long battle between people who believe ME-CFS to be a psychiatric or
behavorial disorder, commonly known as the 'Wessely School' or
psychiatric lobby, and those who believe it to be an organic
biomedical disorder.
This battle has actually extended to UK patient charities, with two
charities in particular, AfME and AYME, being widely considered to be
colluding with the 'psychiatric lobby' in an attempt to portray ME-CFS
as a behavorial disorder to the detriment of thier members.
So it is good news that Dr. Nigel Speight, a patron of AYME, has
publicly resigned as their Patron citing exactly this as his reason in
the letter below.
I believe he has now become a Medical Advisor to the 25% M.E. Group,
if you want to send an email of thanks here is the email addy-
enquiry@25megroup.org
Thank you, Dr. Speight.
***************************
Dear all
I just thought I should inform you officially that after a long and
happy association with AYME I have decided to resign as their
Patron.Without going into too much detail I would say that over the
last couple of years I have become aware that they have changed their
position on several areas and that our views have accordingly
diverged. In particular AYME seem to have become more willing to
collaborate with the medical and psychiatric establishment in order to
appear
respectable. This appears to have been the cause of AYME's relative
enthusiasm for the NICE Guidelines, which most of us feel involve an
overemphasis on CBT and GET. This compromise seems to have helped the
psychiatrists to get a new lease of life.
The result of all this is that AYME appear to have alienated
themselves from most of the other ME charities (with the exception of
AfME who appear to be taking a similar position). In this controversy
I feel more in sympathy with the rest of you. I have gained the
impression that AYME no longer appreciate my opinions and prefer my
status as their figurehead to be a largely silent one. It is a
combination of all these factors that has caused me to resign and I am
sure you will all understand.
With Best Wishes
Nigel Speight
---------------------------------------------
Send posts to CO-CURE@listserv.nodak.edu
Unsubscribe at http://www.co-cure.org/unsub.htm
Too much mail? Try a digest version. See http://www.co-cure.org/digest.htm
---------------------------------------------
Co-Cure's purpose is to provide information from across the spectrum of
opinion concerning medical, research and political aspects of ME/CFS and/or
FMS. We take no position on the validity of any specific scientific or
political opinion expressed in Co-Cure posts, and we urge readers to
research the various opinions available before assuming any one
interpretation is definitive. The Co-Cure website <www.co-cure.org> has a
link to our complete archive of posts as well as articles of central
importance to the issues of our community.
---------------------------------------------
