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ME sufferers await landmark judgement
SOUTH Tyneside sufferers of a debilitating condition hope a legal challenge will lead to the re-writing of guidance on their treatment.
Medical guidelines on the diagnosis and management of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are being challenged in a judicial review at the High Court, in a case due to start today.
The case against the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has been brought by ME sufferers Kevin Short, from Norfolk, and Douglas Fraser, from London.
They are set to argue that the guidance fails to offer any significant help to severely affected sufferers, or to acknowledge the range or severity of the physical problems caused by ME.
The judicial review could lead to the existing advice, published in August 2007, being withdrawn.
Pauline Donaldson, secretary of the Sunderland and South Tyneside ME/CFS Support Group, said: "The group supports this judicial review and hopes it leads to the guidelines being rewritten, with more credence given to the evidence of people with the illness and to the emerging biomedical research findings."
More than 200,000 people in the UK are thought to have ME.
The condition can be disabling, and symptoms include fatigue, headaches, sleep disturbance and muscle pain.
Nice chief executive, Andrew Dillon, said the guidance was initially welcomed by patient groups as "an important opportunity to change the system for the better" and described the judicial review as "disappointing".
He added: "Defending this judicial review is diverting resources away from our core work of helping the NHS provide the best care and treatment."
Professor Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University and patron of the Sunderland and South Tyneside ME/CFS Support Group, will be an expert witness in the judicial review.
He will talk about the outcome at the next meeting of the group on Wednesday, February 18, at 7pm, at Bunny Hill customer service centre, in Hylton Lane, Sunderland.
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Weather for South Shields
Thursday 23 February 2012
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