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>>>> 2 August 2011 <<<<
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MCS America
MCSA NEWS
August 2011, Volume 6, Issue 8
ME/CFS Researchers
Receive Death Threats
Myalgic Encephamyelitis / Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome (ME/CFS) researchers have
reportedly received death threats from people
with ME/CFS for their continued research into
possible psychological causes of ME/CFS.
The psychological research has continued for
years despite the lack of evidenced for a
psychological explanation and ineffectiveness
of psychological interventions.
*People do however have a justifiable
complaint about is that there has been very
little, or almost nil, Governmentfunded
research into the biomedical aspect of this
illness,*
says Dr. Charles Shepherd
*We have a whole spectrum of people there
who have an illness ranging from a physical
illness at one end to a psychiatric cause of
chronic fatigue at the other, and it is rather
like putting everyone who has a chronic
headache, from migraines to brain tumors,
under a chronic headache syndrome saying
that they all have the same cause and the
same treatment.*
ME/CFS patients believe that this downplays
their symptoms and disease. Further, it
prevents research into the actual cause and
potentially helpful treatments for a
devastating disease triggered by infections
that are not yet fully understood.
One researcher, Simon Wessely, has
steadfastly insisted ME/CFS is a form of
neurosis, despite the fact that psychological
treatment continues to show no improvement
in patient outcome.
In fact, many people with ME/ CFS experience
deteriorating health after psychiatric
interventions.
```````````````
Wessely=92s comments are intended
to make the patient with ME/CFS
sound as though they want=92 to be
sick. He uses this to lend to his
unproven theories of neurosis.
```````````````
In the United Kingdom, victims of ME/CFS who
have been forcefully hospitalized in a
psychiatric institution frequently experience
worsening of their condition.
There have also been cases in which the
victim died due to denial of medical care
because their ME/CFS was mistakenly
believed to be psychiatric.
It=92s well accepted that psychiatric disorders
don=92t kill people; however, medical disorders
can and do kill.
Wessely reportedly told BBC's Tom Fielden:
*People seem to prefer to be diagnosed with
like a retro-virus, a potentially incurable,
maybe even fatal illness, rather than an
illness for which we do have some reasonable
but not perfect treatment.
That really attests to the strength of feeling
here =96 I would rather have an incurable virus
than a potentially curable disorder if the cure
was treatment involving any
acknowledgement of the social or
psychological.*
Wessely=92s comments seem intended to make
the patient with ME/CFS sound as though
they =91want=92 to be sick to lend truth to
unproven theories of neurosis.
They fail to explore the fact that people with
any illness want to know the truth about their
condition, irregardless, so they know what
they are facing and can make the best
possible health care decisions.
A psychiatric label may be less scary than an
incurable virus, but such a label is an untruth
that won=92t help the patient to feel better.
In fact, it may be quite depressing when a
patient believes their condition is psychiatric
and is then unresponsive to the therapy.
A patient sick or dying of any incurable
condition ought to have the right to make end
of life decisions for their health and assets,
and the right to say goodbye to their loved
ones.
*The real psychopathology is in denial of the
truth, the ultimate psychotic state of
pretending that a real medical condition can
simply be =91thought=92 all better by changing
ones frame of mind,*
says Lourdes Salvador of MCS America.
In *The real victims of ME are those with the
disease,* David Allaby says of people with
ME/CFS:
*They feel dismayed by the fact that most
government funding into ME concentrates on
research into the psychology and not the
virology of the illness.
They feel dismayed by NICE guidelines and
doctors who persist with programs of
treatment that not only do not work but make
them feel worse.
They feel dismayed by a stigma that still
surrounds the illness, stemming from early
medical ignorance.
They feel dismayed that research into viruses
that consistently precede the onset of ME is
ignored.
Was it only last autumn that scientists at
Dundee University had found abnormalities in
the white blood cells of all children with
ME/CFS in their study? Dundee's Professor Jill
Belch said:
*It's important because some people do
suggest that ME is a disease of the mind and
here we are showing that it is a disease of
the body.*
(July 29, 2011; publicservice.co.uk)
```````````````
*People afflicted by this disease
want nothing more than to get
their life back.*
```````````````
Researchers like Wessely fail to take into
account that people with ME/CFS would be
better off knowing what was causing their
illness so that researchers could focus their
attention on helpful treatments and advances
in medicine.
People afflicted by this disease want nothing
more than to get their life back. To do that,
research needs to focus on what is really
going on at a biological level.
The only apparent benefit of continued
research into psychiatric causes for ME/CFS
lies in the pocketbooks of psychiatrists who
get paid to administer =91care=92 to these patients
for a lifetime of misery with no
improvements.
Any further research into wildly unproven
psychological theories is on thin ice. If only it
was that simple, it would be easily cured!
But, all the happy pills and talk therapy in the
world won=92t kill a poorly understood and
inadequately researched virus
Copyrighted =A9 2011 MCS America
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