Kick their asses, Prof Hooper!

Fabulous, fabulous Professor Hooper.

The Wessely construct has to crumble, are we maybe getting there?!

When I think of the jibes, the disrespect we have all had to face over the years. This letter should be on the desk of every single medic who has doubted ME is not a physical illness. Prof. H says it so cleverly and succinctly.

(My anger below is not towards the non-believers, they deserve HUGE, unmeasured anger, bucketfuls of unrepentant anger.)

The Great Pretenders

There is so much pretending with this illness. Not pretending that we are ill, but pretending that we are not ill.

Pretending you feel okay when you don't.

Try telling that to NICE. For those who don't know, NICE stands for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Its guidelines for the diagnosis and management of ME - published in August 2007 - have received more complaints than any other.

As I blogged a few weeks ago, these guidelines will be reviewed at the High Court in London on 12/13 Feb.

In drawing up the guidelines, NICE unconscionably dismissed the 4000 papers written on the biomedical/multi-systemic nature of the illness, preferring to listen to their own 'experts', including a reflexologist/hypnotherapist, a dietician, and a physiotherapist who also practices Human Givens therapy (Jesus wept) .

They make me so angry, these dangerous people. Who the hell do they think they are?

Lies, lies and more lies

I am worn out with rage and a sense of hopelessness, reading about Gaza. The cemeteries are full, Palestinians are having to open up pre-existing graves to bury their dead (this clip is grim). And when you learn of a centre for orphans and handicapped children being bombed, you just kind of collapse inside.

But children of Gaza are somewhere still playing in a courtyard, the children are still playing.

Mark Regev, whom I watched in disbelief last week, sleekitly trying to defend the bombing of a UN building which was sheltering refugees, looks just a wee bit sheepish in this clip - the Israeli position all along has been that Hamas broke the ceasefire - Hamas say they didn't (not that they are guardians of truth, that is not what I am saying) - but he knows he's been rumbled and admits that they did not fire rockets during the ceasefire.

Oh and two of the Arab parties have been banned from standing in the forthcoming election. And are foreign journalists ever going to be allowed in to Gaza to report during this crisis?

Israel, your sense of 'democracy' is fucking shameful.

* the first clip I link to has acquired a 'pre-view' commercial for McCain's oven chips since I first posted - this is enraging, and feels slightly offensive.

Judicial Review of NICE guidelines for ME/CFS

I'm just catching up on news in the ME world. The NICE guidelines for ME/CFS - or CFS/ME as they call it - they are gangsters! - are the subject of Judicial Review on 11/12 February at the High Court in London. The skulduggery behind the way these guidelines were drawn up is breathtaking.

Mango

I switched on Channel 4 news last night mid-way through a report about alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British troops. A soldier had given evidence about a colleague he'd witnessed lifting up an elderly Iraqi man by his eye sockets. Immediately, I switched off the television. We are so used to hearing these horrors, but still there are details that are too much, details you can't bear. I had my head in my hands, I felt sick, I couldn't even cry. I lay on the couch, but could not get the image from my head. Later, I had a mango, it was messy to eat and comforting. Then I watched Question Time, and I wanted them all - even the ones I agreed with - to shut up and quit babbling. None of them can help that old man. None of them.

Too Much to Bear

BBC 2 tonight: first there was the live coverage of the baby seal, covered in blood and dragging itself along the beach. I don't know what was wrong with it, I missed the beginning. I fear it will not last the night. Then there was 'The Tea Boy of Gaza', focusing on the lives of those who work in Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The doctors and nurses (like all government workers) have not been paid for 6 months since Hamas got in and the west cut off funding. One orthopaedic nurse drives taxis after his shifts, he has seven children to support. He still managed to joke about things and shrugged off the situation, saying, Life in Gaza is strange. The Shifa medics not only have to patch up the hideously injured, they have to contend with the armed visitors who swarm in the corridors, guarding the injured. Fights often break out between factions of Hamas and Fatah. In one scene, two warring families shot each other in the car park, doctors had to abandon the ER, and the hospital director was hiding in his office, crouched on the floor. Weaving in and out of the chaos, 12 year old tea boy, Mahmoud, can always be found. He supports his six brothers and sisters by selling tea to the staff and patients. He boasted about his 'regulars' and how he can often sell out in the maternity ward. He said he likes to watch the drama of shootings and he has lifted up the body parts of martyrs, though he was so scared afterwards his mum had to take him to a faith healer. He is peeved that it's harder to get into the hospital now because of increased security. But no matter how grim things get, he can be seen with his kettle, running here and there to sell tea.

Actors Unable to Act

I felt so sad reading today about actors in Baghdad who can no longer act because people are too scared to venture out to the theatre. No audience means no plays. The ten theatres in Baghdad are now all closed. The cinemas are all gone. People are too afraid to go out to restaurants. Television has soared in popularity. The lack of physical safety in daily life is obviously terrifying, but so is this 'death' of culture.

Olives & a Guardian Article

I have often thought that Kalamata olives taste like hospitals.

This is an excellent article on the Middle East.

Fishermen Who Are Not Allowed To Fish

The fishermen in Gaza have not been allowed to fish since late June, and even when they are allowed to fish, they have to stay within a six mile radius and are shot at by Israeli gunboats if they try to go further.

No matter that the Oslo Accords agreed that the Gazan fishermen could fish out to twenty nautical miles.

Around 35 000 people in Gaza depend on the fishing industry for their survival. Imagine how it feels not being allowed to fish on your own fucking coastline.

More Bombs & an Abandoned Horse

I watched the news tonight, stony-faced and uncomprehending, children losing limbs, chaos and terror where the bombs have fallen. And when they showed an image of an abandoned horse, tethered and alone in the desolation, stupidly, I started to cry.

412 now dead in Lebanon. 48 in Israel.

The talks in Rome have, of course, failed. What is the point of sending Condoleezza Rice anywhere?

And why did the IDF bomb a UN compound? Kofi Annan claimed it was deliberate, but Ehud Olmert has expressed his 'deep regrets'. Oh, well, that makes it okay then.

But what really had me seething was that last weekend, the USA sent 'bunker-busting bombs' to Israel and refuelled at Prestwick airport. Prestwick airport is on the west coast of Scotland. You associate it with cheap flights to Pisa, not fucking bombs being sent to Israel. How dare they send their vile cargo via Scotland! Our mealy-mouthed foreign minister is at least making a formal complaint to the US that Britain wasn't consulted, but she seems more concerned by the fact that official procedures for 'hazardous cargo' weren't followed rather than by the principle.

. . . and here are those splendid bunker-busting bombs!

Today (3)

A year ago today innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot seven times in the head by British police at Stockwell tube station. They mistook him for a suicide bomber. No officer has been held accountable. There is going to be further enquiry.

Zahid Mubarek

The news is always distressing, but this is what depressed me most last week: the lack of accountability of those who were 'involved' in the murder of Zahid Mubarek in March 2000. The 19 year old Asian man, serving a 90 day sentence, was beaten to death with a table leg by his racist cellmate Robert Stewart the day he (Zahid) was due to be released. Robert Stewart was known to be racist and to have a severe personality disorder. The report into Zahid's death concluded that Stewart was too dangerous to be sharing a cell. After the discovery of Zahid's bludgeoned body, Stewart was moved to another cell where he carved a swastika with the heel of his boot. Two of the prison officials have been promoted since the murder.