David Tuller published his interview with Monbiot on a blog entitled: ‘Trial By Error: Interview with George Monbiot on Recent Guardian Column', 1st October 2026
Summary
- In this interview, Monbiot says that ME/CFS and Long COVID are increasingly recognised as biological illnesses, but treatment and attitudes have not kept pace with emerging evidence.
- Patients continue to report being dismissed or offered outdated treatments, including graded exercise therapy, which can be harmful.
- Monbiot claims that institutional inertia, stigma, gender bias and financial pressures may all contribute to the persistence of these attitudes.
- Monbiot’s own Long Covid experience changed his perspective and prompted him to investigate ME/CFS more deeply.
- He calls for greater recognition, research funding, patient advocacy and an independent inquiry into how people with ME/CFS have been treated.
Extracts
“What we see here is people becoming absolutely entrenched in their beliefs and maybe out of guilt, maybe because they know that they have done so much harm by pushing these false and dangerous cures and by dominating government approaches towards the treatment of people with ME/CFS. To change your mind is to admit to the great harm that you've been doing.”
“From the point of view of both government and commerce, ME/CFS patients are deeply inconvenient. You know, they don't abide by the rules. The rule is meant to be, you know, if you get an infectious disease, you either recover or you die. It's over quickly one way or the other. But with so many around the world, millions and millions of ME/CFS patients, you don't recover, or at least not within the space of many years, you know, and for many people, you don't recover at all.”
“They are the victims of a very severe and horrible condition and yet they are being treated as if they're some bad people who just don't want to get better. And one thing I know from having communication now over the years with thousands of ME/CFS patients, if there's one thing they all have in common, it's an absolute inspiration to get better.”
“They need more advocates. They need people like you … and they need far more journalists and far more other people, far more politicians supporting them.”
Further media coverage
- The Guardian: Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed | 24.09.2026
- The Guardian: ‘You don’t want to get better’: the outdated treatment of ME/CFS patients is a national scandal | 12.03.2024