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Message from Jane
15 December 2011
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STUDY FOLLOWS DOWSETT AND COLBY
and your Tymes Tidings is on the way
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You'll probably have seen publicity for a new study done in schools
around Bath, suggesting that many pupils who are often absent from
school may have undiagnosed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. CFS is, of course,
not identical to classic ME, though ME cases are trapped under its
umbrella. Definitions are always a bone of contention when people invent
a syndrome and argue about how to define the syndrome they have invented.
On the Trust's website is a commentary by Dr Elizabeth Dowsett on our
research paper as published in the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
in 1997. It has an introduction by myself as co-author. Also included is
the abstract and introduction of the original paper.
Dr Dowsett and I studied a school roll of 27,327 staff and 333,024
pupils and discovered that CFS/ME is the biggest cause of long term
sickness absence from school. The Guardian front page leader headline on
22nd May 1997 ran: 'Schools swept by ME plague'.
Our study is still the largest epidemiological study of ME available to
date: http://www.tymestrust.org/pdfs/dowsettcolby.pdf
What goes round comes round. From denying that ME even existed in
children, as the medical establishment generally did in the 1990s, it is
now apparently proposed that 'chronic fatigue' lurks under a huge
proportion of school desks. But chronic fatigue is just a symptom. It is
not very typical of ME, which is more about fatiguability than fatigue,
with symptoms of viral illness and a delayed reaction to effort. We
consider it unwise to advise schools to refer their pupils direct to a
specialist CFS service, as reported in The Guardian on 13th December.
The majority of CFS clinics that we know of have no doctor. Fatigue can
be a symptom of many conditions including cancer and heart defects, and
it needs to be investigated by a doctor, however unwilling some may be
to diagnose CFS or ME. It can be tragic indeed when something else is
missed.
Moreover, to claim such success for CBT and GET illustrates the problem
of definition. This is why we published our poster ME IS JUST FATIGUE,
RIGHT? WRONG. See the poster at www.tymestrust.org.
TYMES TIDINGS
Your Christmas mailing is on the way! Royal Mail collected a huge batch
today. It includes new information about education. I won't say more now
- but I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the children's
colourings and answers to our competitions.
All good wishes,
Jane
Jane Colby FRSA
Executive Director
The Young ME Sufferers Trust
PO Box 4347, Stock, Essex, CM4 9TE
www.tymestrust.org
Tel: 0845 003 9002
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seeking our permission provided: 1) you do not abbreviate, add
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is retained; and 3) www.tymestrust.org is credited as the source.
Jane Colby is Executive Director of The Young ME Sufferers Trust.
She was a Headteacher for nine years, a member of the government
Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on CFS/ME and co-authored
ME/CFS In UK Schools, the largest epidemiological study of ME to
date. She is a life member of the National Association of Head Teachers
and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Copyright (c) 2011 The Young ME Sufferers Trust
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