'PLEASE, TAKE THIS VILE ILLNESS MORE SERIOUSLY' by Geoff Baker

[Jo Best]

Thought this worthy of its own thread as it's the best of the articles inspired by 10 year old Shannon Tiday's video message in response to the news about the SMILE trial of the Lightning Process.

This article first appeared in the Independent (West Country News and Sports).
https://www.indyonline.co.uk/indy-column/please-take-vile-illness-seriously/

I very much doubt that poorly 10-year-old children like Plymouth schoolgirl Shannon Tiday read newspapers, but if they do then this column is for her.

Shannon is in the news just now because she is fighting against a controversial new claim that her totally debilitating condition, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.), can simply be treated as a psychological illness.

A video she made to express her anger that M.E. is ‘all in the head’ has been seen on social media around the world, earning Shannon much support for her stand.

That’s all you need when you have M.E., having to fight, to protest, when you can barely find the energy to eat, let alone have the strength to get out of bed much or step outside your house.

Not familiar with M.E.? It’s what medics also call chronic fatigue syndrome. Others, those with brains the size of a pea, call it yuppie flu.

They have called it all sorts, the cynics; another one of their terms for M.E. is “shirker syndrome”, an ignorant insult which says a lot about its users needing to shut up.

But they’re like that, the bar room philosophers, the self-appointed “experts” whose enthusiasm for the idiocy of old wives’ tales has done so much harm over the years.

Continue reading here: https://www.indyonline.co.uk/indy-column/please-take-vile-illness-seriously/