24/09/2026
Abandon, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way M.E. sufferers have been betrayed. by George Monbiot The Guardian
Quote from article.
“ Official guidance in many countries was informed by a series of deeply flawed studies that purported to show these illnesses could be treated with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), or graded exercise therapy (GET). In 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) found that the quality of all the research promoting these therapies as curative treatments for ME/CFS was either “low” or, in most cases, “very low”. In 2021, it stopped recommending these therapies as primary treatments.
We now know CBT cannot treat the condition (though it can sometimes help patients to come to terms with it), while GET is not only useless but actively dangerous, as exercise can trigger one of the most devastating ME/CFS symptoms: post-exertional malaise (PEM). PEM robs people of their remaining energy, rendering many patients bedbound, sometimes incapable of almost all movement.
Since then, two other things have happened. At the inquest into the death of a young ME/CFS patient, the coroner ruled that provision in the health service for patients with severe ME “was and is nonexistent”.
Something would have to be done. And a number of seeming scientific breakthroughs, some very recent, have begun inching towards identifying possible biological causes of both ME/CFS and long Covid. Now, or so we should hope, it’s undeniable.”
Changes in guidance and science seem to have little impact on millions of devastated lives. It’s a social crisis playing out behind closed doors, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
