For better or worse, I found out today I’m on the MEGA patient advisory group. ‘Mixed feelings’ is the best way to describe my reaction. I ‘m pleased that I may have a chance to make a difference to the study but aware that it might not be easy. I will do my best…
In the meantime, if anyone who is reading this has also been accepted onto the group, please get in touch. I only know of two other members so far. It will be very useful for us all to be in contact.
Dr Phil Hammond’s latest column in Private Eye is called ‘Trial on Trial’. You may remember he wrote quite a helpful column about ME just recently. This time he writes in response to criticism from a doctor who got in touch to say:
“Every illness has a physical, psychological and social component, and limiting diagnosis or treatment to only one aspect of someone’s illness is likely to lead to a much poorer outcome. This ‘triple diagnosis’ applies to any complaint you care to consider, although obviously in varying proportions. The one exception seems to be CFS/ME, where any suggestion that there might be a psychological or social component leads to criticism. That CBT is the only treatment which has repeatedly been shown to have any benefit is conveniently ignored.”
It does become tiresome having to deal with such ‘arguments’ time and time again. Once upon a time it was ‘yuppie flu’ that popped up in every article about ME. Now, at long last, that is slowly fading away. Yet now we have to deal with this endlessly repeated idea that ME patients have an unreasonable and unsubstantiated resistance to any suggestion that there might be a psychological component to our illness. People with cancer are happy enough to go for CBT, we are told. So what’s our objection? Continue reading “Spreading the Word”
Well, in my previous post (a few hours ago), I did say to take a closer look at the MEGA site in case there was something I’d missed – and too right I was. I had failed to read the new MEGA blog post, thinking that it was just about the change of deadline for applications to join the patient advisory group. I hadn’t realised that it also provides a schedule for subsequent weeks. Here it is:
So patients are to be given a maximum of eleven days to read the ‘papers and key information’ before discussing it and -presumably – suggesting possible alterations in a teleconference or e-group meeting over the Christmas period! So not only are they expected to do this over Christmas, but the twelve days of Christmas has been shortened to a maximum of eleven. Notice the w/c in there – not meaning ‘toilet’ in this instance (although some might think this an appropriate place to sling the schedule) but ‘week-commencing’, so the papers could theoretically arrive any time that week, which might be as little as six days before the conference.
At least they accept the possible need for a backup call ‘to address outstanding issues’ and also feel that some explanation is due. They say:
The reason that the timescale is so short is because the mainstream funder to whom we want to apply for MEGA funding has an application deadline in early January 2017. This deadline was only recently announced and was different to the timings we expected.
and:
If we miss the deadline for this funder, we will not be able to apply again until 2018.
Even so, to use an old joke from Have I Got News For You, the words piss-up and brewery spring to mind. And of course many will say that they’ve carefully planned it like this to deliberately discourage and marginalise patient involvement. I can fully understand that point of view. If MEGA really want to win back the trust of the patient community, they are not going the right way about it.
Does this make an difference to my decision to apply for the patient advisory group? I’m still processing that one. But I’m getting more and more annoyed. Three more words have sprung to mind: ‘taking the’ and ‘piss’. And it’s not us that’s doing it…
(My normal pristine standard of vocabulary will be resumed in the next post.)
See also this OMEGA post which I should have read yesterday, including pertinent comments by Peter T.
Regular readers will know that I recently received a response from Professor Holgate to our 200-plus-signature email expressing concerns about the proposed MEGA study. “We are very appreciative of the enthusiasm being shown to pursue an exciting ‘omics-based research project in the field of M.E…” he said, with no mention of the various pressing concerns we raised in our email. You can read the whole of his message in this previous post.
It is a strange response indeed. It is like the shipping line which ran the Titanic writing to bereaved relatives to thank them for their interest in the general principle of oceanic travel. To carry the metaphor further, Professor Holgate is pleased to be in touch with us, but changes the subject whenever we mention icebergs.
I have now received a further response (addressing my response to his response), this one saying so little that I won’t bother printing it here, but once again referring us to the brand new MEGA website, which is indeed up and running at last.
If you’ve seen it, you were probably less than impressed. At first sight, it looks pretty much Continue reading “Taking a Closer Look”
spoonseekerdotcom 