News | The ME Association - Part 189

After three years as group co-ordinator, Eileen Shoosmith will be standing down from her job at the Reading Area ME Support Group at the end of the month. The group now urgently requires volunteers to help with the following tasks: answering emails, co-ordinating social events, maintenance of a new website.

Nearly 250 people packed Hove Town Hall on September 26th to hear Prof Leslie Findley and five local ME/CFS specialist doctors led by consultant Keith Hine give presentations and enter into discussions.

ME Association medical adviser Dr Charles Shepherd is to speak at an international conference on ME/CFS in Italy on Friday. Another British participant will be the epidemiologist, Dr Derek Pheby, who heads up the UK National Research Observatory on ME/CFS. The conference has been organised by University of Pavia immunologist Dr Lorenzo Lorusso. Details of programme […]

As you may know from the Action for ME and MEA websites, James Purnell MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has agreed to address the next APPG on M.E., about the Welfare Reform Green Paper, ‘No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility.’

If anyone knows of an ME-savvy GP in central London – particularly in Covent Garden, or the WC1, WC2, EC2, W1, and W2 areas – could you please let us know?

We’re posting this message for urgent assistance from Mr Doug Fraser.

Experiences from people with ME/CFS who have been offered Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and/or Graded Exercise Therapy since the NICE Guideline on ME/CFS was published in August 2007 are wanted by a new website launched today to support the the Judicial Review – which is expected to take place over three days in October or November. 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown provided an answer on videotape – when Reading Area ME Support Group’s public relations officer Miriam Potter took up No 10’s challenge to quiz him on a subject close to her heart on You Tube.

Fatigue syndrome funding and therapy More funding is needed for CFS/ME research

Meeting to be held 3-5pm, Wednesday 8 October Committee Room 18, House of Commons.

The Rt Hon James Purnell MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has agreed to address the next APPG on M.E., about the Welfare Reform Green Paper, No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility.

Congratulations to Ms M Mitchell from Wales, who won the second prize of £200 in The ME Association’s ‘Weather Lottery’ yesterday. The top prize in the lottery is £10,000 – and the draw is held four days a week from Monday to Thursday inclusive. For details about how to enter, please click here.

The Rainbow ME Support Group covering Exeter and East Devon has placed an announcement on its website saying that it is in the process of being dissolved due to lack of support for its activities. We have therefore removed  the group’s details from this site’s database of local support groups. 

From Press Association Newswire, September 8 More than a third of patients with long-term fatigue conditions like Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) believe complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) are more effective than traditional medicine in treating their illness, research launched at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester reveals.

Health reporter Jane Elliott has written an interesting story on the BBC News website today about the creation of a new prototype wheelchair – with wheels that fold in on themselves, making it easier to transport the wheelchair when it’s not in use.

We have just heard that Rotherham CFS/ME Group was dissolved at a meeting called for the purpose last night (Friday, 5 September). This information has been supplied to various ME message boards by the ex-secretary, Mrs Irene Thorpe. Details of the group have now been removed from this site’s database of local groups.

This is a brief summary of key issues that were discussed at the September meeting of The ME Association Board of Trustees.  The full day meeting was held in Buckingham on Tuesday 2 September 2008.  Informal discussions on some of these items also took place amongst trustees the evening before.  Subjects are not necessarily placed in the order […]

From the Bromsgrove Standard, September 5 (report from Tristan Harris) The chairman of the Worcestershire ME Support Group Ian Logan has called for more funding for research into the debilitating illness.

From the Bromsgrove Standard, September (report by Lucy Thomson) A BARNT Green woman travelled to Switzerland to end her own life using the assisted suicide method which is legal over there, an inquest heard.

A new support group for parents caring for children with ME has been formed in Berkshire.