggests the presence of XMRV among patients with prostate cancer in Northeast United States, in contrast to results of some other Midwestern groups (Sakuma et al. 2011). This could be due to geographical distribution of the virus as seen in the past with other human retroviruses that cause cancer (de Rivera et al. 1995) but more likely reflects differences in the methods used. Alternatively, the inability to detect XMRV in Midwestern prostate cancer patients might reflect genetic sequence differences between two different strains of the virus. However, this also seems unlikely if we consider the high degree of sequence conservation among XMRV isolates (Danielson et al. 2010). As mentioned above, the failure to detect XMRV is most likely attributable to differences in the detection techniques employed or to an absence of XMRV in humans. We and others have found that detection of XMRV required rather specific conditions (data not shown). For example, the PCR assay amplifying the gag region is less sensitive than the PCR assay for env sequences.

Also, the inability to detect XMRV in prostate patient samples may indicate that XMRV is sometimes present as an incomplete provirus in the cells of these patients.
The need for highly sensitive assays to detect XMRV is more evident with our results suggesting that XMRV is present at a very low copy number.

Read more>>

Want to buy Libyan airforce fighter jets ?

2 French-made Dassault Mirage F1BD fighter jets for sale. Previously owned by Libyan airforce.

Excellent condition, custom Muammar Gaddafi bobblehead figurine, but Pilots are not included. Auction

Dr. Michael Sobetzko's 2011 ME/CFS calendar

download

Occupational Health's apathy to intelligent thinking

Download Dr Sobetzko's 2010 Calendar

Chronic fatigue syndrome rehabilitation, by Tristan Mellin and Anne Harriss, personneltoday.com, 08 November 2010

"The client may have unhelpful thoughts and behaviours relating to work including a fear of losing their job, and a perceived lack of understanding from managers and colleagues. They may have concerns about their physical abilities and consequently discontinue leisure activities worried that pushing themselves too hard will result in delay to recovery."

To exercise or not to exercise in chronic fatigue syndrome?

BY Professor Garry C Scroop,* Richard B Burnet†

* Visiting Associate Professor in Exercise Physiology, Department of Thoracic Medicine; † Endocrinologist, Royal Adelaide Hospital, SA 5000 gscroop@mail.rah.sa.gov.au

"To the Editor: A recent editorial1 and article2 continue to promulgate and link the unproven concepts that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are “deconditioned” and exercise is beneficial in treatment."

"In summary, patients with CFS are not “deconditioned”.

Neither their muscle strength nor their exercise capacity is different from that of other sedentary members of the community (> 70%).

We remain unaware of any incontrovertible evidence that the various “exercise training” programs suggested in previous articles improve either the physiological or clinical status of people with CFS."

Why is the UK a swine flu hotspot?

As the global swine flu pandemic gathers pace, one question is puzzling scientists. Why is a small country on the eastern seaboard of the north Atlantic so badly affected?

Britain is among the top half dozen global hot spots for swine flu. Along with Mexico, where the disease orginated, the US, Canada, Chile, Argentina and Australia, we are leading the way in the battle against the bug. We have more cases, and more deaths, than any other country in Europe and the pandemic is growing exponentially here, with 55,000 new cases last week, while it is subsiding elsewhere, notably in Mexico. And because we are in the front line, we are having to learn as we go.

This is not what was expected. Britain is an island nation, accustomed to the security that living within sea borders brings. But when it comes to highly pathogenic viruses, even the English channel cannot protect us.

When the pandemic emerged in Mexico last April, spreading first to the US and then ...

All in the mind, or so they say ...

Professor HOOPER and ME, RCGP are you listening ????

CLICK on the picture if you can't read it, it comes straight from the RCGP 'Care of People with Mental Health Problems', see also yesterday's post, this picture is on page 20 of that document from the RCGP.

On the RCGP' site is says:

"The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is the academic organisation in the UK for general practitioners. Its aim is to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the ‘voice’ of general practitioners on education, training and standards issues."

And as the MEA stated:

"The Read code for CFS is F286 and F codes are only used for neurological disorders. Read codes for mental health disorders start with the letter E. You cannot therefore include a Read code F neurological disorder in a list of E code mental health disorders. CFS must, therefore, be removed from the list in Appendix 3."

So what about those HIGHEST STANDARDS RCGP ?????

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post
"HOW MUCH DOES A SILLY TRIAL COST????"

"Most information about ME/CFS is by a Simon Wessley who has been casted out by the World medical board for false information this is what the UK uses to train people."

I tried to Google and find it but COULDN'T SO is there anybody who knows the answer????

I did find the following amazing, just read in horror and thanks Professor HOOPER, your help is much appreciated ...............

"A CONSIDERATION OF THE ROLE OF PROFESSOR SIMON WESSELY AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE “WESSELY SCHOOL” IN THE PERCEPTION OF YALGIC ENCEPHALOMYELITIS (ME) IN THE UK"

By: Malcolm Hooper
Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry
Department of Life Sciences
University of Sunderland
?2003 or 2004

What is the “Wessely School”?
UK policy concerning ME is based on the intransigent beliefs of a group of psychiatrists led by Simon Wessely, for years an adviser to various Government Departments including the Ministry of Defence and who is now Professor of Epidemiological and Liaison Psychiatry at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ Medical School (GKT) based at King’s College Hospital (KCH) and at The Institute of Psychiatry (IOP); he is also Director of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Unit and of the Gulf War Illnesses Research Unit, both at King’s.

Other leading members include psychiatrists Michael Sharpe (formerly of Oxford and now at Edinburgh, where Alan Carson now collaborates with him); Peter White (of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London); Anthony David, Anthony Cleare, Stephen Reid and Matthew Hotopf of The IOP and KCH and Richard Mayou, Keith Hawton and Christopher Bass of Oxford. Trudie Chalder, a former Registered Mental Nurse, works with Wessely and her name often appears on their publications and in funding applications.

Other supporters include Elena Garralda, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at St Mary’s, London; Tony Pelosi of Glasgow; Stephen Lawrie of Edinburgh; Alison Weardon and Leonie Ridsdale, Senior Lecturer in General Practice at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’, London.

The stated aim of Simon Wessely is to “eradicate” ME from the medical lexicon and to re-classify CFS as a mental disorder which does not need biomedical research or explanation and which is to be managed by a version of cognitive behavioural therapy which he claims to have developed.

His own commercial involvement in such a management regime has been established (see below).

The certainty of these psychiatrists that they are right whilst other researchers of international repute who disagree with them are wrong, their power and their influence are destroying countless lives, yet they continue to fly unscathed even in the face of substantial evidence that calls their views into question.

Wessely School psychiatrists have built their careers and reputations on denying the physical nature of ME/CFS, with the result that untold numbers of chronically and seriously ill patients are bullied, derided, threatened and driven to suicide by being told that they are not physically ill but are suffering from “aberrant illness beliefs”.

The constant theme running through the work of this group of psychiatrists is that CFS is a somatoform disorder and that factors such as female gender, too much focus on normal bodily sensations, specific personality traits, avoidance behaviour, learned helplessness, faulty thought processes, lack of motivation, inadequate coping strategies, interpersonal conditioning and contagious sociological hysteria play an important role in the perpetuation of the disorder.

Wessely School psychiatrists have been described in the eBMJ (N Portman, 3rd December 2003) as “a small clique of undemocratic, unaccountable, self-serving psychiatrists who have managed to monopolise most of the research funding in this field and, thanks to their prejudices, have been its downfall ever since”.

Without doubt, the influence of Simon Wessely has resulted in a cascade of horrors which most people in the UK do not know about and when they do, they find scarcely believable.

It has taken 25 years for the notorious Professor Sir Roy Meadow to be exposed and discredited as “world expert” on Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, whose views Lord Howe described as “one of the most pernicious and ill-founded theories to have gained currency in childcare and social services in the past 10 to 15 years.

It is a theory without science. It rests instead on the assertions of its inventor”. The downfall of Meadow, who is finally to appear before the Professional Conduct Committee of the General Medical Council, serves to prove that a so-called “medical expert” whose views apparently portray incontrovertible medical judgment and certainty may, in fact, be wrong, but the damage done cannot be undone. So it is with ME.

It must not be allowed to take 25 years before the views of the Wessely School on ME are subjected to similarly rigorous public examination and exposure.

What is CFS?: In the 1980s in the US (where there is no NHS and most of the costs of health care are borne by insurance companies), the incidence of ME escalated rapidly, so a political decision was taken to rename ME as “the chronic fatigue syndrome”, the cardinal feature of which was to be chronic or on-going “fatigue”, a symptom so universal that any insurance claim based on “tiredness” could be expediently denied.

The new case definition bore little relation to ME: objections were raised by experienced international clinicians and medical scientists, but all objections were ignored.

In 1991 in the UK, Wessely and Sharpe were amongst a group which produced their own criteria for “CFS” and this definition became known as the Oxford criteria.

In 1994 these same psychiatrists were instrumental in yet another revision of the criteria known as the CDC or the Fukuda criteria because they were produced under the auspices the US Centres for Disease Control.

Of great significance is the fact that both the Oxford and the CDC criteria specifically include psychiatric conditions which are known to feature prolonged “fatigue” or “tiredness” and, crucially, they specifically exclude all physical signs from the case definition of CFS, including the signs of neurological disease which had been noted in the ME medical literature for many years.

Thus the quite specific neuro-immunological disease ME became subsumed within the heterogeneous label of “CFS”.

This marked a turning point in the “eradication” of ME by psychiatrists and of the campaign to designate CFS as a “mental” disorder.

CFS is clearly listed at G93.3 as a term by which ME is also known, whilst other syndromes of chronic fatigue are listed under Mental and Behavioural Disorders at F48.0, a category from which ME/CFS is expressly excluded by the WHO.

Moreover, the WHO has confirmed that it is “unacceptable” for the same disorder to be classified in two different places and does not accept this to have occurred.

It is necessary to be aware that the patients studied by Wessely are largely obtained from either his own 1991 Oxford criteria or from the 1994 CDC criteria which he helped to develop, neither of which selects those with ME."

So now we know that CBT-ism rules the GOBSART ACADEMY of denying EVIDENCE but also the RCGP, well done guys..............

The RSM protest...

As this is the main idea from many doctors about ME, reinforced and fed by the CBT delusionists, I was thinking about the RSM and its conference to make things even worse for Patients with ME.

Denial is the most common strategy by the CBT Delusionists who rule the conference as we know and to sum up their knowledge of ME, let me just mention a few things:

"PRISMA is a multi-national healthcare company of which Wessely is a member of the Supervisory Board; it works with insurance companies and with the NHS to arrange compulsory “rehabilitation” programmes for claimants with “illnesses of modern life”. It uses Wessely’s favoured regime of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that is designed to change a patient’s behaviour, thought processes and what Wessely deems to be patients’ “aberrant beliefs” that they are physically sick.

Non-biased studies of CBT have found that it did not prove to be an effective intervention (see the results of a randomised controlled trial by Marcus Huibers and Anna Beurskens in The British Journal of Psychiatry: 2004:184:240-246)."

Now let me also quote one of the CBT leaders who stated in the same inquiry:
“I represent an extremely large and really quite brilliant group of people who have assembled at King’s”. IE, brilliant in getting the ELEVEN million for silly therapy...

He also said: that ME and GWS are “illnesses of modern life” yet he also likes to use SAME OLD SAME OLD, ie hysteria and neurathenia of the past are now people with ME. Now hysteria and neurathenia used to be MS and that is a dreadful disease but not the same as ME.

Furthermore ME can't be an old disease and the at the same time an illness of modern life. But that is the PSYCHIATRIC TOMBOLA as used by the delusional psychiatrists at its best.

A great quote from the same man is:

“We are in 1994. For ten years I had been running a research unit specialising in chronic fatigue and the problems of people who are tired all the time”.

So after 10 years of denial there it is, he is always talking about people who are Tired all the time. Well as we all know, they have a problem but it is not ME. But that is professor CBT for you, who denies anything and everything.

Just read the article by MARGARET WILLIAMS, and don't fall off your chair when the same CBT fanatic denies the existence of GWS (Gulf War Syndrome) yet so far at least 400 soldiers have died of this condition.....

So as you know I am bedridden due to this non existent illness, and I can't be at the RSM delusional conference of deniability, so I decided to do a Dr Enlander and write the Dean of the RSM the following email:

"Dear Dr Stradding,

On your site it says you are organising a conference about CFS at the end of April.

“The aim of this meeting is to take a broad look at chronic fatigue syndrome, examining its nature and definition, pathophysiology”.

1. If I look at the list of speakers, I am delighted to see that you have banned everybody who knows that ME is a neurological illness as defined by the WHO since 1969.

Now which CBT psychiatrist will mention this? NICE didn’t in their ME guideline….
So would it not have been a good idea to have a neurologist like Dr Chaudhuri at your conference??

2. Who will mention that in 1988 the psychiatrists changed the name from ME to CFS, then in 1991 they changed the criteria to tiredness only, and they created a completely new disease, or should I say a wastebasket.

They introduced names like Yuppie Flu and Chronic Fatigue, and now many doctors believe ME is about tiredness and they think ME, or CFS as they want to call it, equals TATT. And as you know, we as doctors hate TATT (Tired All The Time).

3. That ME is something completely different was demonstrated for example by Dr Ramsay, the infectious disease specialist, in 1979 when he published a paper that demonstrated muscle abnormalities.

Now which psychiatrist will mention this and the fact that we can now demonstrate mitochondrial dysfunction in ME patients very easily with a blood test?? And the worse the test results the worse the ME. And I realise that CBT is so good that we can actually talk the mitochondria back to normal…

4. Who will mention that ME patients are not allowed to be blood donors???

5. Who will mention that you can DIE from ME??? And no, I am not talking about suicide, I am talking about dying from ME like for example Sophia Mirza a few years ago. Did she die from false illness beliefs, malingering, suggestibility or was it just plain laziness??

6. Who will mention all the genetic abnormalities in ME patients as found by Dr Kerr??? And yes I know, a few sessions of CBT and the genes are back to normal.

7. Who will mention the fact that the MRC has turned down all research into the cause of ME and finding a cure and only sponsors CBT psychiatrists???

8. Who will mention that in children ME is now the main reason to be off school long term??? Would it not have been a good idea to have a paediatrician like Dr Speight at your conference who is the most experienced ME paediatrician in the UK???

9. Who will mention the fact that at least 25% of ME patients are bedridden and many are tube fed???

10. And even more important, who will mention Dr Stein’s excellent psychiatric ME guidelines that demonstrate that CBT is useless, or the Canadian ME guidelines that do the same???

11. And who will mention the recent article by two Dutch psychiatrists in The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, April 2007, who stated that:
"The psychiatric and psychosocial hypothesis DENIES the existence of CFS as a disease entity."

And that "In CFS cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is most commonly used. This therapy, however, appears to be INEFFECTIVE in most patients.”

Which is not surprising as CBT is just as effective for a neurological illness as watching grass grow…. which is a lot cheaper actually…

So why has the RSM, a Society of Medicine as I always thought, not lived up to its own conclusion of 1978:

“it is hoped that as a result of the meeting, sufferers from this miserable illness will, in future, be more sympathetically managed.”

The only thing that the CBT psychiatrists have done is made the suffering of ME patients worse and now you at the RSM are kindly hosting their yearly psychiatric conference.

But please remember that you or your loved ones can get ME as well and then you will realise, just as I have learned the hard way, that CBT is all about denying ME as a severe and debilitating physical illness, and that you are now supporting them, and denying ME just like they have done with MS, TBC and many other physical illnesses in the past.

But let me add that I hope that you or your loved once will not get ME as I now know what a delightful business this is.

Kind regards,

Dr Speedy, a GP bedridden with ME.

ME and tertiary gains...

No words needed...

ME and Psychiatry ........

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST THERAPY

Now I am not gonna show all the pictures of this fantastic CALENDAR, but this one sums CBT and its uselessness for people with ME up with a few words so I had to use it, thanks Dr Sobetzko for enlightening our days............

And click on the picture for his new 2008 calendar...........

ME and CARTOONS by Dr Sobetzko

Just click on the cartoon for the new CALENDAR by Dr Sobetzko and great cartoons about living with ME, and remember, he works for a psychiatric department !!!!!!

SAD, BAD and ME WARNINGS

We’re told that NICE might be under attack from more than one source.

Apparently, it’s got something to do with the psychologists, who have, in a complex way, affected ME patients in a big way as set out by their friends from the CBT MAGIC KINGDOM.

But suddenly they have started to think again and even though millions of pounds are flowing in their direction, they have now started to dispute the usefullness of CBT and GET in ME and want to use it at their own discretion, meaning only if you would need it as a patient.

So it is not only the One Click Pressure group, as that sick, sad and mad columnist in the paper called them, is seeing some sense.

Good. Because this will give NICE something to do.

And maybe it will get them back at the drawing boards, instead of sitting around all day or being out playing golf with lovely dovely good old chappies who like Cute Bikinis and Topless ladies to have a NICE day out for peer group binding instead of peer reviewing.

Already, in this period of NICE-ness, they’ve come up with utterly useless guidelines on many other subjects and so many GP’s have started to put the guidelines under their desks if one leg is shorter than the other.

Now most of the all knowing doctors won’t admit this but it is true. No doctor reads those guidelines so it doesn’t matter how much crap they write.

You see, the ME guidelines came in EIGHT different flavours or so. A summary and a summary of the summary and then a summary for patients of the summary and then a summary of the patients one for healthcare professionals and then blah blah blah.

No wonder the good old Daily Mail went on strike a few weeks ago as they did not want to deliver a tree to every doctor in the country who would then not read it, let alone touch it.

Now, the first time I came to the UK to do a locum I thought that it was very NICE and cool to call your postal services the Daily Mail.

It was only when they said I had to buy them that I started te realise that this daily business was a tabloid without a girl in her full glory so to speak on page 93.3

I was a bit annoyed when they said it was actually the Royal Mail, but in their kindness, so before I could say everything is better down here in Oz, they said they will deliver your mail as well as you are such a NICE bloke.

And then there was this silly billy woman GP in the paper who actually liked the ME guideline, well, if you read her report you quickly realise that she was a typical doctor, you know the sort, no knowledge of ME at all.

Reminded me a bit about NICE and their friends who are not home, 001/7, you know our master of espionage with ME, has assured ME that they are out in a town up North in England, having a party on the beach to see if their CBT is succesful and they will catch b..bs and topless ladies.

The trouble is, just look at the picture, they can’t diagnose ME, and they certainly can’t find a beach either.

I mean, anybody in the UK who is out in his swimming costume right now, let alone without parts of it and is on the beach, must be ripe for emergency CBT and GET.

The last to get a bit of heat in the system.

But soon, after this One Click Trial, this form of CBT, together with the other one from the guys from the magical wands, will be illegal.

The latest wheeze comes from the CBT blokeys who are concerned that they haven’t released a new article in the last few days yet. Top of the POPS is on red alert and even MTV has put their program on hold till a new and exiting one will be released so we can all go to court and sing with our beloved friends the latest tune that we love so much that some people at the GOBSART Institute want to turn that into the new National British Anthem.

And over half of the doctors interviewed in a recent survey still said they have no clue what ME is , let alone that they could make any sense out of the GOBSART ME guidelines, and these were docs that got a week off to study the report, but they got so bored with looking at a report that ignored all medical evidence and other state of the art stuff, that many were saying it was like going to war as a Knight in shining armour, because you didn’t look around you to see that we actually have tanks, guns and other modern stuff.

So instead of reading the guidelines these docs were off to CBT Wonderland for a week of GET and other fun stuff they have to offer anybody who is daft enough to wlan through the door.

But this isn’t to bad if you are healthy and don’t mention ME, because then all hell breaks loose.

Because, and I want to make this absolutely clear, your idea of a good time and a nice run or so, is very far removed from any CBT blokey who are afraid that exercise might ruin their CBT plans, so they invented the exercise phobia theory.

You see, if they project their own problems on us, and use a bit of CBT gravy all doctors will thinks that we are lazy buggers who thought, uhum nice this ME, lets have a double dose before it is sold out.

You may have noticed these days that every single CBT article the BLOKEYS publish is exactly the same.

Two years ago they said ME and ME and ME equals nothing. Weeks later they changed that into Malingering, and even if you scrabble like there is no tomorrow, ME and Me and Me will never make malingering, but if you have failed your literacy and your maths tests in school there is no way you will notice this minute detail.

And for months they said the same and he same and the same and this goes on till we all believe it.

Even people who were fit and well and so before ME took over started to think, I didn’t like running, I didn’t like the game of Federer or Nadal, I didn’t like Christiano Ronaldo if he puts his turbo on, I didn’t like going out for a meal or a night out with friends or so.

That lying in bed thing is so much better that well, who would want something else.

And then that Lightning thing struck again, together with Mr Nickel and Dime and his Magic wand friends who sell the same thing under a different name, and a doc with a sad and mad brain started to talk as if she never learned anything in med school.

No really, even if you can’t read better than a six xear old you will know that using GOOGLE and searching the internet is a requirement these days.

In the past I would spend a whole afternoon looking for an article in the library and I was lucky if I found it and the librarian would be able to get hold of the magazine with the article in a week or three, four maybe.

Now you click, click and click, even my arms and my brain can now do it, and hoopla there you have the canadian, the south australian and psychiatric guideline all in one click.

You see, just go to SACFS, Australian obviously, sorry folks, and the whole wide ME world is at your feet.

I will put all these brilliant guidelines on ME BLOG another time.

Power is zapping out of my arms and my brains is going into Chernobyl mode.

Oh, and thanks again Mr Clarkson for your help on a drooling, sorry drooly Sunday.

Oh, and I almost forgot, if you want to have a bit of fun at the end of this Sunday then just click on JEREMY'S PICTURE

and you will be AMAZED........

YOU and YOURS and FALSE ILLNESS BELIEFS

Today I am just sharing another few comments from the YOU and YOURS responses and from the program itself.

One of the CBT Blokeys was on the radio and telling things like we don’t want the Canadian guidelines because we psychiatrists know it better or words to that effect.

Later he was caught off camera so to speak, a bit like, was it Bush and Blair in the past, and Bush on his own, making silly jokes/remarks while the microphones were still running.

So he obviously said that we, the patients with ME have false illness beliefs which is really nothing new. They have been saying and shouting that for years.

Not surprising though, if you have never seen one single patient with ME, nor have you got any intention to change that.

He did however try to soften his remarks by saying he never meant it that way and that his remarks were more meant for people with other diseases or words to that effect.

He also said we should reunite and fight against our common enemy, and that was ME he said.

I must say, despite my noise intolerance I couldn’t stop laughing for hours, only I had to do it silently.

But still, he just made me day.

First, he and his GOBSART friends make our lives even more miserable than ME already did, and then he has the temerity to say, we should join hands.

Should we start to sing together and so as well and sing the national anthem of the CBT KINGDOM????

Blimey.

And then there was that woman, who is blatantly advertising her treatment, that is taking the micky out of everybody with ME, as it has apparently cured her son.

Well that is obviously fantastic news, but as many others have criticised this as well, this clearly meant whoever made the diagnosis of ME got it wrong.

And when I pointed this out she became outraged. I must say, I would be happy, having my son back and so.

But no, she was furious.

And if you just think about Dr Chandhuri, the neurologist from the ME Association, who has stated many times, that of the people referred to him, with the (working) diagnosis of ME, FIFTY percent, so half of them, don’t have it.

Which is great news I would say, they might actually have something we can cure.

And if you read the rapid responses in the BMJ, after the GOBSART Institute of Excellence published their ME guidelines, yes the ones where they forgot to use the internet, or use any medical evidence or other guidelines which actually didn’t make a mess out of ME.

An American professor in Internal medicine said in one of those responses that of the people he sees with the preliminary diagnosis of ME 90% don’t have it.

So only one out of the ten he sees has ME.

I wonder if all of those people got angry with him, or were just really happy when he said I can cure you.

Just a thought.

The other one is a lot more serious, no really.

The sister of Sophia Mirza, the lady who died from ME, and it seems that the medical profession didn’t show itself from its best side, to put it mildly, has spoken out, and this is what she said:

“Yes, I do understand more why my beautiful (thank you for the compliment on her behalf and I agree with you) sister died. As far as I can tell she died from Ego's, money, power and lies.

Not her's, though.

She died from manipulation of the facts and prejudice and ignorance against ME.

She died because some Dr's ego was more important than her well being.

I have book agents interested now and because of what has been shared on this forum I have been able to give much more up to date references in the book 'Sophia and M.E'.

My book 'Sophia and ME' tells the story of how my sister died of ME.

She was not mentally ill but was treated as such. She was sectioned and forced into a mental hospital.

This led to her death. Her life is too high a price to pay for certain people's idea's, or more accurately, their wallets.”

And then I have to think again about what that CBT BLOKEY said. We should join him so he can section the rest of us as well.

What would Mr Clarkson say???? Yes, you must be NUTS. Or would the CBT Blokey now want to section Mr Clarkson as well for using this word???

After so much tragedy brought to you by the MAGIC WAND BRIGADE, it is time to see if there is any positive sort of I don’t know, oh yeah, trying to stay positive and optimistic, so time for some really funny remarks, which is all part of GLT, the Graded Laughter Treatment. To make sure we don't end up on the short site of the MAGIC WAND and its Cunning Baby Treatment.

So far GLT is the most successful treatment for ME, together with CBT, the COOL BLOGGING one that is.

Just read on and enjoy, because that is what is much needed after not only picking up this suggestibility virus which comes together with the false illness beliefs, for the price of one. So a bargain really.

Speedyjohnmartin wrote:
“tkindlon said:
“I know one young woman with ME who now thinks she's psychic"
Was this before or after CBT?

And gutsygirl wrote: “Anyone who has "recovered" through daft therapies like Reverse/Lightening/Cold Baths etc have not had M.E. as I know it.

I would love to be well again, instead of spending most of my life velcro'd to my duvet! But I’m wise enough to know that there are "money making bandits" out there preying on the vulnerable with their hideous assortment of "cures?".

This "bedbug" will not be tempted.“

And so the sage and the fight against ME, the one to GET better and get our lives back, is still hampered through selfishness and narcistic efforts by the CBT BLOKEYS, who have a very different agenda themselves.

MONEY MONEY MONEY as ABBA already sang many years ago.

So time to share a thought by one of my favourite cartoonists, which is putting the CBT Blokeys back in their cages. Back where they belong I would think. Chop chop, off you go as Mr Frost would say.

Enjoy the world of ME as brought to you by Dr Hans-Michael Sobetzko.

Oh and this time if you click on the cartoon you should get the English version as available on the investinme site. I just copied the wrong link yesterday I’m afraid. Although that was pointed out to ME and I have now rectified that.

ME and YOU and YOURS responses

It is really not surprising that our beloved friends have no idea what ME is.

They do a series of training sessions for GP’s and have a bloke saying he is tired all the time, or TATT as that is called in GP land, but he is presented under the banner Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Yes, really, check it out yourself if you are bored to death that is.

TATT is what we dread as doctors as we hate this nonsense talk.

Yeah really, that is what we are trained to think. Keeping an open mind and so, what a waste of time and energy.

I have copied their BORED TO DEATH banner into this BLOG and it is really interesting if you read what it says.

Their wording on the left is “MANAGING Chronic Fatigue in Primary Care,” so by your GP that is.

And there you see what we have been saying all the time, they see patients with chronic fatigue and call that later in their many many many articles Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Next to it is a picture of a Bloke who is clearly depressed and then it says: “Training Physicians in Mental Health Skills Series.”

But the NICEst thing is to the right of this, where it says “DEMENTIA.”

I must say I love this, I really do. Tiredness selling as CFS or ME, and then putting dementia on the agenda as well as a nice hint of what they really think of us….

However, just reading some of the responses to the You and Yours programm on BBC FOUR about ME, I found some really NICE comments.

Let me mention a few, I will have missed many because there is just too much information, which I just can’t read with a brain that still has problems processing information like I could in the past, but just read and enjoy.

Oh, and comments like I have been cured by standing on my head three times a day for a month, to GET some blood flowing back to my brain and other interesting therapies I won’t mention here.

If people are cured by these therapies great, but then they didn’t have ME in the first place. It is that simple.

“Remember - This is a training video for GPs! No wonder people with ME have a hard time with being taken seriously.”

"White man speaks with forked tongue."

“Psychiatry has as much relevance to ME as it does cancer. I.e. very little! I am afraid these psychiatrists have made a career built on ME and they obviously refuse to let go and admit the world now realises it is a physical illness and not ‘all in the mind.”

So much of our precious energy and money is spent trying treatments incl "every crackpot alternative treatment".

'Its difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.' Quote by Upton Sinclair.

“This made me think of doctors paid by insurance companies etc.”

Oh, and I have a really nice quote from Mr TOMMY COOPER himself. You never know, our beloved friends might even learn a thing or two from the master of understatement.

“A woman tells her doctor, “I’ve got a bad back.” The doctor says, “It's old age.” The woman says, “I want a second opinion.” The doctor says, “Okay – you’re ugly as well.””

I just received an email, you know one of those you didn’t ask for, but I must say this one was very tempting indeed, and I almost forwarded it to our beloved CBT BLOKEYS, so they might update you know their non existent knowledge and be up to date for a change.

It started by saying, “Don't you think it's time to update your antiquated ME knowledge with the latest software and applications from ME best of the best?

We have hundreds of applications now available from some of the greatest software companies.

Whether it’s the Canadian Guidelines, the South Australian ones or the Dr Stein guide for psychiatrists, we have them all, and all free of charge.

This should be off interest to your friends in the CBT MAGIC KINGDOM, so you might think of forwarding this email, or otherwise you might use your friend, and great helper, BELINDA MESSENGER.

You see, it can’t be a coincidence that Mr Eddie Jordan, who was not only the boss of an F1 team who mixed fast cars with sex and rock and roll, but he was also the one who introduced our BELINDA to the PADDOCK.

No wonder Mr HOTmail is using her, to run around the world delivering our messages as fast as she can.

But even the Eddie and Belinda treatment doesn’t cure blokes with ME.

Apparently more than half of all the ME patients are ladies so in the delusional world another reason to think ME is spelled hysteria.

Apart from that, hysteria is NOT a diagnosis anymore in the psychiatric bible called the DSM.

I have also noticed, after doing a lengthy and very expensive trial, the results, peer reviewed that is, will be published in the Journal for the HE Man, that all those woman always complain about labour pains and so and if you think about it this must be hysteria as well.

You see, the people from the Dr Speedy BLOG have done a telephone enquiry asking twenty thousand fathers about labour pains and NONE of them had had any.

So clearly, this labour pain is another expression of this hysteria phenomenon.

We also did a survey to see how many men had suffered from hot flushes and mood swings and again the results were staggering. Again NO BLOKE had ever had them.

So I must say, and now I am giving you a sneaky preview of the outcome of our survey, that CBT is really best.

Well, the COOL BLOGGING THERAPY that is.

I know it doesn’t cure you, but the other CBT doesn’t either, so can I have my FOUR million for my TRIAL and ELEVEN million for my COOL BLOGGING THERAPY please.

Oh and one final note, I have become some sort of SOBETZKO cartoon addict.

And I have also found the one that I wanted to share with you earlier.

If you see a delusional collusionist, just send him this one so he can update his RAM and ROM by deleting the non existent knowledge and checking this one out.

Thanks Dr Sobetzko, much appreciated. If you want to see the rest of his work, just click on the cartoon.

PS by mistake I did put the german calendar as the link, I have now changed that as I just made a mistake while clicking on the first instead of the second link on his site.

LATEST ME NEWS: GRADED LAUGHTER THERAPY WORKS VERY WELL

This is John Martin, bringing you breaking news live from London.

The story is simply sensational and has been confirmed by a number of impeccable sources.

This very morning I went to attend my first session of GLT (Graded Laughter Therapy) at a clinic in North West London.

The clinic was only built after Dr Speedy had secured a multi-million pound investment from the British government for his brand of CBT (Cool Blogging Therapy).

Dr Speedy had insisted his graded laughter therapy should only be administered by specially trained clowns and spent a small fortune ensuring all the clowns had state of the art digital magic wands.

As I struggled to find the clinic I met a lovely old neighbour of mine I had last seen almost 20 years when I was a student in London.

"Oh my goodness it's you John Martin" said Elsie, who must be over 80 now "you're looking well John" she added.

"It's fantastic to see you again Elsie" I said "but looks can be deceptive, I'm actually looking for the ME clinic."

A worried look came over Elsie’s face "I'm sorry to hear you've got ME" she said "but be careful John" she added "there's a dark side to those clowns. Those clowns are not to be trusted."

"Oh for goodness sake Elsie" I said "What can be less harmful than laughter? And anyway I completely trust Dr Speedy."

"All the trouble" said Elsie "started after Dr Speedy left his circus to go and live abroad. Speedy was a good man and well loved by all his patients. The circus was fine when Dr Speedy ran it.

Unfortunately after he left the clowns took over the circus. I'm 83 years old John so heed these words well, never trust a clown with a magic wand."

"So what happened Elsie?" I asked.

"Dr Speedy always had a rival," said Elsie "but he wasn't a real doctor at all. He was an evil little fella with three eyes.

He had two eyes in one his faces and only one eye in the other. He hated the fact that Dr Speedy was well loved by his patients and could make the world laugh.

As soon as Dr Speedy left the country he worked his way into the clinics and turned the clowns against the ME patients.

He sought his revenge on Dr Speedy by making his beloved patients exercise till they collapsed."

"How did he get away with it?" I asked.

"Two faced little fellas can be quite cunning" said Elsie "just ask any psychiatrist. What he did was just keep all the terms Dr Speedy used but perverted them to his own ends."

"What do you mean Elsie?" I asked.

"Well John you know Cool Blogging Therapy-CBT? Well the two faced little fella claims to use CBT as well. Except he doesn't.

He actually uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy."

"Don't be ridiculous Elsie" I said. I feared she may be suffering from dementia.

"Same with Graded Laughter Therapy" said Elsie "the little fella just added a couple of horizontal lines to the letter L to turn it into an E"

"What the hell is GET?" I asked.

"Graded Exercise Therapy" said Elsie, "I told you they'll have you on a bloody treadmill."

I could see there was a real sadness in Elsie's eyes as if something she really cared about had been lost. Something special.

"Are you ok Elsie?" I asked.

"John" she said "I was born in London. I live in London and I'll die in London.

It's the greatest city in the world. I lost 2 brothers in the Second World War fighting to stop the country I love being taken over by nut cases.

I've seen some terrible things in my life but I never thought I'd see the day the clowns would take over the circus."

I felt I had to quickly change the subject it was just too painful to see.

"How old will your grandson be now?" I asked. Suddenly her face lit up.

"David was 28 this year" she said "He's an artist and has just had a piece of his work put on display at the Tate Modern in London.

"You must be so proud" I said.

“I am John. Do you know what David said to me the other day? He said Tracey Emin is nothing compared to Jodi Bassett. You know, that Australian Hummingbird lady."

"She must be good," I said, ”I really like Tracey Emin."

"Apparently" said Elsie "Her work Why 'CFS' is a wastebasket diagnosis, is regarded as a modern classic."

WRONG WRONG WRONG

I have just submitted a response to the BMJ, as some readers have kindly pointed out that I made a mistake. I could say it was my brainfog, I could say it was an overlook, and I could say I didn't know.

But all that is wrong, my brain had just shredded the other Australian guidelines as prehistoric and outdated.

There is however no excuse for an AUSSIE NOT TO KNOW that it should have been the SOUTH Australian Guidelines. Silly ME. So anybody who has pointed out my error, many thanks.

My rapid response to the BMJ was:

SORRY South Australia:

Can I please rectify my comments. And Dr Morris, the psychiatrist, has asked me to do the same on his behalf, that when we mentioned the Australian guidelines, this should have been the SOUTH Australian Guidelines (2004), these are available at: http://sacfs.asn.au/download/guidelines.pdf
Sorry about the mistake.

Dr Speedy.

Competing interests: Bedbound GP with ME

PS: CARTOON by Hans-Michael Sobetzko, see:
http://niceguidelines.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-scientific-base-for-cbt-in-me.html