Zitate renommierter Experten zu ME/CFS (englisch)

Indeed, 21 years ago Peter Behan, Professor of Neurology at Glasgow, stated that the psychiatric hypothesis: “lacked all scientific merit and now, with the emergence of hard data, can be totally rejected” (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: Postviral Fatigue Syndrome: Diagnostic and Clinical Guidelines for Doctors. The ME Association, 1991).

Expressing his opposition to Wessely’s model of ME/CFS, Dr Harvey Alter, Chief of Clinical Studies and distinguished investigator at the US National Institutes of Health (one of the world’s foremost medical research centres) said in 2010 at an FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee meeting: “I’m absolutely convinced that when you define this disease by proper criteria, this is a very serious and significant medical disease, and not a psychological disease. It has the characteristics of a viral disease”.

Moreover, Professor Luc Montagnier (who in 2008 won the Nobel prize for discovering the AIDS virus), Honorary Member of the European Society for ME, is on record thus: “Scientists have already uncovered a lot about ME, but this information does not reach professional healthcare personnel, and the disease is not taken seriously. It is about time this changes”.

Additionally, Professor Ian Lipkin, Director, Centre for Infection and Immunity, Columbia University, said on the record that patients with ME have a particular pattern of immunoreactivity, indicating a persistent disease process: “Back in the mid to late 1990s…I looked at these Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients, many of them coming out of a clinic that was run in the Karolinska, which at that point was one of the best clinics for CFS in the world…..I said these patients are clearly sick in some way. They have some kind of immunological activation…I am convinced, after working in this field for a very long time, that this is a bona fide syndrome”. ME/CFS was described as “this crippling disease” (transcript of podcast with Professors Vincent Racaniello and Ian Lipkin, 18th September 2012, This Week in Virology).

At a press conference on 18th September 2012 at Columbia University, Professor Lipkin emphasised the enormous amount of immune activation he had uncovered in ME/CFS patients, with two-thirds to three-quarters of the patients exhibiting polyclonal B-cell activation. ME/CFS, he said, “is not a psychosomatic disorder”. Professor Lipkin specifically encouraged patients with ME to be active in the political arena, remarking that advocacy and political leadership made “a huge difference” in obtaining significant funding (http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=17220). In the New York Times, David Tuller reported that Professor Lipkin said that he viewed ME/CFS as “a major illness” (NYT 18th September 2012).

“The belief that ME/CFS is a psychological illness is the error of our time” (The Complexities of Diagnosis. Dr Byron Hyde. In: Handbook of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Ed: Leonard A Jason et al. John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2003).

“…to assign someone to the wrong category on the basis of a false understanding of the nature of the illness and its context is an example of a well-known phenomenon which psychologists term 'fundamental attribution error’ “ (Dr Derek Pheby: InterAction 2009:69:16-17).

“I hope you are not saying that (ME)CFS patients are not as ill as HIV patients. I split my clinical time between the two illnesses, and I can tell you that if I had to choose between the two illnesses (in 2009) I would rather have HIV” (Nancy Klimas, one of the world’s foremost AIDS and ME/CFS physicians; Professor of Medicine and Immunology, University of Miami; New York Times, 15th October 2009).

It was in 2000 that Anthony Komaroff, Professor of Medicine at Harvard, said: “There is now considerable evidence of an underlying biological process which is inconsistent with the hypothesis that (ME/CFS) involves symptoms that are only imagined or amplified because of underlying psychiatric distress. It is time to put that hypothesis to rest” (The Biology of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Am J Med 2000:108:99-105).

Dr Lesley Cooper, 2000).  Cooper found that “Graded exercise was felt to be the treatment that made more people worse than any other” and that it had actually harmed patients (www.afme.org.uk/Cooper.pdf).

The 25% ME Group for the Severely Affected carried out a further survey in 2004 which found that 93% of respondents found GET to be unhelpful, with 82% reporting that their condition was made worse (www.25megroup.org/Report.doc).

In 2008, Action for ME published another survey of over 2,760 patients  (“M.E. 2008: What progress?”) which found that one third had been made worse by GET and that at their worst, 88% were bed/housebound, being unable to shower, bathe or wash themselves, and that 15% were unable to eat unaided. The Press Release of 12^th May was unambiguous: “Survey finds recommended treatment makes one in three people worse” (http://www.afme.org.uk/news.asp?newsid=355).

In 2009, the Norfolk and Suffolk ME Patient Survey of 225 respondents stated: “Respondents found the least helpful and most harmful interventions were Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy” (http://www.norfolkandsuffolk.me.uk/surveylink.html ).

(Ausschnitte aus http://www.meactionuk.org)

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