Statement by The ME Association

The ME Association fully shares the concerns of a growing number of our members who have been contacting us about the strong psychiatric/psychological bias to the presentations that will be given to a meeting on CFS at the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) on April 28. 

When we were first contacted about this meeting by the RSM we included details on our website and in our magazine 'Events Diary' - as we believe everyone should be made aware of meetings and conferences that may be of interest to both people with ME/CFS and to health professionals.

We then asked the RSM if it would be possible for the MEA to have a stand at the conference in order to provide some balanced information.. Our request for a stand, for which we were willing to pay, was initially turned down by the RSM.

We have just been informed that the RSM has changed its mind and that we shall now be able to provide information to attendees at this Conference. The trustees thought long and hard about whether, by attending this meeting, we were in any way endorsing it. Let me assure you, that is not our intention. Our judgement is that it is better to be at this meeting and provide balanced information to the attendees than to leave them to hear the overwhelmingly psychiatric/psychological views of the speakers at this meeting.

We shall provide information and offer discussion on:

• research and the need for further biomedical research.
• management of the illness, especially activity/energy management
• why we are unable to endorse the NICE guideline
• occupational health issues-as an alternative to the unbalanced information from NHS Plus.

Neil Riley
Chairman of the ME Association