Dangerously Diminishing

A response to the RCPCH Evidence Based Guidelines for the Management of CFS/ME - Extract

By Greg & Linda Crowhurst, April 28 2005

25% ME GROUP

 

(The whole article can be viewed at the following link:   RCPCH Response 

 

Like every other Royal College medical report on ME/CFS this alarming document simply recycles the bloodcurdling drug/insurance company/psychiatric lobby-fuelled orthodoxy, that still passes for medical consensus on ME in this country.

 

Apart from excluding ME as a physical illness, the problem with this report is twofold :

 

· Its starting point is back-to-front. It endorses as front-line rehabilitative, behavioural approach rather than physical treatment. What other illness of a physical nature has to endure psychiatric labels that deny their physical reality? Psychiatrists and psychologists may be of help for some, but not as a first-line treatment response.

 

· It is far too simplistic. It simply denies the complex interaction of multiple physical and neurological symptoms, in favour of a much too ambitious behavioural programme.

 

In considering this Report’s recommendations one must continually ask oneself where are its underlying assumptions and beliefs? In not acknowledging the severe disability and illness, it has missed the starting point – and all that follows in skewed.