Mary Dimmock and her son have produced a valuable resource for us.
Mary has talked about the need for a full-scale policy reboot regarding this disease and this resource provides the details to back up this need.
Mary explains its origins and significance:
“Five years ago, I was working in the pharmaceutical industry when my son fell victim to myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Overnight, everything I understood about medical care and about how diseases are researched and treatments developed was suddenly turned on its head. This wasn’t medicine or science as I knew them but rather medical disbelief and disdain and a quagmire of conflicting and irreconcilable disease labels, definitions, theories and research findings. My son’s life and his entire future was and is being held hostage by a parade of biases, disinterest, personal agendas, politics and sloppy science that had been going on since before he was even born.
The bald fact is that in the last thirty years, HHS has not only failed to produce a single meaningful outcome for patients but has turned ME into a pariah. We need a sweeping reboot of every single facet of HHS’s public policy toward this disease. But HHS has been unwilling to make any meaningful changes, let alone the magnitude of changes needed in the timescale needed to address the damage that has been done.
To change the future of ME patients, we have to change the politics and the public perception of this disease. We need to break down the walls of confusion and misinformation that have buried ME. We need to find new ways to tell the shameful story of what has been done to ME patients.
With the intent of providing a tool to help with such efforts, my son and I compiled a detailed, referenced document titled Thirty Years of Disdain: How HHS Buried ME. This document is intended to bring together in one place key events in the story of HHS’s failed public policy toward this disease.
The resulting document is long, making it more suitable as a deep background reference. We are creating shorter, targeted pieces to focus on congressional leaders and the media. The community is welcome to use it if it's of benefit in their advocacy efforts. The document can be accessed at http://bit.ly/The_Burial_of_ME.
Comments are welcome and can be sent to medimmock@gmail.com. I will do my best to respond.”
Mary has talked about the need for a full-scale policy reboot regarding this disease and this resource provides the details to back up this need.
Mary explains its origins and significance:
“Five years ago, I was working in the pharmaceutical industry when my son fell victim to myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Overnight, everything I understood about medical care and about how diseases are researched and treatments developed was suddenly turned on its head. This wasn’t medicine or science as I knew them but rather medical disbelief and disdain and a quagmire of conflicting and irreconcilable disease labels, definitions, theories and research findings. My son’s life and his entire future was and is being held hostage by a parade of biases, disinterest, personal agendas, politics and sloppy science that had been going on since before he was even born.
The bald fact is that in the last thirty years, HHS has not only failed to produce a single meaningful outcome for patients but has turned ME into a pariah. We need a sweeping reboot of every single facet of HHS’s public policy toward this disease. But HHS has been unwilling to make any meaningful changes, let alone the magnitude of changes needed in the timescale needed to address the damage that has been done.
To change the future of ME patients, we have to change the politics and the public perception of this disease. We need to break down the walls of confusion and misinformation that have buried ME. We need to find new ways to tell the shameful story of what has been done to ME patients.
With the intent of providing a tool to help with such efforts, my son and I compiled a detailed, referenced document titled Thirty Years of Disdain: How HHS Buried ME. This document is intended to bring together in one place key events in the story of HHS’s failed public policy toward this disease.
The resulting document is long, making it more suitable as a deep background reference. We are creating shorter, targeted pieces to focus on congressional leaders and the media. The community is welcome to use it if it's of benefit in their advocacy efforts. The document can be accessed at http://bit.ly/The_Burial_of_ME.
Comments are welcome and can be sent to medimmock@gmail.com. I will do my best to respond.”
