Mark, I don't think I got this wrong, the figure I quoted was not my assertion, it was the figure quoted by the Minister (in the film clip) for total MRC research funding of ME during 2009/2010. I was just reporting what was said in the clip. If the figures are wrong it's because he got them wrong.
You're right, the minister did say this, and the figures are indeed wrong because he got them wrong, unless I'm mistaken. It's hard to believe that funding really has dropped to the derisory sum of 109,000 for a "strategic priority" but if that turns out to be true it looks like a darn good thing to hang a campaign on...
"As regards research into CFS/ME..." (into what now? Does he mean ME/CFS?) "...the Medical Research Council is committed to supporting scientific research into
all aspects of 'CFS/ME', including studies into the biological basis of the condition, and the evaluation of treatments, and in 2009/10 the MRC spent 109,000 on research
directly related to the condition."
My guess was - and is - that the 109k is a subset of the total budget, perhaps pulled out in response to previous parliamentary questions aimed at establishing how much of that research really was genuine biomedical research into ME.
(Lord Skelmersdale asked how much of this research was biological and how much was psychiatric, and was promised a written answer. Hopefully that will illuminate this question soon).
I had in mind the previous answer to this question, here:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-12-07c.304330.h
...which stated:
In 2008-09 the MRC's total expenditure for research relating to
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (
CFS/
ME) amounted to 728,000. This supported four projects including a 164,000 research programme led by Dr. C Clark at
Queen Mary College, London on the general and specific risk markers and preventive factors for chronic fatigue and irritable bowel syndromes. CFS/ME continues to be a strategic priority area for funding and the MRC remains committed to supporting scientific research into all aspects of CFS/ME including evaluations of treatments and studies into the biological basis of the condition."
That illustrates that 109k roughly equals one study, or perhaps part-funding of a few studies, and that the total budget is somewhat short of 1m. I've seen a figure of 850k in the same context of MRC funding, so I think that is the rough ball-park figure for the total MRC budget for ME/CFS. (there isn't a budget as such but you get the idea: a drop to 109k would seem very significant, if it were true.)
I don't know what the true figure is. Actually, I don't know if the MRC are still refusing all applications for biomedical research funding. I know they were until recently, and that the only way any biomedical research got done in the UK for many years was by private funding.
I think it may have been Dr Kerr who is said to have commented that applications for biomedical research are/were typically given 8/10 and 9/10 by two of the assessors and 3/10 by the psych, and this serves effectively to block them from funding. The psych argument always seems to be that there 'aren't any good quality proposals' - turning the blame for the situation back onto the scientific community as a whole - but it seems pretty clear that their representatives are the ones who have been passing this judgement on all biomedical research proposals.
I think that the time has come when continued pressure on these issues may at last result in a change of direction for MRC funding. This central issue of MRC funding is largely symbolic, in that the amount of money, and the amount of research that we are talking about, is pathetically small anyway. But the more I talk to ordinary people about ME, the more I find that most educated people are aware of it (but not of CFS), and tend to think that it has long ago been accepted as a biological rather than a psychiatric condition. A few people I spoke to were appalled by the news that it is still treated and funded predominantly as a psychiatric condition. All that really seems to be needed is to continue to apply pressure and to shine a light onto the reality of research funding over the last 10-20 years, and change has got to come.
As campaign points go, being able to say - with the minister's quote in hand - that ME/CFS research received just 109k last year from the MRC, while they continue to describe it as a "strategic priority", and that (say) 90% of the MRC budget over the last decade has gone to psychiatrists...those are really huge political slogans to rally round and to put to the public, and they make the case very clearly. That's why it seems so important to me to try to get to the bottom of the MRC funding for ME/CFS over the whole of the last decade, to determine accurately what was psych and what was biomedical research, and to get parliamentary answers confirming those figures. The numbers are too confused at the moment: we need to know exactly what money went to psych and what went to biomedical research before we can really make the case effectively.