By David Tuller, DrPH
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This is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you appreciate my work and would like to make a donation (tax-deductible to US taxpayers) to the university in support of my position, here’s the link: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/46120
Before she retired from the House of Lords a few years ago, the Countess of Mar was a steadfast supporter of people with ME/CFS. When neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, a champion of psychosomatic explanations for unexplained symptoms, published her first book in 2015—
“It’s All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness”–the Countess sent her a letter challenging her views.
Dr O’Sullivan is in the news again for her most recent book,
“The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels is Making Us Sicker.” As she once again demonstrates, she seems to have never met a set of unexplained symptoms that she could not interpret as being triggered by trauma, anxiety, depression or some other form of psychological or psychiatric distress. As
I suggested the other day, Dr O’Sullivan is big on telling stories, even if many of them appear to be fairy tales.
Given the Countess of Mar’s dedication to patient wellbeing, it isn’t surprising that she took Dr O’Sullivan to task years ago. Below is the letter she sent to Dr O’Sullivan, dated June 9, 2015. No word on whether she received a response. (I am sharing the letter here with permission.)
Dear Dr O’Sullivan
I write to you as an Independent crossbench member of the House of Lords where I have been since 1975. I am a Deputy Speaker in the House. For more than 20 years I have represented the interests of people with ME/CFS and other MUPS. I am patron of several ME charities and Chairman of Forward-ME.
I have read David Aaronovitch’s review of your book: “It’s all in Your Head – True Stories of Imaginary Illness” and I have listened to what you had to say on Radio 4’s Start the Week programme yesterday, though I have not read your book. Aaronovitch quotes you in the introduction to the chapter on ME as admitting that “to include ME/CFS in a book primarily concerned with the description of those suffering from psychosomatic illness is foolhardy to say the least.” He goes on to say that “This is because the reaction of many ME sufferers, their relatives and friends and the organisations that represent them, to the idea that the condition is psychosomatic – caused by the mind and not by a disease – is intensely hostile. I have experienced this hostility.” I assume the last sentence refers to him personally......................................................
