Letter to Prime Minister

Derek Enlander M.D.
860 Fifth Avenue
New York NY 10065
               212 794 2000        
denlander@aol.com


23 Dec 2009

Dear Prime Minister

New medical research, relating to M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and the XMRV virus, have shattered the MRC belief that M.E. is a psychiatric condition.

The Chief Medical Officer( CMO) and MRC have for many decades adhered to the idea that these patients could be lined up as a psychiatric problem.

Certain British psychiatrists used this notion for their own self interest in obtaining government research grants and conflict of interest payment from disability insurance companies.

The recent M.E. research is not necessarily related to the resignation of Sir Liam Donaldson from the post of Chief Medical Officer(CMO) together with the resignation of the chief executive of the Medical Research Council, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz.

These resignations however give the present or next government a chance to clean house.

Both these gentlemen have failed the thousands of patients who suffer from myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.), not only failed to recognize their disease but have gone one step further and labeled them as psychotic or neurotic.

They have thus been deprived of proper treatment and relegated to a psychological cognitive training or worse still a Graded Exercise Therapy (GET), both of which are defined in medical literature as useless and in some cases dangerous. 

Both these gentlemen failed to react or examine the motives of psychiatrists promoting these methods.

M.E. is a physical disease and British Medical establishment must recognize the fact and
underwrite proper research rather that promote useless psychiatric methods.

Yours Sincerely

Dr Derek Enlander
New York