Scottish MP Carol Monaghan has secured a debate on PACE at Westminster next week. It's very important that as many MPs attend as possible. This is a big deal - a major step in the battle against PACE.
So, UK folks, I've drafted a short, simple message here that you can just cut and paste into an email. You can personalise it if you want but all you really need to do is put your MP’s name at the start and yours at the end.
You can find your own MP’s contact details here.
More details about what she's doing in relation to PACE on her FB page and Twitter:
- https://www.facebook.com/CarolMonaghanSNP/
- https://twitter.com/CMonaghanSNP
You can send her comments on how PACE has affected you to carol.monaghan.mp@parliament.uk
So, UK folks, I've drafted a short, simple message here that you can just cut and paste into an email. You can personalise it if you want but all you really need to do is put your MP’s name at the start and yours at the end.
You can find your own MP’s contact details here.
Subject line: Westminster Hall debate, Tues 20 Feb, 11-11.30am – PACE trial and its effect on people with ME
Dear ****,
I’m one of your constituents and suffer from ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). I’m writing to ask if you would please attend this debate, which is very important to me.
It concerns the £5 million, taxpayer-funded PACE trial of exercise and talking therapy for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (which the NHS considers synonymous with ME). The trial’s claims that these therapies are effective have now been widely discredited due to the trial’s poor methodology and surveys indicate that exercise in particular can be very harmful for patients with this disease.
The researchers’ insurance-industry conflicts of interest were not disclosed to patients in the PACE trial before the study began. The study’s original analyses to gauge improvement and recovery were abandoned and replaced partway through the trial; £250,000 was spent in vain on legal fees to stop the underlying data being released for independent scrutiny. Over 100 leading scientists and patients’ organisations worldwide have called for the researchers to retract their inappropriate claims that patients recovered due to the trial therapies, but the researchers have not complied.
The trial is now being used in several universities as a teaching example of poor science and has attracted critical coverage from international media, such as the New York Times. And yet I and 250,000 patients in the UK and more worldwide are affected every day by the influence of the claims made in the PACE trial.
I would be deeply grateful if you would attend the debate on Tuesday.
Yours sincerely,
*********
Dear ****,
I’m one of your constituents and suffer from ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). I’m writing to ask if you would please attend this debate, which is very important to me.
It concerns the £5 million, taxpayer-funded PACE trial of exercise and talking therapy for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (which the NHS considers synonymous with ME). The trial’s claims that these therapies are effective have now been widely discredited due to the trial’s poor methodology and surveys indicate that exercise in particular can be very harmful for patients with this disease.
The researchers’ insurance-industry conflicts of interest were not disclosed to patients in the PACE trial before the study began. The study’s original analyses to gauge improvement and recovery were abandoned and replaced partway through the trial; £250,000 was spent in vain on legal fees to stop the underlying data being released for independent scrutiny. Over 100 leading scientists and patients’ organisations worldwide have called for the researchers to retract their inappropriate claims that patients recovered due to the trial therapies, but the researchers have not complied.
The trial is now being used in several universities as a teaching example of poor science and has attracted critical coverage from international media, such as the New York Times. And yet I and 250,000 patients in the UK and more worldwide are affected every day by the influence of the claims made in the PACE trial.
I would be deeply grateful if you would attend the debate on Tuesday.
Yours sincerely,
*********
More details about what she's doing in relation to PACE on her FB page and Twitter:
- https://www.facebook.com/CarolMonaghanSNP/
- https://twitter.com/CMonaghanSNP
You can send her comments on how PACE has affected you to carol.monaghan.mp@parliament.uk
