Fighting fiction with fact

Just curious: have any of the PACE scientists or journalists who parroted their misleading results apologised to the world's ME community yet - they must be aware of the international condemnation being expressed? No, I didn't think so. And here's the pornography itself, the full text of the PACE trial, thanks for link to @forcedout99. Early on, these good scientists inform us: Myalgic encephalomyelitis is thought by some researchers to be the same disorder - as chronic fatigue syndrome - and by others as different with separate diagnostic criteria.1,2. (But we're going to perpetuate the confusion anyway and spend £4.2 million and have our results applied to people with neuroimmune ME by NICE and all the powers that be. And we're going to further confuse GPs on how to treat people with ME. And we're going to recommend therapies that are actually dangerous for PWME.)

And to balance out the nonsense, an excellent letter to Paul Burstow MP who failed spectacularly last month to understand the difference between ME and CFS during a parliamentary debate (see how the obfuscation obfuscates, those psychiatrists are clever!). The letter is from two ME sufferers (one of whom is Andrea Pring of the very informative Dancing with the Sandman blog, in my sidebar) and is linked via the unstoppable Dr Speedy whom we all know and love.

Okay, tomorrow is March, spring seems to be here and I don't want to give these PACE people another minute of my energy or time. I've fought them as much as I can. They are wrong. I'd rather think about crocuses, so cheeky and robust, the way they get here in spite of the snow. End of story (I wish).

* As a little ps, Wessely argues that 'ME is a belief' in 1994. The actual treacherous lecture notes and not a mention of Dr Melvin Ramsay when referring to Royal Free.

** Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Disease on PACE trial.

Westminster debate on ME

Here is the parliamentary debate from Feb 2. Ian Swales was a star, Paul Burstow was underwhelming, to say the least. Good commentary on MEA thread. Swales is an example of an MP who has listened, really listened. Burstow, on the other hand, seems not to know which camp his foot is in - biomedical or psychosocial. He made the fatal error of assuring us that 'CFS/ME' is the WHO's chosen label for ME. Dearie, dearie me. He spectacularly missed the whole point and only added to the obfuscation (see G93.3).

I am trying to take a backseat from ME commentary this month, I am so weary - and bored - but this debate needs to be blogged.

A deluded Baroness

I'm over my Pope moment and back to being an 'aggressive secularist'. Still overdosing on Lemsip and menthol pastilles. Still angry - and insulted - at Sayeeda Warsi talking crap on Newsnight, saying that people of faith are more likely to donate to charity and do voluntary work. (I undoubtedly succumbed to a massive relapse of ME as a result of doing voluntary work in London in late 80s, and have volunteered periodically during stages of my illness.) I can make dodgy, spurious claims too, Baroness, and I would like to suggest that people of faith are more likely to be racist, sexist and homophobic. Looking forward to Stephen Hawking on Channel 4 though I am so muffled with cold, it is hard to absorb much.