The true ME Story -Prof Hooper to the Observer

[Guest guest]

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Prof-H-Observer-letter.htm

This letter was submitted by Professor Hooper to

the Observer, in response to the article by Robin

McKie " Chronic fatigue syndrome researchers face

death threats from militants " , published on Sunday

the 21st of August 2011:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-myalgic-e\

ncephalomyelitis/print

Professor Hooper was contacted out of the blue by

the reader's editor of the Observer. They spoke at

length on the telephone and the editor asked

Professor Hooper to respond to Robin McKie's

article.

The editor indicated that the responses to the

article were building up into a feature length article

for the Magazine section and Professor Hooper

agreed to submit a longer article as well as a letter.

He received an acknowledgement from the reader's

editor saying it was there intention to use the letter

but the following day he received a further email

from the same person to say it would not be

published.

````

From Malcolm Hooper

Ph.D.,B.Pharm.,C.Chem.,MRIC

Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry

University of Sunderland, SUNDERLAND SR2 3SD

Chief Scientific Adviser to the Gulf Veterans'

Association

President: the National Gulf War Veterans and

Families Association, NGVFA, (2002)

25 August 2011

Dear Sir

No right-minded person condones any campaign of

vilification against psychiatrists but equally, no

right-minded person can condone what

psychiatrists like Wessely have done to the UK

ME community over the last 25 years.

It is indefensible to liken people with ME to the

Animal Liberation Front; this is an attack on the

whole ME community, not only the few people who

have behaved irrationally.

ME has been in the medical literature for the last 70

years and classified by the WHO as a neurological

disorder since 1969.

The recent International Consensus Criteria for ME

produced by 26 world experts from 13 countries

shows ME to be a complex, chronic illness of

which post-exertional malaise (inability to recover

after exercise) is the cardinal feature.

This makes exercise dangerous and sometimes

fatal. There are multiple symptoms and multiple

clinical signs showing dysfunction and

dysregulation of all the major organs and systems

of the body.

No NHS clinician has the autonomy to regard ME

as a somatoform disorder.

The Department of Health has confirmed in writing

that: “ICD-10 is an NHS Information

Standard…..There is a legal obligation for

Department of Health to provide ICD data to the

WHO for international comparison.

The NHS was mandated to implement ICD-10 on 1

April 1995, at which time there was a formal

consultation…. Implementation…applies to NHS

organisations and their system suppliers, such as

acute and foundation trusts, primary care trusts,

and the NHS Information Centre”.

The Wessely School psychiatrists, many GPs and

NHS neurologists are in breach of this mandate.

For Wessely School psychiatrists to continually

ignore the scientific evidence is willful ignorance

but to advise the DWP decision-makers and train

ATOS examiners that ME is a mental disorder is

deceitful and abusive; to section patients with ME

and remove them from their distraught families is

abusive; to make sick people worse by

inappropriate interventions is abusive; to deny them

financial support necessary to survive is abusive; to

mock them and to misinform others about their

serious disorder is abusive; to insist that they

suffer from wrong thinking and a fear of activity

when they suffer from a very serious medical

disorder with reproducible multiple systemic

abnormalities is abusive.

These psychiatrists, who have direct and lucrative

links with the Insurance industry, have been

reported to Parliament.

The industry stands to lose £ millions if it has to

pay out for a severe life-long physical illness

whereas psychiatric (functional, somatoform)

conditions are usually excluded and lower benefits

paid by the DWP.

The true ME story has yet to be told.

Malcolm Hooper