BBC Radio 4 'You and Yours' series on Care in the Community - final programme on 31 January. 

This is a brief summary of key issues that were discussed at The ME Association Board of Trustees meeting held in Buckingham on Thursday 24 January 2008.

Nimodipine belongs to a group of drugs called calcium-channel blockers.

Having previously been commissioned by the health department to produce guidelines on CFS/ME for Scotland but not having completed the commission, Action for ME (AfME) have received a revised commission to produce guidelines by the end of the financial year (31 March 2008).

NB:  This revised version contains an addition to the list of MPs and national patient group representatives who were present as well as an item that came under AOB.  Apologies to those whose names were omitted first time round.

This is a short personal summary/sketch of key points to emerge from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meeting held on Tuesday 22 January 2008

A more detailed account – in the form of the official minutes being prepared by The ME Association – will follow later.

The first meeting of the reformed Cross Party Group on ME in the Scottish Parliament will be held on Wednesday, January 23 – in Committee Room 3 at the Scottish Parliament. It will start at 1pm and is expected to last 90 minutes.

Locals along the route of explorer Ed Stafford's next expedition have one piece of advice for the adventurer: "If you do this, you will die." 

Picture by Matthew Charman

The countryside at its misty best, with Linda Rivers enjoying a ramble in it in her wheelchair, provides the front cover picture for the latest issue of The ME Association’s quarterly ME Essential magazine. It's been put in the post to members today.

The ME Association now has a new online fundraising site.

A website has been launched to back up a pulse of prayer and meditation which takes place on the first Monday of each month – which started in September last year.

From time to time The ME Association is asked if people with ME/CFS can donate their blood.

The ME Association has joined a new panel being set up by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – the UK government body that monitors adverse reactions to drugs and healthcare devices.

ASDA announced this weekend that it would be the first retailer to fine drivers for the misuse of disabled and parent and child parking bays in its car parks.

Following a meeting of the ME Observatory Steering Group on Friday 11 January the ME Association and Action for ME are circulating this announcement, which relates to the need to recruit some more people from minority ethnic backgrounds to take part in one of their research studies.

Podcast of interview with Radio New Zealand, 31 January 2007

From the Howick and Pakuranga Times, New Zealand, 10 January 2008

FOR once it is the doctor and not her patients feeling overwhelmed.

Tuesday 22 January 2008

4.00pm-5.30pm

Committee Room 17, House of Commons.

The first of a number of major UK conferences which this year aim to show that the serious disabling condition ME has a real pathological basis – that it's not just "all in the mind" – will be held in Southampton on Tuesday February 12.

The Irish radio station RTE 1 should be holding a discussion on the Lightning Process at around 4pm today on The Mooney Programme.

From BBC Online, January 4

The switch to energy-saving light bulbs may put thousands at risk of painful skin reactions, health charities warn. 

From The Times, January 5 (by Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor)

Aromatherapy, homoeopathy and other popular complementary therapies are to be regulated for the first time under a government-backed scheme to be established this year. 

The news item below refers to a report on Ampligen that has been prepared by the National Horizon Scanning Centre (NHSC) at the University of Birmingham.