WARNING - ME, Mental Health & More......

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WARNING - ME, Mental Health & More......

Mon, 30 May 2005 10:51:23 +0100

 

 

 

WARNING:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit on Mental Health

Marshall

 

Margaret Williams

26th May 2005

 

 

On 24th May 2005 Tom Kindlon posted an item on Co-Cure from “spiked

Online: Workers behaving sadly†by David Wainwright. That article

ought to ring deafening warning bells

throughout the ME community, as it sets out the planned implementation

of the chilling policy about which previous warnings have been given:

see for example “The Strasbourg

Convention on Biomedicine and the Reform of the UK Mental Health

Act†(http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/strasbourg.html)

and “The Mental Health Movement: Persecution of Patients? (75 page

document available at

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/SELECT_CTTEE_FINAL_VERSION.htm),

to name just two of many attempts to draw public attention to the

proposals to give far greater powers to psychiatrists to enforce

compulsory psychiatric treatment upon both adults and children.

 

Put simply, people need to be aware of the relentless march of the

Mental Health movement, because those proposals included

provision for psychiatrists to be able to drug people, including

children against the wishes of their parents, if they have “any

disability of the mind or brain, whether permanent or temporary,

which results in impairment of mental functioning†(“Mind control

drug threat for childrenâ€. Anthony Browne, Health Editor, The

Observer, 27th February 2000).

 

Currently, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a classified disorder of

the brain, so could it fall into that category? It almost certainly

will if, as anticipated, ME becomes subsumed into the

heterogeneous label “CFS/ME†and becomes reclassified in the next

revision of the International Classification of Diseases

(ICD-11) as a “Functional Somatic Syndrome†as psychiatrists of

the “Wessely School†intend.

 

As noted in “Time for a Reality Check at the UK Department of

Health?†(see Co-Cure, 3rd April 2004), ME was recognised as an

organic disorder on 27th November 1987 and this was

documented in Hansard. On 15th March 1992, the Parliamentary Under

Secretary of State for Health (Stephen Dorrell) confirmed in writing

that (quote) “a physical cause for ME is recognisedâ€, a

confirmation that Mr Dorrell repeated on 16th August 1992 when he

addressed a meeting of the Leicestershire ME Group at which, in his

official capacity as a

Minister of Her Majesty’s Government, he asserted that “ME is

established as a medical conditionâ€.

 

Seemingly official confirmation now counts for nothing, because in

today’s climate of dictatorship in place of democracy, people

with what are said to be mental illnesses must, as Wainwright says,

“surrender a degree of sovereignty over (their) mental lifeâ€.

Why this should be required only of those with ME and not of those

with multiple sclerosis or other neurological disorders is not explained.

 

To quote Wainwright:

 

“The UK is mobilising an army of psychotherapists to get people off

Incapacity Benefit. The therapeutic apparatus of the British

state is poised to undergo a rapid and far-reaching expansion. At a

recent meeting of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the

following were proposed: five thousand extra psychotherapists to be

trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy; a doubling of the

number of psychiatrists, and all new GPs to receive training in

psychiatry focusing on treatment of depression and anxiety in the

communityâ€.

 

(The recent promise by the British Government to create 7,500 new

consultant psychiatrist posts is already on record -- see the

blueleaf.net website of European Doctors: Psychiatry in the

National Health Service: www.europeandoctors.co.uk ).

It seems that people who were previously accepted as being physically

sick but who are now deemed to be “mentally†sick are not to be

tolerated because they are draining the country by being on Incapacity

Benefit when, with a bit of brain-washing, they could return to work:

those who are likely to be especially

targeted are those who suffer from “the creation of ‘diseases’

like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia for which no evidence

of physical pathology can be foundâ€.

 

It remains beyond comprehension how any “Strategy Unitâ€,

especially one at Prime Ministerial level, feels able to ignore the

published evidence about the organic basis of ME/ICD-CFS that has been

repeatedly put before the Prime Minister, Ministers of

State, the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Executive Officer of the

Medical Research Council and the Lord Chief Justice, to

name but a few to whom convincing evidence has been sent. That

evidence includes proof of an organic pathoaetiology

causing disruption of virtually all the major systems of the body,

most notably the neurological, immunological, cardiovascular,

respiratory, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal systems, yet the

State officials (and the psychiatrists who advise them) who

determine what is or is not a “mental health†disorder seem

determined to lump together all states of so-called medically

unexplained “chronic fatigue†without differentiation and to

impose the same management regime of graded exercise upon one and all.

 

Patronising promises that this regime will be “gentle†and will

let the patient set the pace and that they can withdraw at any time

are only for the gullible, because if patients do withdraw, they will

automatically lose their right to state benefit and there is already

evidence that in an existing clinic, CBT is being used to convince

patients that their pain, insomnia, gut problems and allergies are

simply somatisation and that these symptoms will resolve once a

correct mode of thinking is achieved. There is

also a worrying obsession with the patients’ sex lives. Patients are

told that using a support group is a retrograde step and are advised

against it, and there is a refusal to refer people to a pain clinic or

to offer any care other than anti-depressants. Is this is just what

the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit hoped for?

 

It could be argued that no competent decision maker (and certainly no

competent clinician) can rationally ignore the pressing need for

sub-grouping as summarised in the document

“Vilified but Vindicated†released on 29th April 2005 by Hooper et

al (available online at

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Vilified_but_Vindicated.htm).

 

It is surely remarkable that it was in 1981 that Professor CS Goodwin

of Perth, Australia, described ME so admirably (see

Lancet 3rd January 1981 pp 37-38):

 

“In 1969, it was suggested that ME should only be diagnosed if

neurological and muscle signs were found (Adamson JR. N Eng J

Med:1969:281:798). Firstly, symptoms and signs in relation to muscles,

such as recurrent episodes of profound weakness and

exhaustion, easy fatiguability, and marked muscle tenderness.

Second, neurological symptoms or signs †" pyramidal or cranial nerve

lesions, especially affecting the eyes; or weakness of the

peripheral muscles, as demonstrated by the voluntary muscle test; or

some loss of peripheral sensation; or involvement of the autonomic

nervous system (orthostatic tachycardia, abnormal coldness of the

extremities, episodes of sweating or pallor, constipation and bladder

disturbances). Thirdly, biochemical

abnormalities such as raised urinary creatine, low serum pyruvate, or

raised serum myoglobin, or an abnormal

electrophoresis pattern with raised IgMâ€.

 

For the record, the Adamson 1969 reference to which Goodwin referred

is unequivocal about ME: “Almost every conceivable neurologic sign

has been described under the heading of (ME).

It is clear that no progress can be made on defining the nature, cause

or method of transmission of this disease until more exact

criteria are set forth for the diagnosisâ€, but this cannot be

achieved without properly focused research that, thirty-six years

later, is being denied in the UK because it does not accord with

Government “policyâ€.

 

How arrogant has medicine become that it now dismisses as irrelevant

such clinical expertise and wisdom? It is to be noted that at the

time, a response to Goodwin was published from May

et al, who argued that epidemics of ME “are more than aggregates of

cases, not least because ‘altered medical perception’ causes a

variety of disorders to be lumped togetherâ€. This concept of the

existence of ME being due only to

‘altered medical perception’ was formulated in 1970 by two

psychiatrists (McEvedy CP, Beard AW: Concept of benign myalgic

encephalomyelitis. BMJ 1970:1:11-15) and has been used not

infrequently by Simon Wessely (for example: The chronic fatigue

syndrome -- myalgic encephalomyelitis or postviral fatigue. Wessely S,

Thomas PK. In: Recent Advances

in Clinical Neurology No 6. Ed: C Kennard; pub: Churchill Livingtsone,

1990: pp 85-132) to support his own belief that “ME

is simply a belief, the belief that one has an illness called MEâ€

(Microbes, Mental illness, the Media and ME: the Construction of

Disease. 9th Eliot Slater Memorial Lecture, 12th May 1994:

see

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/wessely_speech_120594.htm).

 

It may be recalled that it was in the same lecture that Wessely

asserted: “From the time of the Royal Free epidemic in 1955, the

possibility that (ME) represented transmitted emotional

distress was always present†and that ME “will be listed in the

new revision of ICD-10 twice, once under neurology and once

under psychiatryâ€. It took much effort (by people who chose not to

claim the credit that was subsequently claimed by a UK

patient association) before the UK Government was convinced that this

was not permitted under the WHO rubrics.

 

It is indeed true that “altered medical perception†surrounds and

dogs ME, but those who display this altered medical perception

are in reality Wessely School psychiatrists themselves: they perceive

only what they choose to perceive and insist on lumping together all

manifestations of “chronic fatigue†as one

single entity that they claim is a functional somatic syndrome.

 

How is it that these psychiatrists insist on what they call

“evidence-based†medicine for all medical disciplines apart from

their own speciality of psychiatry, a branch of medicine in which

double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are almost impossible to

achieve and in which laboratory markers are notable for their

absence and in which the diagnosis depends for the most part on the

subjective opinions of the psychiatrists themselves?

 

Illogically it is these psychiatrists who, when presented with

evidence of biomarkers that indicate that ME is an organic disorder,

ignore these biomarkers in favour of emphasis and

reliance upon non-organic factors such as “illness beliefs†and

“personality†as “perpetuating factorsâ€.

 

The importance of creatine excretion in the urine of patients is a

case in point. Creatine is a sensitive marker of muscle inflammation

and the knowledge that it is excreted by ME

patients has existed in the literature since at least 1969, yet it

took another thirty-two years for Wessely School psychiatrist Anthony

Cleare to “discover†that patients with “CFS†were

excreting significant levels of creatine in their urine, as well as

other muscle related metabolites (choline and glycine). Cleare

et al concluded that this might well represent ongoing muscle damage

(382. Muscle metabolites detected in urine in

fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome may suggest ongoing muscle

damage. SCM Richards, A Cleare et al. Conference Proceedings of the

British Society of Rheumatologists, Edinburgh, April 2001). Is it not

therefore remarkable that, having themselves demonstrated this organic

abnormality, it is the same psychiatrists who are promoting graded

exercise as a blanket “therapy†for those with evidence

of muscle inflammation?

 

Because of the stated intention of the MRC to use a set of criteria

allegedly known as the “London†criteria, there is much current

discussion about the various versions of the “London†criteria for

ME/ICD-CFS, but it was twenty years ago in 1985 that Dr RW Gorringe

from Cambridge, New Zealand produced

his excellent “Diagnostic Criteria and Tests for MEâ€. These are

descriptive and informative and of immense value, so why have they

been largely ignored? They were available via ANZMES (Australia and

New Zealand ME Society). They list the key concepts of easy

fatiguability, aching muscles, the tendency to a

relapsing course, as well as the plethora of symptoms involving

multiple organ systems, including ones that are rarely mentioned

today but which do still occur in true ME, such as moist chest

alternating with a cough, a tight chest, sore shoulder and neck

muscles, oesophageal reflux, oesophageal spasm,

oesophageal tenderness, chest pain that may be severe enough for

hospital admission, forceful beating of the heart, shaky and tremulous

muscles, jerkiness of limbs, shooting nerve pains, distended abdomen

with pain, blurred vision, retinal inflammation and intermittent nasal

congestion. Dr Gorringe also listed essential laboratory tests

including immunological tests as markers of immune activity.

 

Excellent and accurate though they are, Dr Gorringe’s 1985

Diagnostic Criteria were not included in the Report of the UK

National Task Force (Westcare, 1994) and are not mentioned in the

current “CFS/ME†literature.

 

Yet again, this wealth of valuable information has been disregarded by

“evidence-based medicine†and ME sufferers are relentlessly

bullied into accepting the unproven psychiatric

paradigm. How has medicine reached such an abysmal state in which

patients are dismissed, derided, ridiculed and abused by the very

people charged with helping and supporting them, and when signs such

as liver involvement, hair loss, mouth ulcers, demyelination and

cerebral oedema are either not looked for or

dismissed as “aberrant beliefs†on the part of the patient? How

much longer will it be before Wessely School psychiatrists will be

compelled to accept that the disorder they are studying and

which they patronisingly call “CFS/ME†is not ME? How much more

evidence will these psychiatrists ignore because they are

permitted to continue in their belief (welcomed by Government) that

ME/ICD-CFS is a somatoform disorder?

 

What has happened to our country? Why is evidence dismissed or

ignored? Where has integrity gone? Why are civil servants

protected from accountability? Why has medicine sold out to industry?

What now underpins our once-respected judicial

system, because apparently the concept and practice of justice no

longer does so? Why are people deemed to have no value unless they

are contributing to the commercial prosperity of the

State and its servants? Why is it apparently official policy of the

General Medical Council that it is acceptable for doctors to

deliberately withhold food and water from people regarded as

“bed-blockers†in NHS hospitals in order to hasten their death?

State control seems set to exert an ever-tightening grip to the

point of strangulation on increasingly defenceless human beings.

 

To quote Wainwright again: “Layard estimates that mental illness

costs £25 billion per annum. The cost of expanding mental health

services may be high, but Layard calculates that

every £1,000 spent on treatment will yield a return of £3,000.

Others are also lobbying for expansion. The Sainsbury Centre for

Mental Health has recently published a report that also calls for a

widening of mental health services to see through the ‘unfinished

revolution’ in mental health services begun in 1985

(Beyond the Water Towers: the unfinished revolution in mental health

services 1985-2005)â€.

 

It will be recalled that Lord Sainsbury has made financial donations

in excess of £13.5 million to Prime Minister Blair’s New Labour

Party, for which he was rewarded by being granted

a title and the post of Minister of Science, a position that affords

control of the Medical Research Council. Lord Sainsbury is

currently Minister for Industry and, as noted in “The Mental Health

Movement: Persecution of Patients?â€, is on record as citing that

British universities spun off 199 companies in 2000, up from an annual

average of 67 in the previous five years. The UK’s ratio of

companies to research spending is now more than six times higher than

the US. Lord Sainsbury is quoted as saying: “It’s a

dazzling recordâ€. This involvement of vested commercial interests

with medicine is a cause for concern, as noted by Professor Stephen

Rose of the Open University Biology Department: “The whole climate

of what might be open and

independent scientific research has disappearedâ€.

 

Wainwright says: “There is an assumption that the speed of modern

life has outstripped the human capacity to cope, both mentally and

physically. The question for the government is how to defray the

ballooning rates of Incapacity Benefit claims without derailing

productivity and growth. The New Labour response to

this dilemma is not to stamp on the brakes but to make us better

drivers. That is why Lord Layard’s proposals for a radical

extension of the therapeutic state apparatus have been so

warmly received in Downing Street….the new army of psychotherapists

will use techniques like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (because) CBT

recognises that it is not the speed of

modern life that disables the worker, but his subjective response to

it †" a response that is highly malleableâ€.

 

The key word there would seem to be “malleableâ€: it will be

recalled that in the Chief Medical Officer’s Working Group

Report of January 2002, CBT is described as “a tool for modifying

attitude and behaviourâ€, so are we now entering Huxley’s Brave New

World in which the “rulers†exert mind control?

 

To reduce a complex multi-system organic disorder that is ME to mere

fatigue, aberrant illness beliefs and a defective personality

not only conveniently creates a pool of people who can be

“controlledâ€, but degrades them by removing the idea that they

have any free will.

 

That would seem to be a secondary consideration in the world of Brave

New Labour, the main consideration being the return of a million

Incapacity Benefit claimants to gainful employment: without doubt,

those who are not genuine claimants should be

identified and removed from benefit, but to target those with

ME/ICD-CFS on the basis that they suffer from a mental disorder seems

sinister indeed. Wainwright notes that CBT “might ameliorate

symptoms, but it also gives rise to a new sense of selfhood; one in

which notions of autonomy may be fundamentally diminishedâ€.

 

Does this not constitute infringement of civil liberties and human rights?

 

It seems that for those who must somehow cope with the devastating

neuro-immune illness ME (and the abuse by the ignorant that it still

evokes), the Brave New World has arrived.

 

-

SurpriseShan2

MCS-Canada

Saturday, May 28, 2005 8:19 AM

WARNING -ME, Mental Health & More......

 

Do you know what I think is the saddest thing about this?

That many people in North America still think the world is so big that

what happens on the other side of the ocean could never happen here.

The other thing that astounds & shocks me is that people don't realize

that if they let this happen to those with ME - that the same thing

will happen to MCS, FM, CFS, MS, etc (any and all illnesses with no

cure). ME hasn't been singled out because there is any kind of

evidense causing doubt that it is a biological organic illness - the

scientific evidense is huge that ME is biological. No, in my opinion

- ME has been singled out because so many who have it are so ill they

are unable to work , plus if they can succeed with ME, the other

illnesses which don't have as much concrete evidence of being

biological don't stand a chance. Why don't all the advocates and

patients with these illnesses band together and help each other? I

don't understand that. It is going to be so much easier knocking them

down one by one.

Blessings

Shan

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