Concern about misinformation to the Gibson Inquiry

Margaret Williams      6^th July 2006

Having read the official Minutes of the evidence presented on 18^th April 2006 to the Gibson Parliamentary Inquiry by Trish Taylor of the charity Action for ME (AfME) that are now available on the Inquiry website http://www.erythos.com/gibsonenquiry/ , it is important to note the factual errors in Ms Taylor’s evidence to the Committee:

1. The UK Government officially recognised ME as an organic disorder on 27^th November 1987 (ie. not in 2002 as stated in AfME’s presentation), and there is official evidence of this: see “Time for a Reality Check at the UK Department of Health?” dated 4^th April 2004 at www.meactionuk.org.uk/Reality_Check.htm .

2. It is misleading to state that it was in 2003 that “the WHO UK Guide gave a unified neurological code to CFS/ME” because this refers only to a Guide to Mental Health in Primary Care produced by the Institute of Psychiatry in London (which was compelled to issue an erratum after wrongly re-classifying “CFS/ME” as a mental disorder), not to the ICD itself: it was in 1992 that “CFS” was included by the WHO in Geneva in the ICD as a term by which ME was sometimes known, and ME itself has been included in the ICD as a disorder of the nervous system since 1969.

For a national charity that is tasked with representing the best interests of those with ME not to get the basic facts right on such an important occasion is a matter of concern.

It must also be noted that in the Minutes referring to the evidence of the 25% ME Group (on page 11), there may have been a typo by whoever wrote up the Minutes, because the correct date is 1969, not 1979.