Simon
Senior Member
- Messages
- 3,789
- Location
- Monmouth, UK
One for ME Awareness week
There’s a yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding. Take action.
When I got ME more than 20 years ago, I thought that science would soon provide the answers to my illness. Instead, I saw little good research going on, and there’s been a spectacular lack of progress since then. We have no treatments and still don’t even know what causes the disease. Why not?
The fundamental reason for the lack of good science is that there is not enough funding: money is the sun that powers the research world. And inadequate funding is mostly down to neglect by government research-funders. That has to change, and patients can help make it happen.
Photos: ME Association & (c) Can Stock Photo / bugphai[/caption]
An outsider might think that an illness that strikes in the prime of life, affecting so many people so severely, would be a priority for governments. Surely the multi-billion pound cost to the economy would focus minds? Not if your illness is ME/CFS, which many people in power don't take seriously. In the US, research receives a feeble $8 a patient a year. In the UK, it’s £4 a year, which is mostly spent on psychosocial research.
Not enough action from the National Institutes of Health
...
...
Read the full blog
There’s a yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding. Take action.
When I got ME more than 20 years ago, I thought that science would soon provide the answers to my illness. Instead, I saw little good research going on, and there’s been a spectacular lack of progress since then. We have no treatments and still don’t even know what causes the disease. Why not?
The fundamental reason for the lack of good science is that there is not enough funding: money is the sun that powers the research world. And inadequate funding is mostly down to neglect by government research-funders. That has to change, and patients can help make it happen.
Photos: ME Association & (c) Can Stock Photo / bugphai[/caption]
An outsider might think that an illness that strikes in the prime of life, affecting so many people so severely, would be a priority for governments. Surely the multi-billion pound cost to the economy would focus minds? Not if your illness is ME/CFS, which many people in power don't take seriously. In the US, research receives a feeble $8 a patient a year. In the UK, it’s £4 a year, which is mostly spent on psychosocial research.
Not enough action from the National Institutes of Health
...
...
Read the full blog
