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| Southampton conference explores ME's physical nature |
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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. Hampshire Solutions, a newly-forged local alliance of people with ME and related conditions, has got together with world-renowned immunologist Professor Stephen Holgate for a day-long collaborative workshop open to patients, doctors and other interested people at Southampton General Hospital.The event will provide a platform for doctors and researchers from round the world who will explain how their studies when put together provide powerful evidence for the physical causation and nature of ME, which some doctors call chronic fatigue syndrome, and related fibromyalgia. Called "Putting the Patient at the Centre", the conference will be co-chaired by Stephen Holgate, professor of clinical pharmacology at Southampton University, and David Peters, first professor of integrated health care at Westminster University. Speakers will include academics and doctors from the US, Canada and Spain as well as ME cutting-edge researchers from the UK. A spokesman for The ME Association, which is supporting the event, said: "There's huge interest from people with ME in finding answers to the big questions about what causes this illness, and makes it so difficult to treat. We're just not getting these answers from the psychiatrists who dismiss us by saying it's all in the mind. "The aim of the speakers lined up for this biomedical conference is to rekindle interest in research into the physical causes of ME – which is thought to affect 250,000 people in the UK. And it will be followed by similar events put on by different organisations in Cambridge and London later in the year. "One day, because of all the biomedical studies into ME that are taking place now, we should have lab tests which diagnose ME reliably and will provide indisputable proof that the condition is physical in nature". The cost of attendance at the Southampton event will be £50 for doctors and healthcare professionals, £35 for academics and lay people and £20 for patients and carers. Students with NUS cards will be admitted free. For full details and tickets, contact Fiona at The Point of Health, tel: 023 8026 0227. ENDS Notes to Newsdesks: 1. For any further information, please contact Tony Britton, Publicity Manager, The ME Association, tel: 01406 370293, mob: 07880 502927, email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it 2 Speakers at the Southampton event on February 12:
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