Bulletin 20

February 2005


M.E. AWARENESS WEEK 9th TO 13th MAY 2005

CHROME is a signatory to The ME Alliance’s statement:

Primary Objective
  1. To heighten awareness among professionals of the importance of early diagnosis (within 6 months adults, 3 months children)
  2. To convey public messages highlighting viral factors in the cause of M.E.
Secondary Objectives
  1. To press government to provide funds and MRC to proactively commission research into the diagnosis of M.E.
  2. Actively involve Groups and Alliance members in a unified campaign
  3. Heighten awareness of the patient organisations and support they provide

A report highlighting the importance of early diagnosis will be launched at an event in London on May 12th.  We will support this with media activity and a call on local groups and individual members to support our campaign.

PRIME

CHROME is also supporting the new PRIME project (see www.prime-cfs.org ) is a collaboration between patients, carers, researchers and service providers commited to improving our understanding of ME/CFS. With the help of  the Royal College of Nursing, PRIME is collecting information from people living with, or recovered from, ME/CFS, and is also involving clinicians who provide specialist services and researchers interested in causes and effective treatments.

PRIME is also supported by many of the other ME charities. We have provided to them some detailed samples of our data (without names and addresses) and research results and look forward to further collaboration.



    “Any other comments?”
It is clear from references in the media and from cries for help CHROME still receives from people who cannot get the help they need that the public is still ill-informed about ME.  You provide much information under the above heading.  How best can we bring it into the public domain – without breaking confidentiality of course?  There is a wealth of detail about the progress of this condition but it is a complex task to bring it into a coherent enough form to be acceptable to providers of the various services that need to understand.
  1. Have you any ideas about how, where or to whom you would like it presented? 
  2. Do you know anyone who would be able and willing to do some analysis and write ups of more ‘Stories from Below’? 
You are doing so much already but we would welcome your comments on where to go next with this particular data.


Trustees
Ray Gibbons BSc, Inge Heinrich PhD MSc, Geoffrey Jackson PhD, Ken Manley, Colin Parratt BSc,
Chris Richards PhD, Mary Simmonds, Rev Ken Street MA
Advisors
Professor Peter O Behan MD DSc FACP FRCP,  Dr E G Dowsett  MB ChB Dip Bact,  Dr Derek Pheby BSc MBBS MPhil LL.M MFPHM,
 Dr Layinka Swinburne BSc MB ChB FRCP FRCPath

CHROME 3 Britannia Road, London SW6 2HJ   phone & fax: 0207 736 3511 e-mail: secretary@chromesw6.co.uk

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