United Kingdom News
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10,000 signatures for more research funding in the UK!
Calling all British M.E. sufferers & allies, Inspired by our American friends and the progress that has been made over in the States with government funding and new research projects, we think it’s time for patients to put the pressure on the UK parliament. We are asking for an increase in budget to fund bio-medical research as well as the formation of a work group to represent the issues facing our community in government.
“Vexatious”: King’s College London dismisses James Coyne’s request for PLOS One PACE data
Professor James Coyne’s request for the dataset used for a paper about the PACE trial in the journal PLOS ONE was rejected on Friday as “vexatious”. King’s College London (KCL), acting for the PACE authors, wrote to Professor Coyne that they considered that there was “a lack of value or serious purpose to [his] request”,
Charles Shepherd: It's time for doctors to apologise to ME patients
James Coyne to PLOS One: Don’t let PACE make a mockery of data sharing
Professor James Coyne yesterday posted online his letter to PLOS One complaining about the PACE authors’ failure to provide him with data from a paper published in the journal. Coyne’s letter was premature because he had been misinformed that he would receive a response within 20 days rather than 20 working days. However, it indicated
Debunking the myth of the militant minority
In the British media, ME activists who have opposed cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) are often been portrayed as an unreasonable, militant “minority.” Members of the #MEAction Science and Treatment Policy and Media Working Groups have drafted this fact sheet to explain the real reasons why ME patients are opposed to CBT and
Scientists demand independent analysis of PACE trial
Virology Blog today published an open letter from six leading scientists calling on The Lancet to seek an independent re-analysis of data from the controversial PACE trial. The Lancet published the first PACE trial paper in 2011, which examined psychological and exercise therapies aimed at getting chronic fatigue syndrome patients more active and was based
James Coyne tells PACE authors: Stop fighting data release
Professor James Coyne today publicly urged the PACE trial authors and Queen Mary University of London to stop fighting the release of raw data from the study. He used his popular blog in a powerful call to those responsible for withholding the information from the £5 million, taxpayer-funded trial to “let the People’s data go”.
Share this film and join the petition to reform the NICE guidelines
On Friday, 30th October, Change For M.E. Change For Us launched their short film, The Last Great Medical Cover Up. The film details the extent of medical discrimination and neglect people living with M.E. are being subjected to every day. The 35 minute documentary features 6 individuals expressing what it’s really like to have a
Government orders release of PACE trial data
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ordered Queen Mary University of London to release anonymized PACE trial data to an unnamed complainant. Queen Mary has 28 days to appeal the decision. The report outlines the scope of the data requested, Queen Mary’s arguments for refusing to release the data and the Commissioner’s justification for siding with the patient requesting the
#MEAction Google Hangout: UK
This is the second of our new series of periodic calls for #MEAction co-founders Jen Brea and Beth Mazur to meet other activists “face to face.” It’s an opportunity to ask big picture questions about the platform, brainstorm strategy, and offer suggestions for future directions. We’d love this call to especially focus on connecting with activists
Prof. Jonathan Edwards: PACE trial is "valueless"
OPINION PACE is valueless for one reason: the combination of lack of blinding of treatments and choice of subjective primary endpoint. Neither of these alone need be a fatal design flaw but the combination is. The only possible mitigation of this flaw would be if: 1. There were no acceptable alternatives to a subjective primary
Misleading PACE claims should be retracted
Given the weak and flawed methodologies of the PACE trial, which claims that CBT and GET led to the recovery of ME/CFS patients, we, the undersigned patients, doctors, scientists, parents, children, family, friends, caretakers and #MEAllies: – call upon The Lancet to retract the claim made in its February 2011 editorial [1] that 30% of