RiME

Happy New Year from all at RiME.

View

22nd October 2004

“Good Enough to Take It to the Bedside”

American Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

October 8-10, 2004

Madison, Wisconsin

Summary by Paula M. Carnes (USA)

View

6th October 2004

RiME Petition II - A new petition to gain access to the All Party Parliamentary Committee

25th January 2004

Press release from Margaret Williams regarding the recent House of Lords Debate.

22 January 2004

Today In Parliament - BBC Radio 4

To hear an exercpt from the House of Lords detailing the speech by the Countess of Mar along with selected responses click here to download the mp3 file.

22 January 2004

BBC Parliament

Click here to download the whole House of Lords Debate on ME in mp3 format. (note that you will need the transcript of the debate to follow who is speaking. The official Hansard transcript can be viewed here on the Hansard website or it can be viewed here on the MEActionUK website.

(with regards to the audio recording - apologies for a slight glitch in the recording at around 27 minutes in)

26th June 2003

Margaret Williams draws attention to two major UK Reports which may be of interest to the ME community.

7th May 2003

IGNORING THE EVIDENCE?  A response to the final version of the MRC CFS/ME Research Advisory Group Strategy of 1^st May 2003

Malcolm Hooper ¹  Eileen Marshall ²   Margaret Williams ² 

1st May 2003

Medical Research Council

Reference: MRC/13/03

For immediate release Thursday 1 May 2003

TOWARDS CFS/ME RESEARCH:

MRC ANNOUNCES TWO INITIATIVES IN RESPONSE TO THE CFS/ME STRATEGY PUBLISHED TODAY

25th April 2003

Chronic fatigue syndrome: new evidence for a central fatigue disorder.

Clin Sci (Lond) 2003 Apr 23; [epub ahead of print]

Authors: Georgiades E, Behan WM, Kilduff LP, Hadjicharalambous M, Mackie EE, Wilson J, Ward SA, Pitsiladis YP.

9th April 2003

The American Physiological Society

In Some Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Left Ventricular Function May Be At The Heart Of The Matter April 9, 2003 (San Diego)

See also:

14th April 2003

Abnormal Heart Pumping After Exercise Linked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

15th April 2003

See also my personal editorial comments on the current plight of those with ME/CFS in relation to the use of CBT/GET on those who may have undiagnosed and untreated cardiac and multisystemic abnormalities.

6th April 2003

A short review of new publications by Professor Malcolm Hooper.

27th March 2003

See the MERGE report on the AACFS 6th International Conference Friday 31 January to Sunday 2 February 2003 Chantilly, Virginia (Washington DC)

Now available online to view on the MERGE website http://www.meresearch.org.uk

Click image to enlarge detail

(you may need to print out the larger image displayed or click on the .pdf file below)

Details of the new book "Skewed" by Martin Walker

I recently heard from Martin Walker (who wrote the controversial book 'Dirty Medicine') about his new book entitled 'Skewed' due out next month. This book details an investigation into the psychiatric lobby which maintains ME and CFS are psychiatric illnesses, and the book also touches on Gulf War Illness and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

If 10 of us can get together we can buy the book for £5 each. Am telling our Shropshire & Telford ME folk and others about it in the hope we can join forces.

Another book he is offering is a reprint of Hans Ruesch' 'Slaughter of the Innocent' (against vivisection) for the same price. This is through Slingshot Publications Ltd, which it is hoped will be able to become a book club offering 3 works of this sort at, say, £10 a year. There's a London address -

Slingshot Publications,
BM BOX 8314,
London,
WC1N 3XX.

Note:

1st August 2003

23 orders are now being processed for 26 copies of "Skewed". Publication of "Skewed" should be during the middle of August following last minute additions to the content.

During June Martin Walker sent me a note thanking me for my efforts and you can read it here.

Thank you to everyone who responded to the special offer.

12th March 2002

Assessment of cardiovascular reactivity by fractal and recurrence quantification analysis of heart rate and pulse transit time.
_________________________________________

Journal: Hum Hypertens 2003 Feb;17(2):111-8

Authors: Naschitz JE, Itzhak R, Shaviv N, Khorshidi I, Sundick S, Isseroff H, Fields M, Priselac RM, Yeshurun D, Sabo E.

NLM Citation: PMID: 12574789

Methods used for the assessment of cardiovascular reactivity are flawed by nonlinear dynamics of the cardiovascular responses to stimuli. In an attempt to address this issue, we utilized a short postural challenge, recorded beat-to-beat heart rate (HR) and pulse transit time (PTT), assessed the data by fractal and recurrence quantification analysis, and processed the obtained variables by multivariate statistics.

A 10-min supine phase of the head-up tilt test was followed by recording 600 cardiac cycles on tilt, that is, 5-10 min. Three groups of patients were studied, each including 20 subjects matched for age and gender- healthy subjects, patients with essential hypertension (HT), and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The latter group was studied on account of the well-known dysautonomia of CFS patients, which served as contrast against the cardiovascular reactivity of the healthy population.

A total of 52 variables of the HR and PTT were determined in each subject.

The multivariate model identified the best predictors for the assessment of reactivity of healthy subjects vs CFS. Based on these predictors, the 'Fractal & Recurrence Analysis-based Score' (FRAS) was calculated: FRAS=76.2+0.04*HR-supine-DET -12.9*HR-tilt-R/L -0.31*HR-tilt-s.d.-19.27*PTT-tilt-R/L -9.42*PTT-tilt-WAVE. The median values and IQR of FRAS in the groups were: healthy=-1.85 (IQR 1.89), hypertensives=+0.52 (IQR 5.78), and CFS=-24.2 (5.34) (HT vs healthy subjects: P=0.0036; HT vs CFS: P<0.0001).

Since the FRAS differed significantly between the three groups, it appears likely that the FRAS may recognize phenotypes of cardiovascular reactivity.

Journal of Human Hypertension (2003) 17, 111-118. doi:10.1038/sj.jhh.1001517

5th March 2003

Dr William Weir, formerly Consultant in Infectious Diseases at London's Royal Free Hospital, will shortly be returning to the UK from Abu Dhabi, where he has been working for the past year or so.

Dr Weir will be setting up a private clinic for ME/CFS patients at 10 Harley Street, London W1 as from Monday 17 March. Bookings will be taken from 10th March 2003.

The contact number for appointments will be 0207 467 8300 or 0207 467 8301.

Dr Weir has a long-standing clinical and research interest in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and is well known for his conscientious and caring approach.

He is a very kind, sympathetic, and knowledgeable physician when it comes to ME patients, and I'm sure that this service will prove to be of great benefit to people who can afford to go privately but don't want to be 'ripped off' by being offered dubious tests and treatments.

26th February 2003

FIRST BRITISH CONFERENCE

"Neither Lazy Nor Crazy"

SATURDAY 12TH JULY 2003
12PM UNTIL 5.30PM

AT THE OAKENGATES THEATRE
TELFORD, SHROPSHIRE

SPEAKERS

Prof. Richard L Bruno, H.D.PhD.
Dr Elizabeth G Dowsett, MB.ChB.Dip.Bact.

25th February 2003

Cook Island Conference -

Psychological Interventions in Physical Health - A Scientific Workshop

March 31st to April 4th 2003

How much NHS funding is going towards the travel expenses and the accommodating costs of those delegates from the UK attending this event?

19th February 2003

Source: Disease Markers
18(4):193-199
Date: 2002
URL: http://www.iospress.nl/site/html/02780240.html

Utility of the blood for gene expression profiling and biomarker discovery in chronic fatigue syndrome
----------------------------------------------------------------

Vernon SD, Unger ER, Dimulescu IM, Rajeevan M, Reeves WC.

Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center
for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating illness
lacking consistent anatomic lesions and eluding
conventional laboratory diagnosis. Demonstration of the
utility of the blood for gene expression profiling and
biomarker discovery would have implications into the
pathophysiology of CFS.

The objective of this study was to determine if gene expression profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PMBCs) could distinguish between subjects with CFS and healthy controls.

Total RNA from PBMCs of five CFS cases and seventeen controls was labeled and hybridized to 1764 genes on filter arrays. Gene intensity values were analyzed by various classification algorithms and nonparametric statistical methods.

The classification algorithms grouped the majority of the CFS cases together, and distinguished them from the healthy controls. Eight genes were differentially expressed in both an age-matched case-control analysis and when comparing all CFS cases to all controls.

Several of the diffrentially expressed genes are associated with immunologic functions (e.g., CMRF35 antigen, IL-8, HD protein) and implicate immune dysfunction in the pathophysiology of CFS.

These results successfully demonstrate the utility of the blood for gene expression profiling to distinguish subjects with CFS from healthy controls and for identifying genes that could serve as CFS biomarkers.

--------
(c) 2002 IOS Press, Amsterdam