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Daily Mail poll: "Do you think ME is a genuine illness"

Min

Guest
Messages
1,387
Location
UK
have just sent this to

editorial@dailymailonline.co.uk



Dear Mr Dacre

I am writing to complain about your offensive online poll 'Do you think ME is a genuine illness?'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html?pollId=1015226

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis has been classified as a physical neurological illness by the World health Organisation since 1969. Your poll is just as offensive one as asking whether MS, Parkinson's or Alzheimer's are genuine illnesses.

There have been a number of recorded deaths from M.E., including Sophie Mirza's:

http://www.sophiaandme.org.uk/

and premature death is known to occur in a majority of sufferers from either cancer or heart disease. A quarter of all sufferers are house or bed bound, some spending their lives in darkened rooms in a living death of intractable pain, unable to talk, walk, swallow or even open their eyes. A horrifying number have committed suicide because they are unable to cope with the illness, the pain and the contempt they receive from the medical profession instead of treatment.

I have been severely affected for 22 years during which tome all UK taxpayer funding for my debilitating, incredibly painful illness has gone to members of the psychiatric profession who have built their lucrative careers on pretending M.E. is imaginary and thereby saved the NHS, the private insurance firms and the DWP they work for a huge amount of money.

We desperately need properly funded biomedical research and treatment, not psychobabble and being presented in the media as malingerers ( which your poll contributes to). At the moment tiny charities such as ME Research UK are undertaking all the biomedical research into an illness that affects a quarter of a million UK residents.

Please remove your poll,
 

Mithriel

Senior Member
Messages
690
Location
Scotland
I hope they pay attention Min.

I wonder if a copy of your letter should go to the press complaints commission, this is so offensive.

Mithriel
 
Messages
28
Location
UK
In light of the poll being put back up, there is now a facebook group protesting about it:

Dear Daily Mail (and World) - YES M.E IS A GENUINE/REAL ILLNESS!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=251249508448



& ME Free for All has copies of several letters that have been sent to the editor:

http://www.mefreeforall.org/January-2010.2421.0.html#c9051

Hi,

Does anyone know if the main UK ME charities have complained to the Daily Mail? If they haven't then they should do.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
Are 20% of Daily Mail readers members of the flat earth society?

Min;32935]In light of the poll being put back up, there is now a facebook group protesting about it:

I'm disgusted with the Daily Mail. Thanks, Min, for alerting us that this poll has been resurrected. Why?? I have just voted so that I could have a look at the results: 80% say M.E. exists and 20% are members of the flat earth society.

If I can manage it tomorrow, a letter from me on behalf of my friends who have died as a result of this wretched illness will be winging it's way to the editor.

Well done, Min, for having written yours already. :Sign Good Job:
 

jackie

Senior Member
Messages
591
Hi Guys! I wanted to add my thanks to Uno...for her quick Advocacy! (and to all of those writing comments)

I wish I could come up with an articulate response for the daily mail...voicing MY opinion.:Retro mad:

ME/CFS is REAL. My Doctor, a well respected, well known (in fact, a leading EXPERT in the U.S.) Infectious Disease Specialist, TELLS me it is REAL.

AND under the care of my Specialist, I take long term/high dose Antivirals to ATTEMPT to supress the Viruses that are contributing to the disabling symptoms of the REAL DISEASE - ME/CFS.

An "average" (non-ME/CFS) person takes the dosage I take for about TEN DAYS....I have been taking the same dosage for approximately 1,277 DAYS continuously! (It just FEELS like twelve THOUSAND days!:()

I would NOT be doing this unless my DISEASE, ME/CFS was REAL. PERIOD!:eek:

"Polls" like this one are such an insult to what others (as well as myself) are trying valiantly to do, each in our own way - to SURVIVE this Hellish Disease!

jackie:Retro smile: (REALly!:Retro wink:)
 

CBS

Senior Member
Messages
1,522
Is the Daily Mail a real newspaper?

How's this for the next sticky poll:

Do you think that the 'Daily Mail' is a real newspaper?

Yes?
Are you serious - ?



Just the idea of it coming up on Google when someone searches for 'Daily Mail' brings a smile.
 
K

_Kim_

Guest
How's this for the next sticky poll:

Do you think that the 'Daily Mail' is a real newspaper?

Yes?
Are you serious - ?



Just the idea of it coming up on Google when someone searches for 'Daily Mail' brings a smile.

That's funny Shane. Go for it!!!
(Be sure to add 'UK' in the title somewhere)
 

Uno

Senior Member
Messages
157
Location
Brighton, United Kingdom
Hi guys!

Apologies for not coming on sooner...all this snow has killed my wireless internet connection. Thank you for all your messages of support - bought a tear to my eye it did!

Just to let you know I spoke to the Editor again and the poll was removed...here is a copy of the e-mail she sent me.


I am very sorry about this. I removed the poll from the story and the site and I was under the impression it had been taken off completely. Unfortunately we have a technical problem on this - although I have totally spiked all formats of the poll there is a glitch in the system which reverts some programmes back to live again. By the time you check this it should be fixed...it is no longer on the 'live' site (the one we work on) and the 'cached' site (the one everyone else reads) will catch up in the next 10 to 20 minutes. I have attached a screen grab to show the poll is permanently off. As of the time of writing this, it was showing a gap at space 5.

Yours,

I have also submitted a letter to the journalist of the article as well as a few other media - basically pulling their articles to shreds and I have included comprehensive info on how the WPI study was conducted and how flawed the Imperial study is by comparison.

I shall keep you all posted..:D
 
K

_Kim_

Guest
Nursing Times

January 15, 2010

Is the Daily Mail bad for your health? by Gabriel Fleming

1211489_daily_mail_poll.jpg

If you need health advice, Beyond the Bedpan recommends the Daily Mail. Provided, of course, that you are not making it up.

The Daily Mail takes pride in its health coverage, and rightly so. Just ask the thousands of children saved from autism when the paper championed an alleged link between the neural disorder and the MMR vaccine.

And we do mean championed. The MMR-autism link went on to be categorically discredited. But The Mail battled on, brushing aside the petty protests of scientific evidence to bring its own lucrative version of truth to the masses.

Even a claim by the Media Standards Trust - that the anti-MMR claims were increasing the chances of a measles epidemic and putting childrens lives at risk - failed to dampen The Mails righteous fire.
More recently, the paper questioned the safety of the human papillomavirus virus (HPV) jab when a 14-year-old girl died shortly after being vaccinated. And the paper continued to question it even after public health officials said the girls death had been caused by serious underlying health conditions, and not by the HPV vaccine.

So it should be no surprise to learn that that the Mails sympathies extend to people suffering from myalgic encephalopathy (ME). The condition causes chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, sleep disorders, gastric disturbances and poor memory. The symptoms are often debilitating enough to prevent sufferers from working, going to school or generally leading normal lives.

And what words of advice would our favourite health correspondents have for people suffering this debilitating symptoms? It was summed up nicely in a reader poll: Is ME a genuine illness?
In other words, not only do we know nothing about your condition, but we think you might have made the whole thing up.

Shocking stuff. So shocking, that even the immovable Mail saw fit to remove the poll and apologise. An apology that neatly blamed the fiasco on an unnamed junior member of staff, and couldnt resist raising a suggestive eyebrow by reminding offended ME sufferers that there is still a great deal to learn about what lies behind the condition. Charming.
 

muffin

Senior Member
Messages
940
Blows my mind that the issue of CFIDS/ME is even up for questioning 30 years after it HIT us all. There are something like 6,000 heavy duty studies out there and very serious doctors and some researchers that have proved time and again that CFIDS/ME is terribly real and terribly disabling. So why ask this stupid question? All it takes is seeing a few sick CFIDS/ME people and most people with half a brain can tell they are indeed terribly sick and then can actually spot someone with CFIDS by how they move their bodies, the black circles under the eyes that are NOT genetic nor caused from not enough sleep from work/play, and the "running on fumes" way that we all act. I fall asleep everywhere at all times. Gee, you might think that would be a dead give away!

I am just so very tired of the CFIDS/ME situation not be taken seriously. What will it take? A huge epidemic of CFIDS/ME sick? Key people in government (Congress, Parliament, etc) getting sick or having family members get sick?
Reeves and his morons must go. Wessely and his morons must go. We need to have those 800 researchers at the CDC moved from the FAKED Swine Flu on to the CFIDS/ME research - and if they don't like it and won't do the job correctly, then they should be fired and replaced.
 

Mithriel

Senior Member
Messages
690
Location
Scotland
It is worse than that, Muffin.

When the CDC first looked at the Incline Village doctors told them that it was another epidemic of myalgic encephalomyelitis which had been known about since 1934 Los Angeles. The WHO inluded it a as neurological disease in 1969.

There had been brilliant papers describing the physical abnormalities, symptoms and signs that were found in patients. The disease had also been found sporadically. As medical techniques were improving the research was coming along in leaps and bounds.

Yet the CDC chose to disregard this vast body of evidence and experience and invented CFS which didn't even describe the population it was "discovered" in. The likes of SW jumped onto this CDC bandwagon, changing the name AND definition of ME :confused: and different again form the CDC illness.

The stage was set for massive confusion in which everyone lost except those who have built a career on the pain and suffering of patients which they have gone to such lengths to cause.

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Documented-involvement-of-viruses-in-ME.htm for a glimpse of what might have been.

Mithriel
 

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
There are something like 6,000 heavy duty studies out there and very serious doctors and some researchers that have proved time and again that CFIDS/ME is terribly real and terribly disabling
Just a point of information: many people refer to 4000/6000 papers or studies. However if you look at this issue closely, there haven't been that many studies, that's just the number of papers. Lots of papers are reviews of existing research and the like. Lots are just questionnaire research, some of which doesn't support anything. Then some of the physical research findings are negative. Not sure what the exact figure would be for the number of studies that found physical abnormalities - possibly/probably 1000 or less. And the problem with ME/CFS is that the results are spread in lots and lots of areas.