• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Guardian article: ME affects four times as many women as men. Is that why we’re still disbelieved?

Ysabelle-S

Highly Vexatious
Messages
524
Natalie Wright has written an opinion piece for the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...s-women-men-chronic-fatigue-syndrome#comments

Includes:

"Breakthroughs are happening. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, recently published a paper that analysed blood molecules – known as metabolites – in healthy people and people with ME. They found a clear pattern of abnormalities, or a chemical signature in the patients with ME which could be used in future to diagnose patients. Currently there is no single test that can diagnose the condition and it is partly due to this that there is so much controversy."

The article mentions the recent PACE problems, and lower down links to: https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-pace-trial/

I don't know why I can't see the comments (listed as 84). They are supposedly premoderated.

Actually, have just refreshed the Guardian article and the comment number is gone.
 
Last edited:

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Re. those comments, It's sad to see that it's socially fashionable to berate ME/CFS patients that complain about being treated poorly.
 

Ysabelle-S

Highly Vexatious
Messages
524
There are plenty of comments. Don't trouble yourself. :grumpy:

Do you mean the Guardian article? There's at least one troll commenting on the Stats article from what I recall. And a lot of other comments there too. The Guardian doesn't seem to have any commenting on, but had 84 listed, but not seen, then the number vanished. Article hasn't been up long though.
 
Messages
85
I can get them now. The number of comments went down from about 125 (can't remember exactly) to 94 - were they unavailable while they removed some bad ones?
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
Guardian comments are all over the place. Because of the article's focus on sexism, everyone with an axe to grind about gender politics is chiming in, which is an annoying distraction. I usually find with the guardian that ordering the comments by recommended instead of newest makes it slightly less bad if you read from the top, but I think it might take a while for the trolls to sink to the bottom this time.
 

Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
Is this the best the Guardian can up with right in the middle of the PACE scandal? There's a spoon fed truth sitting waiting for journalists. Dates, times, court orders, scandal, proven scientific fraud, waste of £5 million of public funds, DWP involvement all there in black and white.

What the hell is wrong with journalists these days?
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
Most popular comment so far with 41 recommendations:

LourdePaul
4h ago
4142
Can we have a single article in this paper without sexism being brought into it?
Is it so difficult to say "we need more research into this area" and make the case, without speculating on the motives?
Because I tell you what, if you're going to go on about gendered funding for things to do with health, men are not winning out of it. Just write the article on the facts, and stop being so bloody divisive about every single thing.

I thought the article was good, but was interested that the above comment found such a positive reception, and although the sexism points are probably valid, I wonder if focusing them is such a good idea? It could end up becoming a divisive distraction, when we have so many other good arguments these days.
 
Messages
13,774
Is this the best the Guardian can up with right in the middle of the PACE scandal? There's a spoon fed truth sitting waiting for journalists. Dates, times, court orders, scandal, proven scientific fraud, waste of £5 million of public funds, DWP involvement all there in black and white.

What the hell is wrong with journalists these days?

The author was a patient, and I expect that the problem was more with the editor. They can find these more personal stories less threatening to deal with.
 

Large Donner

Senior Member
Messages
866
The author was a patient, and I expect that the problem was more with the editor. They can find these more personal stories less threatening to deal with.

Yes I get that but my point was more generalised. There have been a couple of articles in mainstream media in Sweden though already focusing on the PACE trial and that absolute scandal. Yet here right infront of the medias noses there is virtually nothing being said in the media.

I think this is one area we fall down in on advocacy, we just don't have a press presence being presented from our ME organisations.

Maybe it is happening behind the scenes and the whole story is about to break massively?

Maybe!!
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
I thought the article was good, but was interested that the above comment found such a positive reception, and although the sexism points are probably valid, I wonder if focusing them is such a good idea? It could end up becoming a divisive distraction, when we have so many other good arguments these days.
Yeah, but it's such a quintessential Guardian line that it has a kind of inevitability to it. It's a kind of inverse of the 'meddlesome nanny state' pieces that you get in The Express.
 

Kyla

ᴀɴɴɪᴇ ɢꜱᴀᴍᴩᴇʟ
Messages
721
Location
Canada
yikes. the comment section is a nightmare. Hope more of us will click through and either comment or upvote the better comments.
 

Marco

Grrrrrrr!
Messages
2,386
Location
Near Cognac, France
Is this the best the Guardian can up with right in the middle of the PACE scandal? There's a spoon fed truth sitting waiting for journalists. Dates, times, court orders, scandal, proven scientific fraud, waste of £5 million of public funds, DWP involvement all there in black and white.

What the hell is wrong with journalists these days?

No obvious angle to work in identity politics?