Re: Adam's battle to beat ME (The Weekly News, 7 June 2008)

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My response to an article about a teenager with M.E., Adam's battle to beat

ME, The Weekly News, 7 June 2008. Not online, so copy scanned across here *

http://tinyurl.com/57vnzg

*May I urge as many as can manage to respond to at least one of the several

myths & stereotypes in this article, eg: " M.E., a condition more commonly

associated with high-flying adults than 13-year-old schoolboys " and " We were

told ME is caused mostly by psychological problems ... "

This paper is based in Britain but M.E. doesn't mind which countries it

invades so I hope people from outside the UK will respond too.

Please note, the advice to write short letters to get a better chance of

publication especially applies here. Most printed are just 2 or 3 sentences.

Even if they do not choose it, your letter may help others to get in and,

even if they don't want it, we would like to put it on our website with the

others here http://www.mefreeforall.org/2008-Apr-Jun.448.0.html#c3622

The e-mail address is weeklynews@...

or you can write to: Letters Page, The Weekly News, 185 Fleet Street, London

EC4A 2HS

The published date may appear to be ahead of time because it is a weekly

publication. On our website it appears -2 days (Should not trouble fans of

The Twilight Zone, X-Files, or Trekkies).

Cheers

drjohngreensmith@...

*The Weekly News Letters*.

Progress towards a cure for M.E. (*Myalgic Encephalomyelitis*) is being

impeded because some doctors prefer to ascribe this disabling neurological

illness to a psychological cause (*Adam's battle to beat ME, The Weekly

News, 7 June 2008*) for which there is no reliable evidence, rather than

admit they do not, as yet, understand its physiological cause, for which

there is, already, an abundance.

Yet, millions of pounds have gone to provide two management techniques, one

of which, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), has no lasting benefit for

people with M.E. and the other, Graded Exercise Treatment (GET), makes more

people worse. Incredibly, even without statistics to justify establishing

it, let alone continuing and ignoring latest research evidence, as well as

pleas and cautions from M.E. sufferers and researchers, even more millions

are being poured in, while promising biomedical research is starved of

research funds.

This is why so many M.E. sufferers have remained ill, having to cope as best

they can, for decades, praying for a breakthrough.

Yours sincerely

drjohngreensmith@...

Dr H Greensmith

ME Free For All. org