Post by Fae kitty on May 24, 2010 13:47:07 GMT 10
From timesofmalta.com
Sunday, 23rd May 2010
Biomedical research should seek better understanding, treatment of ME sufferers
Dr John Greensmith, ME Free For All.org, Downend, Bristol, UK
Rebecca Sultana of ME Sufferers Malta (The Sunday Times, May 9) is quite right to focus attention on the priority for biomedical research to gain a better understanding of ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). Such research may suggest appropriate treatment towards recovery, hopefully a cure, for this dreadfully disabling illness which keeps millions of people around the world, invisible and isolated.
There is, already, incontrovertible post-mortem evidence of inflammation of the spinal cord of people, who have died after having ME, like Lynn Gilderdale, Sophia Mirza and Annabel Senior, whom we mourn in the UK, and many others around the world. We need to discover which biological markers people living with ME have in common and which make it a discrete neurological illness, apart from the indiscriminate Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which contains a number of heterogeneous conditions with a variety of physical and psychiatric origins.
It is scandalously neglectful and irresponsible to be pouring all our research money into the management techniques of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Graded Exercise Therapy (GET), as though ME is a somatoform illness - as the American Psychiatric Association is trying to reclassify it in the next edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) - when all research evidence to date shows that CBT is ineffective for ME sufferers and GET is potentially harmful.
We will not find if we do not look and we are not funding anyone to look.
In the meantime, ME Sufferers Malta is among the best in the world, especially in proportion to its size and resources, at offering support to its fellow sufferers and has earned due respect and affection among the ME community worldwide.
click for original article
Sunday, 23rd May 2010
Biomedical research should seek better understanding, treatment of ME sufferers
Dr John Greensmith, ME Free For All.org, Downend, Bristol, UK
Rebecca Sultana of ME Sufferers Malta (The Sunday Times, May 9) is quite right to focus attention on the priority for biomedical research to gain a better understanding of ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). Such research may suggest appropriate treatment towards recovery, hopefully a cure, for this dreadfully disabling illness which keeps millions of people around the world, invisible and isolated.
There is, already, incontrovertible post-mortem evidence of inflammation of the spinal cord of people, who have died after having ME, like Lynn Gilderdale, Sophia Mirza and Annabel Senior, whom we mourn in the UK, and many others around the world. We need to discover which biological markers people living with ME have in common and which make it a discrete neurological illness, apart from the indiscriminate Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which contains a number of heterogeneous conditions with a variety of physical and psychiatric origins.
It is scandalously neglectful and irresponsible to be pouring all our research money into the management techniques of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Graded Exercise Therapy (GET), as though ME is a somatoform illness - as the American Psychiatric Association is trying to reclassify it in the next edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) - when all research evidence to date shows that CBT is ineffective for ME sufferers and GET is potentially harmful.
We will not find if we do not look and we are not funding anyone to look.
In the meantime, ME Sufferers Malta is among the best in the world, especially in proportion to its size and resources, at offering support to its fellow sufferers and has earned due respect and affection among the ME community worldwide.
click for original article