Guardian column on M.E. and Long Covid
January 22, 2021
“If one good thing emerges from this pandemic, it could be more recognition and funding for people with ME/CFS.”Columnist George Monbiot wrote a piece in the Guardian yesterday about M.E. and Long Covid, and how ignorance towards chronic illness could see cases in illness like M.E. skyrocket in what has been dubbed a ‘post viral tsunami’.
George Monbiot says in the article:
“ME/CFS has been disgracefully neglected by science and medicine. A paper published in the British Medical Journal in 1970, and widely reported in the press, set the tone for scientific inquiry across much of the following 50 years. It dismissed outbreaks of the disease as either ‘mass hysteria’ or misdiagnosis. The researchers failed to assess a single patient or interview a single doctor.”The article notes how the DecodeME study and the updated draft National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline for M.E. show signs of a changing landscape for the illness, but that the same mistakes are being made with Long Covid clinics, who are advising people with post-Covid fatigue to steadily increase their levels of exercise
Thank you to George for using his platform to highlight the ongoing challenges faced by people with M.E. and the need for change.
