Australian teenager tells story of threats and mistreatment

He was in the game from the early days. The Dubbo studies surprised me as they were so different from the shocking psychological stance taken in the writings of Lloyd and Hickie before that.

 

That never fails to horrify me.

 

Well, the official title of the Dubbo study is “‘A prospective study of the psychiatric & medical characteristics of post-infective fatigue & chronic fatigue syndrome”...

https://meaustralia.net/2018/05/06/...gensis-of-melancholia-and-other-wasted-money/

 

I thought it striking how your history of ME in Australia effectively commenced with Hickie in 1992. It is almost as if they learned how to do the really bad stuff from the CIBA Symposium, 12-14 May 1992. Hickie and Lloyd were both prominent. Perhaps there were late evening seminars on how to snaffle all available research funding. Someone must have had experience.

 

It would be interesting to know when that view changed. I am presuming that the history is written up in the way it was because there was some change of attitude in the early 1990's to reflect that elsewhere.

 

There were researchers publishing things on ME from Australia in the 80s. Unfortunately, Australians tend to follow the lead of the rest of the world and this is no exception. Australians were following the lead of the CDC (1988 Holmes) and UK psychiatrists (Oxford 1991) to separate ME from CFS and it's typical infectious trigger (Chronic EBV syndrome) and focus diagnosis entirely on the symptoms of fatigue experienced over a long period of time (6+ months). This view, led by Lloyd and his friends quickly became the dominant view.

 

Interesting. I was just forcibly struck by the coincidence of the grant application in 1992 regarding chronic fatigue and neurasthenia, which seemed so similar to much of the goings on at the CIBA conference. Lloyd must have returned to Australia in late 1992 from Fort Detrick. (All right then, the National Cancer Institute, but Frederick, Maryland I view with suspicion.) There seems to have been a surprising conformity of views emerge, which were wholly at odds with the prior "mainstream" view.

 

Here is Lloyd 1988 talking about how much better the name "CFS" is than "ME". https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(88)92107-1/fulltext

 

The full text is no longer (?) available for free unfortunately. Did anyone happen to save a copy?

 

There's also a reply by Ramsay to the Lloyd et al article that is not accessible via the link given (better not click the link given at that time by Anniekim, my computer gave a safety warning for the page). If anyone has that, I'd be interested as well.

(Tagging you too @anniekim , although you haven't been online for a while. I hope you're doing ok.)