BBC coverage of Lynn Gilderdale's death

[Bob]

Hi everyone,
I've been reading the forum for ages, and i love it, but i've only just got round to joining.
Thanks to you all for all your intelligent and thoughtful and caring messages that i've been reading over the past few months.
This is my first post, so i hope i'm doing it right.

Lynn Gilderdale got ME when she was 14 and she commited suicide about a year ago.
Her mother, Kay, has recently been aquited of a murder charge, and an assisted suicide charge, by a jury.
The judge was extremelly sypathetic to Kay and her daughter, and said that the murder charge shouldn't have been brought to a court.
The case is getting a lot of press coverage in the uk at the moment.

'Panorama' on BBC 1 (in the uk) has got a special program this evening (monday) all about Lynn and Kay.
Panorama, Monday, at 8.30pm on BBC 1.

It looks like a really in-depth interview with Kay.. the panorama website says that the team followed Kay for a year with their cameras.

panorama website pages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qs930
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stm

Also, here is some coverage on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8481751.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8479211.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8481021.stm

And here is a related, but different, story in the Times... it's a very sympathetic and supportive story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7008987.ece

And here is a completely different story, for a bit of light relief... it's very funny, and kind of relates to people with ME... sort of...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8485559.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8484116.stm

 

[Chris]

Bob, with the BBC and the Times giving this kind of coverage, maybe change will start in England--let's all hope so. And welcome to this forum--it really is a great space, thanks to all the work of people like Cort, Jody, Kim, Advocate, and all the others. We are all bleeding over the news from England, though the situation in the US and Canada is not that much better except for a few bright spots. Best, Chris

 

[Abraxas]

Hi Bob and welcome :Retro smile:
I too was another lurker here on the forum since the XMRV news in October and only recently joined

Thanks for the reminder about tonights Panorama programme, I'd forgotten about about that.

And here is a completely different story, for a bit of light relief... it's very funny, and kind of relates to people with ME... sort of...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8485559.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8484116.stm

I read about the 'Pyjama-wearing mother barred from shopping at Tesco' in a paper last week, funny :tear:

 

[sproggle]

'Panorama' on BBC 1 (in the uk) has got a special program this evening (monday) all about Lynn and Kay.
Panorama, Monday, at 8.30pm on BBC 1.

It looks like a really in-depth interview with Kay.. the panorama website says that the team followed Kay for a year with their cameras.

Hi Bob and welcome

Got it set to record :victory:

I wasn't sure how much of it would be about Lynn and Kay and how much would be about the more general right to die issue. But if they followed Kay for a year must be very in depth!

thanks for the links &info

 

[usedtobeperkytina]

I hope this helps you guys in UK.

Tina

 

[flybro]

Kay Gilderdale Tonite BBC One at 8:30 pm Panorama

Please kepp the thread bumped so ppl pick it up, for UK only maybe, hoping lumi may put it up la8r, fingers crossed.

UKers can also get it later on iplayer

 

[Mark]

Nice one Flybro, spotted this just in the nick of time, thanks for that!

 

[Esther12]

I'm not going to be able to watch, but bumped for the TV crew.

edit - beaten to the bump by mark!

 

[thefreeprisoner]

Just finished watching. Made me all teary-eyed. So very sad.


... dignified, reverential silence ....


Very very clearly put across just how serious M.E. can be. Hopefully this will raise public awareness, because how you can get away with saying it's somatoform after seeing that, I have no idea.
What frustrates me is that nobody is talking about how Lynn could have been fit and well by now if Wessely et al hadn't come out with their disastrous thesis in 1988 which limited all research from that point on.

Rachel xx

 

[Sasha]

I just watched this, have been weeping buckets. Poor Kay! Poor Lynn! Just awful.

I emailed Panorama last week asking them to at least mention the UK ME biomedical research charities, given that they had a great opportunity in their programme to help other people like Lynn by so doing but they didn't. Disappointing but the focus was on the more general issue of the law around assisted dying so I suppose it's understandable.

Sir Terry Pratchett is up next on BBC1 (now actually, I'm recording it) talking about assisted dying (he has early onset Alzheimer's). What an evening! I'm impressed that there are such brave people who have the strength to go public on such personally distressing issues for the public good. They're really extraordinary.

 

[froufox]

I watched it too and I agree it was just so incredibly sad to watch and I couldnt help but cry too. It was disappointing it was mainly about the law about assisted suicide though at least people can see how serious ME can be.

I totally agree with you Rachel, why arent people asking these questions about why there was no proper medical help for her?? No-one is questioning this at all.. even though it is not really surprising given the lack of attention ME has had it is still really incredible that the whole thing is permeated by such an atmosphere of denial.

I feel so sad and angry, that Lynn's life ended not long before the discovery of XMRV and to think that she might have well have had the possibility of at least a partial recovery after all the suffering she went through.

 

[Sasha]

I totally agree with you Rachel, why arent people asking these questions about why there was no proper medical help for her?? No-one is questioning this at all.. even though it is not really surprising given the lack of attention ME has had it is still really incredible that the whole thing is permeated by such an atmosphere of denial..

There's been a really peculiar disconnect in the way that the UK media have covered this. I haven't seen a single instance of the Lynn's story being covered and her diagnosis of ME being questioned - i.e. there has been an implicit agreement by the media that ME is a serious disease that at its extreme can cripple you to the extent that you're so physically ill that people can justifiably help you to end your own life. And yet if they do a story on ME it's all hedged about with to what extent people with ME might have psychological problems. Certainly this time round the balance of the coverage of the general ME issue has shifted to favouring physical causes but it's as though the newspapers have no memory of how they've been reporting the illness for the last twenty years. And we think we're the ones with cognitive problems! Weird.

 

[garcia]

Great post Sasha. I was incredibly disappointed with the programme too. Imagine if the programme had been about ME instead of assisted suicide. Think of the good that good have been done.

This kind of cognitive disconnect is typical of the British Media where events are seen in complete isolation when politically convenient. It would be politically incorrect to ask why Lynn Gilderdale and her family ended up in that terrible predicament. Much better to focus on "safe issues" like assisted suicide.

 

[Countrygirl]

Hello everyone,

As a result of family illness, I'm not able to participate much in the forum just at the moment, but would like to share with you that I have heard that Lynn's autoposy results are being withheld until they are officially published. I know the rumour is that her spinal cord was inflammed, but I had no confirmation of that. We are just going to have to wait. I do not knowyet in what form the publication is going to be.

 

[Min]

it's here, but I think only UK bods can access it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stm


It was so very very sad, I was in tears for all the family had gone through.

They did not mention her vaccination triggering the illness, or the lack of treatment for M.E., or the abuse she allegedly received in hospital - being forced to exercise until she became paralysed. I hope the truth comes out somehow.

 

[V99]

The presenter, Jeremy Vine, mentioned that ME isn't terminal. How does everyone here feel about that? considering those that have died, like Sophia Mirza.

I emailed Panorama regarding this matter to explain that some people do die.

Is it a question of the definition of terminal? or that it depends how sick you are? or what the underlying cause is? Or is it all of the above?

 

[Elliot]

I think it goes by the fact that people can die through m.e via complications but not directly from m.e?
I think..:S
Though don't quote me on that, not too with it
But there's all this research about increases rare cancers in m.e/cfs patients by Doctor Peterson soo.

 

[V99]

Does the media describe AIDS as terminal? patients don't die from that directly.

 

[froufox]

Yes I totally agree with you Sasha, it is very very odd and I think disconnect is the perfect word. I just feel that nowadays there is a real dumbing down of tv and a lack serious journalistic enquiry and investigation...its a kind of apathy isnt it and I think garcia is right that is a collusion of the media to not question the 'authorities' and look at the bigger political picture...no-one seems to have the courage, intelligence or compassion to do it. And I guess as is with the case of ME in general it just shows the power of "medical hegemony" and the extent to which the media are in cahoots with this and not question the status quo. There is far more obsession with celebrities these days isnt there than with serious matters such as this - it just shows how shallow the world has become.

I really do think that we have a lot of potential power to influence this tho...V99 I have emailed Panorama this morning too asking to do a serious investigation into ME, I also mentioned Sophia Mirza. It would be great if as many of us as possible could do this. I think that now is a very appropriate time after the Gilderdale case.

There's been a really peculiar disconnect in the way that the UK media have covered this. I haven't seen a single instance of the Lynn's story being covered and her diagnosis of ME being questioned - i.e. there has been an implicit agreement by the media that ME is a serious disease that at its extreme can cripple you to the extent that you're so physically ill that people can justifiably help you to end your own life. And yet if they do a story on ME it's all hedged about with to what extent people with ME might have psychological problems. Certainly this time round the balance of the coverage of the general ME issue has shifted to favouring physical causes but it's as though the newspapers have no memory of how they've been reporting the illness for the last twenty years. And we think we're the ones with cognitive problems! Weird.

 

[thefreeprisoner]

It's tricky isn't it? HIV by itself doesn't cause death but the illnesses you catch once you develop AIDS do tend to cause death.
So with ME, Eliot, you're quite right, you die of the other related complications. But if you didn't have ME you wouldn't have died.

The thing that confuses me about for example Sophia Mirza - the paradox at the heart of her case - is, had she been believed, they might have fed and watered her intravenously, meaning she wouldn't have suffered renal failure. As it was, they thought she should be able to swallow by herself. Thus she died. As far as I understand it.

Really, they should have put on her death certificate "Died of medical ignorance" or "Died of failure to be taken seriously".

-Rachel xx