Re: Are bygone mystery maladies back under new names, Health Supplement, September 27th
The argument that CFS/ME is a cultural illness does not stand up to scrutiny. People from different countries and cultures, of different ages, interests, occupations and socio-economic groups have been affected at many different times.
This assertion that there is no organic cause is at odds with the published evidence.
Abnormalities have been found in the muscles, immune system, vascular and neurological systems of patients with CFS/ME. CFS/ME may not be fully explained yet, but we are getting there. For example, a paper published in the August edition of the Journal of Clinical Pathology reported altered gene expression in people with CFS/ME. The researchers found differences in the immune cells of patients with CFS/ME when compared to healthy people. Their findings suggest that patients are suffering from the effects of a viral infection. This research may lead to a diagnostic test and treatment for patients.
Dr Read's approach may help some people suffering from chronic fatigue due to stress and overwork, but people suffering from CFS/ME will have to look to the biomedical researchers for an adequate explanation of their illness, and for effective treatment.
Orla Ní Chomhraí,
Co-ordinator,
Galway ME Support Group
Your article Are bygone mystery maladies back under new names? referring to illnesses for which there is at present no known medical cause has resorted to psychobabble to try to explain the origins of these illnesses.
Unfortunately, this has been encouraged by a small section of the medical community, particularly of the psychiatric variety who, in the absence of as yet discovered scientific explanations for certain illnesses, have been all too ready to blame the illnesses on the patients, and to suggest that they are psychosomatic in origin. Thus in the past multiple sclerosis was known as "hysterical paralysis", while the primary cause of stomach ulcers was said to be mental stress, though it is now known to be a bacteria.
However, in the case of one of the illnesses mentioned - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), otherwise known as ME - there is now a considerable body of medical research evidence to show that it is an organic illness with physiological effects.
A recent example of this is the results of a study of altered gene expression in people with CFS and which was covered in your Health Supplement in July.
CFS is a chronic debilitating illness affecting several thousand Irish people, and it is hurtful to them to suggest that their illness is a "functional" illness resulting from a "depletion of will", especially when the scientific evidence already exists to show that is not so.
Gerry Lloyd.
Dundrum,
Dublin
Readers of the article Are bygone mystery maladies back under new names? might be interested to know that patients of many currently recognised diseases would have been told in the past that their symptoms were "medically unexplained" or "hysterical" (eg patients with multiple sclerosis, formerly known as "hysterical paralysis" up to a few decades ago).
Overconfidence in medical professionals of the day meant that many patients suffering from diseases we recognise today were exposed to inappropriate psychiatric treatment and lack of support from families, the medical profession and society in general.
The history of currently recognised conditions and how they were characterised in the past, often based on psychological speculation, should remind people not to be overconfident that "modern medicine" (as each generation calls its medical knowledge) can easily distinguish between diseases and "non-diseases".
Sometimes medical technology of the time can pick up physical abnormalities in patients and groups of patients, but the (psychological) speculation of doctors can be more influential.
Perhaps information about the changes in medical views over the years could be given to medical students so that future generations are not left as overconfident about the ability to "know" things as some appear to be now.
Tom Kindlon
Castleknock,
Dublin 15
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