M.E. in the media: the aftershocks continue

All the news that's unfit to print?

Earthquakes always have aftershocks, don't they? Just read this in 'The Times Higher Educational Supplement' online.

Just when we were starting to think that maybe, just maybe, certain muck-spreaders and mischief-mongers (oh no, could that be counted as a death threat?) had done their worst, the Times Higher Ed decides to recycle the recent press feeding frenzy and now to concertina all the accusations into one punchy paragraph.

I haven't the strength left to be surprised or disappointed (does that make me mentally unbalanced, I wonder?) It's the same old, same old, compressed into a handy pill-sized gobbet of "news" summary that makes it look like irrefutable fact.

Surely these unnamed hordes of M.E. suffering extremists must have a hell of a lot more energy than you or I to terrorise the poor ickle psychs like this?

I quote, peeping through my fingers:

• Scientists researching chronic fatigue syndrome - also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME - are being targeted by activists who are now as dangerous as animal rights extremists, it has been claimed. The militants, who object to any suggestion that the illness has psychological causes, have turned up at lectures with knives, punched scientists in the street and issued death threats, it was reported on 21 August. They are also said to have bombarded researchers with Freedom of Information requests, made countless complaints to university ethics committees, and falsely alleged that scientists pursuing work in the subject are in the pay of drug and insurance companies. Myra McClure, head of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, told The Observer: "I published a study which these extremists did not like and was subjected to a staggering volley of horrible abuse. One man wrote he was having pleasure imagining that he was watching me drown. He sent that every day for months."

www.timeshighereducation.co.uk


Sadly, this is neither higher, nor educational.

Hopefully not to the psychiatric school beginning with "W"!

N.B. There was also a cartoon to go with the Times Higher Ed article, but this was later withdrawn. Hopefully they will not later claim this was because they received death threats!
If your health and blood pressure are up to it, the said cartoon can be seen here. Thanks to Dr Speedy at Niceguidelines blogspot for preserving a link to it for the sake of truth!



Many thanks for the 'heads up' about the THES article from @Velogubbed on Twitter. Her own wonderful M.E. and writing related blog can be enjoyed here:


http://velo-gubbed-legs.blogspot.com/

If you haven't read her fantastic book about her life with M.E. yet, please do yourself a favour and put that right: 'The State of Me' by Nasim Marie Jafry is available on Amazon and good bookshops.