my letter concerning the rsm

	Dr Scadding Dean Royal Society of Medicine Wimpole Street London W1G 0AE Dear Dr Scadding I am writing with regards to your conference on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. As a mum and a carer of a 15 year old boy who has been suffering for 4 years with severe ME, I was extremely upset to see that the majority of speakers at this conference are either psychiatrists or clinicians from psychiatric/psychological backgrounds. Only 1 ME Charity has been invited to speak, being given only 25 minutes. All others have been told to stay away. Why is that? The opinions and views of the majority of ME sufferers in NI and the UK once again will not be heard. Not one researcher who has been looking at the biomedical/organic cause of CFS has been invited to speak. Nor has any neurologist, for a condition which is classified as a neurological disorder by the World Health Organization. How can a conference which is supposed to take a “broad look at chronic fatigue syndrome” be so completely biased towards psychiatry/psychology opinions/treatments. I am gravely concerned this conference will therefore influence RSM members who will be attending into think that this is a psychiatric disorder and should be treated as such. Or maybe that was the intention of the Royal Society Medicine all along. It will have implications for the management and treatment of this illness for the thousands of people in the UK (approximately 6,750 people in Northern Ireland) with a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It will no doubt mean that therapies will continue to be offered to patients which are unhelpful, and may actually cause harm to these physically ill people. This is an insult to my son ,to me as his mother and the thousands of other ME sufferers who are left to suffer in silence. NO MORE this has to STOP. Were does this leave my son and many more like him ?. I hope that you or your loved once will not get ME as I would not wish this on my worst enemy. ME doesn’t pick and choose who it attacks so Watch out YOU could be next. This is an insult to every ME sufferer and to their family’s. Yours sincerely Antoinette Christie Belfast