January 2010 : ME Free For All

January 2010 : ME Free For All: "As an M.E. sufferer of over three years, I wish to protest most strongly at your promotion of a poll questioning the legitimacy of my illness (Is M.E. real?).

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html

M.E. has been listed as a neurological disease by the World Health Organisation since 1969 and, as my diagnosis came from my GP, one would assume she knew what she was talking about and would not diagnose anybody with something that did not exist.

A year ago I lost my disability benefits solely because of the bias and misinformation held as `truths' by some doctors who work for the DWP - this was despite having physical tests results showing massive cell damage going on inside my body and providing irrefutable evidence of the physiological nature of my disease which is responsible for the overwhelming pain and fatigue from which I suffer."

"I have had CFS/ME for more than 14 years. It has destroyed everything - careers, relationships and taken me to the very edge of sanity.

I live a life of isolation, pain and exhaustion. Normal activities are off limits to me.

I have excrutiating pain under all of my skin like barbed wire.

Such has been its ferocity this year that I have seriously contemplated suicide.

That you should visit such a mischief-making poll
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html
on people like myself is all the evidence that I need that our society is in trouble.

Your newspaper's disregard for the suffering of others is typical of the tabloid obsession with cheap thrills no matter what the cost.

Walk a mile in my shoes. Quite frankly you couldn't.

Yours faithfully
Adrian Bonds"