The government’s long awaited report on the treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome could be in jeopardy after four key members resigned from the working group.
The move throws doubt on the validity of the report, which was due to be published in the first week of January. As the BMJ went to press, the chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, had postponed its launch on 4 January 2002.
A total of 10 people from the original working group have resigned for various reasons since it was set up in 1998. The most recent resignations were highlighted in a written question by the Countess of Mar to health minister Lord Hunt on 17 December.
Two psychiatrists, a public health doctor, and a nurse therapist have resigned, saying that the report plays down the psychological and social aspects of the condition and concentrates on a medical model. Two patients are understood to have also resigned recently.
The group was set up to consider how best the NHS could care for people with the syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or “ME.”
But with so little still known about what causes the syndrome, how to diagnose it, and how best to treat it, it is understood that the report fails to provide the straightforward answers doctors may have hoped for.
You can read the rest of this article here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121974/
Source: Eaton L. Chronic fatigue report delayed as row breaks out over content. BMJ. 2002 Jan 5;324(7328):7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121974/ (Full article)