Invest in ME Welcomes Conservative Leader Contender's Support for ME Sufferer's Mother

Added: (Sat Nov 19 2005)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Invest in ME welcomes the news that David Cameron, candidate for the Conservative party leadership, has responded to a mother’s plea for help by stating his support for Norwich MP Dr. Ian Gibson’s call for an independent inquiry into the treatment of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). We also applaud his decision to write to the Secretary of State for Health to look into the concerns of this mother of a severely-affected child with ME.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.) is defined by the World Health organisation as a neurological illness (code WHO-ICD-10-G93.3). The Medical Research Council has not agreed to fund any applications for biomedical research into ME. Yet with at least 250,000 sufferers of ME in the UK alone, many of them children, ME is estimated (by parliamentary EDM 260) as costing the UK economy £3.5 billion per year.

Flora McKenzie, from Oxfordshire, had written to Mr. Cameron to seek his support and to express her concerns on how ME sufferers are treated and how the lack of proper biomedical research funding is hampering the chances for her daughter, Samantha, to recover from this debilitating organic illness.
Mrs. McKenzie’s letter to Mr. Cameron was part of the ME and My MP campaign, which was initiated by Invest in ME, to back the Gibson inquiry and obtain wide backing from MPs across the country for funding of biomedical research into ME

David Cameron’s response to Mrs. McKenzie comes at a crucial stage where privately-funded biomedical research may be on the verge of identifying key biological markers which will possibly facilitate a treatment for ME.
With Mr. Cameron’s support for the Gibson inquiry Invest in ME will continue to lobby for awareness of ME ( one of our main objectives) as well as campaign for public funding to be provided for biomedical research into ME.

We invite all ME sufferers and their carers/parents to join us and make a difference in our continuing ME and My MP campaign.

More details on our web site at www.investinme.org or to Sue Waddle – 02392 252365 or Kathleen McCall 02380 251719 or Richard Simpson 01603 701980.