I have written
a few posts about how various health entities have so far not changed the information about ME/CFS on their websites or acknowledged the revised recommendations published by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) last October. In addition to replacing the name CFS/ME with ME/CFS, the new guidelines have rescinded approval of graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) as treatments for the illness. (The guidelines leave room for CBT as supportive care rather than a curative intervention.)
The ME Association’s medical advisor, Dr Charles Shepherd, has written to a number of regional National Health Service trusts to express concern about the matter, with varied results. Recently, he sent another letter–this time to King’s College London. With Professor Sir Simon Wesseley and Professor Trudie Chalder leading the posse, KCL is home base, or one of the home bases, for the GET/CBT ideological brigades. (I mean, what else is a professor of CBT like Professor Chalder going to offer anyone?)
At some point–I don’t know exactly when–KCL’s CFS/ME service has
rebranded itself as being devoted to addressing “persistent physical symptoms” (PPS), another term for so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS). But it still highlights the importance of reversing the purported deconditioning that purportedly is a cause of what it continues to call CFS/ME. The KCL site does not, apparently, reference the new NICE guidelines or inform patients that its approach to treatment has been officially discredited.
Below is the letter sent by Dr Shepherd..............................
