ME/CFIDS/CFS/FM UK Scandal
Reading AfME's press release about the CFS/ME Clinics, I see
that Professor Pinching was involved in the process.
refer fnqsupport entry date Jan21
Very interesting...read on...


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The following is taken from:

THE MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT: PERSECUTION OF
PATIENTS? A CONSIDERATION OF THE
ROLE OF PROFESSOR SIMON WESSELY AND OTHER
MEMBERS OF THE "WESSELY SCHOOL" IN
THE PERCEPTION OF MYALGIC ENCEPHALOMYELITIS
(ME) IN THE UK (Hooper et al)

This paper was the subject of this blog for the past five days Jan17,18,19,20,21



Professor Anthony Pinching
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


One of those who supported the Wessely School view was the
Deputy Chair of the Working Group, Anthony Pinching, who at
that time was Professor of Immunology at St Bartholomew's
Hospital, London. He became notorious for the publication
during his tenure of an article (Chronic fatigue syndrome.
Anthony J Pinching. Prescribers' Journal 2000:40:2:99-106
published by the Department of Health itself, but now
discontinued) which caused great distress to the ME community,
in which he made his views clear:


*) "over-investigation can be harmful and counter-productive
to the management of these patients, causing them to seek
abnormal test results to validate their illness"

*) "patients avoid activity but then develop symptoms of
deconditioning or excessive awareness of physiological
changes"

*) "cognitive behaviour therapy can substantially optimise
rehabilitation"

*) "complementary therapists sometime reinforce unhelpful
illness beliefs"

*) "the essence of treatment is activity management and
graded exercise".


Pinching did not even mention ME or the key manifestations of it
and he expressly stated that the fatigue found in CFS is "not
related to ongoing exertion": this was a particularly odious
statement because in ME, there is always post-extertional
muscle fatigue, without which the diagnosis of ME is
untenable.


To the consternation of many people with ME, Pinching is now
Medical Adviser to the charity Action for ME, which even
changed its logo to include "chronic fatigue" but was compelled
to remove the words and revert to "Action for ME" by the Charity
Commission.

Trev
CAME