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Court cases to enforce the legal and human rights of ME/CFS sufferers

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Thanks for posting a link to that article. I found this very interesting:
Under British case law, ME / CFS is now accepted as a physical illness involving immune system abnormalities, infection and neurological dysfunction and it is not a psychiatric illness. This is now accepted by the British courts and judiciary. The following paper outlines the court cases which have led to this conclusion by the British law courts - http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/ME_Judgments.htm

The case law itself and the verdict of the Master of the Rolls is binding and can be cited in court cases in Britain and Ireland. It can also be cited in courts in the European Union (as UK is part of it). And it can be cited as precedents / persuasive evidence in the courts in the USA and Canada, Australia and commonwealth countries.



Also, the following seems very significant in terms of any damage done to ME/CFS patients by CBT/GET treatment. In March 2015 there was a change to the UK law which has significant implications in the duty of care that doctors must provide. The article summarizes the new law here:
"The doctor is under a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that the patient is aware of any material risks involved in any recommended treatment, and of any reasonable alternative or variant treatments. The test of materiality is whether, in the circumstances of the particular case, a reasonable person in the patient’s position would be likely to attach significance to the risk, or the doctor is or should reasonably be aware that the particular patient would be likely to attach significance to it."

Therefore a doctor can no longer just inform his patients of the risks based on the views of some researchers, he must inform his patients of all material risks found in all research and of alternative treatments. And ignorance of the facts is no excuse.



So if you were given CBT/GET by your doctor without being informed of the risks of CBT/GET (ie, that that this treatment can make your ME/CFS considerably worse), and you actually got worse from CBT/GET, then you can instigate legal action against your doctor.

It is also interesting that under this new law, the doctor is under a duty to inform the patient of any reasonable alternative treatments.

Given that for example there was a randomized clinical trial (by Prof Montoya) showing the benefits of the antiviral Valcyte (valganciclovir) for ME/CFS, I should think it could be argued that your doctor is under a duty to inform you of the possible benefits (and risks) of Valcyte treatment.



If any ME/CFS patient wants to consider bringing legal action against a doctor who prescribed CBT/GET, this could probably done without incurring any expenses, as there are a number of no win, no fee solicitors (lawyers) in the UK who specialize in medical negligence legal cases.

This legal action and representation should cost no money, because if you lose the case, there is no fee; and if you win the case, the solicitor (lawyer) will simply take as his fee as a percentage of the compensation money awarded to the patient.

Here are some no win, no fee medical negligence solicitors in the UK:

Clinical & Medical Negligence Solicitors | No Win No Fee Claim | Slater and Gordon Lawyers
Medical Negligence Claims | No Win No Fee | Irwin Mitchell Solicitors
Medical Negligence Claims| No Win No Fee Clinical Negligence Compensation

There are dozens more of these solicitors online, if you Google "medical negligence no win no fee."

This is worth reading, regarding the definition of negligence: Medical Negligence Claims Explained
 
Last edited:

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
It is only a matter of time before Sir Simon and pals are held to account in a court of law. They know it as well as we do, and this is the reason the psychobabblers are pulling all the stops to avoid releasing data. I wonder how they plan to hide the data from the legal process of discovery. Perhaps they are counting on well-placed judges who will overlook attempts to evade discovery.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
By the way @Hermes, there is no need to post multiple copies of a thread (such as the two other versions here and here), as most people on this forum always look at the new posts page, where all new threads and posts appear.

To see the new posts page, just click on the "New Posts" menu at the top of this page. It is the best place to go to see what's happening on this forum.
 
Messages
51
Location
Dublin, Ireland
It is only a matter of time before Sir Simon and pals are held to account in a court of law. They know it as well as we do, and this is the reason the psychobabblers are pulling all the stops to avoid releasing data. I wonder how they plan to hide the data from the legal process of discovery. Perhaps they are counting on well-placed judges who will overlook attempts to evade discovery.

they can always use freemason back channels in the legal system and judiciary.
 
Messages
51
Location
Dublin, Ireland
Thanks for posting a link to that article. I found this very interesting:




Also, the following is very significant in terms of any damage done to ME/CFS patients by CBT/GET treatment. In March 2015 there was a change to the UK law which has significant implications in the duty of care that doctors must provide. The article summarizes the new law here:




So if you were given CBT/GET by your doctor without being informed of the risks of CBT/GET (ie, that that this treatment can make your ME/CFS considerably worse), and you actually got worse from CBT/GET, then you can instigate legal action against your doctor.

It is also interesting that under this new law, the doctor is under a duty to inform the patient of any reasonable alternative treatments.

Given that for example there was a randomized clinical trial (by Prof Montoya) showing the benefits of the antiviral Valcyte (valganciclovir) for ME/CFS, I should think it could be argued that your doctor is under a duty to inform you of the possible benefits (and risks) of Valcyte treatment.



If any ME/CFS patient wants to consider bringing legal action against a doctor who prescribed CBT/GET, this could probably done without incurring any expenses, as there are a number of no win, no fee solicitors (lawyers) in the UK who specialize in medical negligence legal cases.

This legal action and representation should cost no money, because if you lose the case, there is no fee; and if you win the case, the solicitor (lawyer) will simply take as his fee as a percentage of the compensation money awarded to the patient.

Here are some no win, no fee medical negligence solicitors in the UK:

Clinical & Medical Negligence Solicitors | No Win No Fee Claim | Slater and Gordon Lawyers
Medical Negligence Claims | No Win No Fee | Irwin Mitchell Solicitors
Medical Negligence Claims| No Win No Fee Clinical Negligence Compensation

There are dozens more of these solicitors online, if you Google "medical negligence no win no fee."

This is worth reading, regarding the definition of negligence: Medical Negligence Claims Explained

Thanks for that Hip. You are a genius at law. I just included this on a certain web site www.me-ireland.com/bogus.htm#basis
 

Invisible Woman

Senior Member
Messages
1,267
Re no-win no-fee : a word of caution:

This legal action and representation should cost no money, because if you lose the case, there is no fee; and if you win the case, the solicitor (lawyer) will simply take as his fee as a percentage of the compensation money awarded to the patient.

Here are some no win, no fee medical negligence solicitors in the UK:

Clinical & Medical Negligence Solicitors | No Win No Fee Claim | Slater and Gordon Lawyers
Medical Negligence Claims | No Win No Fee | Irwin Mitchell Solicitors
Medical Negligence Claims| No Win No Fee Clinical Negligence Compensation

There are dozens more of these solicitors online, if you Google "medical negligence no win no fee."

Before you commit yourself please double check and have confirmed in writing whether or not you will be liable for the other side's costs if you lose. You may not have to pay your own solicitor's fees but this does not necessarily exempt you from the defendant's costs. I have no real knowledge of the law but a member of my family became embroiled in a case (non-medical) and the person who brought the case (on a no-win no-fee basis) lost and ended up liable for the other side's costs - a hefty £10k+ bill.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Thanks for that Hip. You are a genius at law.

Far from it. I know very little about law, unfortunately. So please don't take what I wrote as gospel. What I wrote above is just my guess at how this law may work in practice. It would be good to get some legal experts to comment.

@Patrick* may be able to offer some insight, though he practices US law.



Does the UK have class action law? It would be another potential route.

I read that an equivalent of class action legal action was recently introduced in the UK.

Though obviously you will not be able to prosecute a legal case of any kind against medical treatments performed prior to March 2015, when this new medical law was brought into being.



In any case, I was thinking more along the lines of how this new law may force the NHS to change its guidelines about what doctors offer ME/CFS patients in the UK. At the moment, the NHS policy seems to be modeled on Henry Ford's: you can have any ME/CFS treatment you want, as long as it is GET/CBT.

If you look at the current ME/CFS treatment guidelines, the only pharmacological interventions currently on the list are melatonin for sleep, and TCA drugs for poor sleep or pain.

Hopefully this new law will force the NHS / NICE to change their guidelines, so that they pro-actively offer other treatments such as Valcyte to ME/CFS patients. And when studies are performed or completed on vitamin B12 injections or low-dose naltrexone treatments for ME/CFS (which do seem to help a percentage of patients), these should be offered as well.

I guess the issue will be whether there is enough evidence base on treatments like Valcyte such that they can be considered as a "reasonable alternative treatment" (to quote the phrase used in this new law — found on page 28 paragraph 87 of the legal document).

Perhaps we need to get clarification from the NHS about this.

@charles shepherd, would you know how the NHS / NICE are responding to this new law?