Fivefold to eightfold increase in the incidence of ME from 1980 to 1989

[gbells]

The fact that the definition of CFS included possible psychological causes was enough to let the disability insurance companies off the hook, in regards to paying billions in disability support to chronically sick ME patients. Using this newly-created disease of CFS, disability insurance companies could now refuse to provide disability support to ME patients, who were now re-labelled as CFS patients.

They could refuse to provide disability support because regulations are such that although insurance companies are obliged to provide lifetime disability support for chronic crippling physical diseases and conditions, they do not need to provide long-term disability payouts for psychological conditions.

This is right on the money. The insurance industry actually influenced the director of NIH to push the unsubstantiated psychological etiology so they could deny millions of long term disability claims. They even went so far as to only approve psychological research on ME and even misappropriated ME research funding. SSA still grills ME patients who file for disability and despite the fact that 75% of the patients are permanently disabled they don't recognize it as an automatic qualifying disease on their list of impairments. The book Osler's Web by journalist Hilary Johnson goes into it in detail. It was only because of the protest of large numbers of ME patients and their families, and the fact that medical physicians were coming down with ME and evidence from two day exercise recovery studies that NIH recanted and declared it was a real physical illness. Unfortunately, we still hear of people in the UK who are put in mental asylums because of their ME.

 

[frozenborderline]

Wow!