"My New Year’s resolution for 2012 was to become disabled," snorts the less than credible Mr Rod Liddle in today's Sun "newspaper", as we still generously call it, even after all these years.
Many have been hurt, enraged and angry by the ignorant bandwagon-jumping of the notoriously obnoxious hack. Some have counselled "ignore him he'll go away" tactics. Those of us who walk the sickening tightrope of life with neurological M.E. sadly have learnt this kind of attack won't just evaporate. The constant background drip of anti-M.E. jibes, the jokes from the writers of Benidorm and Ricky Gervais, the biopsychosocial psychobabble of such as Wessely, Freud et al, will not go away.
Tolerating in silence may make me feel adjusted, meek and mild. That's OK for myself, as it's my choice. But on behalf of everyone else who is affected by this disability denying counter-narrative, as a Christian, a writer, a compassionate human being, a citizen of a world where disability is a reality but equality and justice are not, I felt I had to say my piece and not let such unbridled ignorance and malevolence go unchallenged.
This is what I wrote as my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. A bit more M.E. awareness never does any harm, if it's the right kind, so here it is:
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Please add the clause(s) you believe to have been breached:
Clause 1. Accuracy i) ii) & iii)
Clause 12. Discrimination i)
Liddle's wholly inaccurate, offensive targeting of neurological M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) in this article breaches the Code by inciting disability hate crime and discriminating against a large group of extremely ill patients. Factual journalism is nowhere to be found in his dismissal of M.E. as "nothing too serious" and "one of those newly invented illnesses which make you a bit peaky for decades". Patients have died from M.E. It has been recorded as a cause of death on death certificates e.g. Sophia Mirza.
Had Liddle done the modicum of basic research and not merely been in a ferocious rush to promulgate his vitriolic misinformation aimed at those too ill to retaliate, he might have avoided bringing disgrace on his profession and inciting unwarranted contempt on patients struggling with this lifelong chronic disease (known to be more disabling in its effects at times than AIDS, MS & liver failure).
M.E. has been recognised and classified by the W.H.O. since 1969 and known by other names, in isolation and in large outbreaks for much longer. It is in no way “newly invented”, let alone “fashionable”. Neurological M.E. is so severe and life-changing in its devastation, that not even the most intelligent actor could "pretend" to mimic its measurable effects, including neurological and mitochondrial chemical changes in the body. It might be possible for a scrounger, such as Liddle purports to covet becoming, to feign the vague fatigue symptoms experienced for a few months by some who only experience a limited period of "chronic fatigue," but these people do not have neurological, multi-systemic M.E.
M.E. cannot be reliably diagnosed until a quantifiable, indisputable array of severe symptoms, observable in all systems of the body (of which crushing, toxic fatigue is but a part) has been present for at least 6 months. It is usually, often in a pattern of remitting-relapsing fluctuating severity, frequently bedbound and housebound and limited even on the so-called “better” days, a life sentence for those unfortunate to be so afflicted. After all the medical scrutiny, tests and investigations patients go through, there is no way that those with neurological M.E. could be found "faking" as Liddle, in his onslaught of vituperative, carelessly penned bile so mistakenly fantasises.
As for talking about "tax payers" as if they were a breed apart from disabled M.E. Patients, Liddle should do some real journalistic work and discover that the majority of adult neurological M.E. sufferers have been forced, by the severity of their condition, reluctantly to retire or leave well paid jobs and professions of every kind where they paid tax and often continue to do so as the condition takes its devastating toll on them, their families and carers.
Benefits are not chosen as some comfortable "lifestyle choice" but as a lifeline that is far from luxury when compared to the pay, lifestyle, opportunities and hopes they had before being struck down by this merciless disease in the midst of thriving careers. Other M.E. patients are children and young people with not the slightest incentive to see friends, sporty pursuits, carefree days, partying, adventures and dreams head over the diminishing horizon just so they can look forward to a life of excruciating pain, crippling exhaustion and an existence diminished by being forced to rely on "benefits".
More could, and no doubt will be eloquently said by many others about this outrageously substandard piece of gutter press, as Liddle has on this occasion broken the Code of Practice in lamentable, deliberate ways that few responsible citizens would feel it reasonable to ignore or condone.
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Now I'm going to lie down and recover my equilibrium and "spoons" again.
If I'm going to be even half strong and able enough to attend my WRAG interview next week, I pray I won't be pressed to volunteer for any job half as "pretend" as the one Mr Liddle seems to have carved out for himself in the name of being a journalist.
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