This letter was submitted by Professor Hooper to the Observer, in
response to the article by Robin McKie "Chronic fatigue syndrome
researchers face death threats from militants", published on Sunday
the 21st of August 2011,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-myal=
gic-encephalomyelitis/print
Professor Hooper was contacted out of the blue by the reader's editor
of the Observer. They spoke at length on the telephone and the editor
asked Professor Hooper to respond to Robin McKie's article.
The editor indicated that the responses to the article were building
up into a feature length article for the Magazine section and
Professor Hooper agreed to submit a longer article as well as a
letter.
He received an acknowledgement from the reader's editor saying it was
there intention to use the letter but the following day he received a
further email from the same person to say it would not be published.
From Malcolm Hooper Ph.D.,B.Pharm.,C.Chem.,MRIC
Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry
University of Sunderland, SUNDERLAND SR2 3SD
Chief Scientific Adviser to the Gulf Veterans' Association
President: the National Gulf War Veterans and Families Association,
NGVFA, (2002)
25 August 2011
Dear Sir
No right-minded person condones any campaign of vilification against
psychiatrists but equally, no right-minded person can condone what
psychiatrists like Wessely have done to the UK ME community over the
last 25 years.
It is indefensible to liken people with ME to the Animal Liberation
Front; this is an attack on the whole ME community, not only the few
people who have behaved irrationally.
ME has been in the medical literature for the last 70 years and
classified by the WHO as a neurological disorder since 1969.
The recent International Consensus Criteria for ME produced by 26
world experts from 13 countries shows ME to be a complex, chronic
illness of which post-exertional malaise (inability to recover after
exercise) is the cardinal feature. This makes exercise dangerous and
sometimes fatal. There are multiple symptoms and multiple clinical
signs showing dysfunction and dysregulation of all the major organs
and systems of the body.
No NHS clinician has the autonomy to regard ME as a somatoform
disorder. The Department of Health has confirmed in writing that:
=93ICD-10 is an NHS Information Standard=85..There is a legal obligation
for Department of Health to provide ICD data to the WHO for
international comparison. The NHS was mandated to implement ICD-10 on
1 April 1995, at which time there was a formal consultation=85.
Implementation=85applies to NHS organisations and their system
suppliers, such as acute and foundation trusts, primary care trusts,
and the NHS Information Centre=94. The Wessely School psychiatrists,
many GPs and NHS neurologists are in breach of this mandate.
For Wessely School psychiatrists to continually ignore the scientific
evidence is wilful ignorance but to advise the DWP decision-makers and
train ATOS examiners that ME is a mental disorder is deceitful and
abusive; to section patients with ME and remove them from their
distraught families is abusive; to make sick people worse by
inappropriate interventions is abusive; to deny them financial support
necessary to survive is abusive; to mock them and to misinform others
about their serious disorder is abusive; to insist that they suffer
from wrong thinking and a fear of activity when they suffer from a
very serious medical disorder with reproducible multiple systemic
abnormalities is abusive.
These psychiatrists, who have direct and lucrative links with the
Insurance industry, have been reported to Parliament. The industry
stands to lose =A3 millions if it has to pay out for a severe life-long
physical illness whereas psychiatric (functional, somatoform)
conditions are usually excluded and lower benefits paid by the DWP.
The true ME story has yet to be told.
Malcolm Hooper
Permission to repost.
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