This is an attempt to gather a number of useful and interesting documents relating to ME.

Scientific material about ME

Subjects + summaries	Type	Size	From
Ten discoveries about the biology of CFS (pdf)	pdf	154Kb	cfids.org
This is by prof. Komaroff (Harvard) and is a brief pdf file that lists ten reasons why ME is not at all "all in the mind" and ME is a real organic disease
Canadian Diagnostic Criteria	pdf	529Kb	InvestInMe
This is a medical report prepared for the Canadian Government by 14 medical doctors and professors, that is widely regarded as the best medical summary and the most sensible criterions to define ME. This is the full version with additional material. On the net there are various briefer versions. See the next item.
Canadian_Overview	pdf	976Kb	InvestInMe
This is a more popular and readable version of the last listed Canadian Diagnostic Criteria prepared by two doctors who wrote the Criteria. It provides the best overview of ME for people who did not study medicine.
Dr Byron Hyde's Nightingale ME Definition	pdf	98Kb	InvestInMe
Dr Hyde treated many patients with ME and prepared in 2007 his own definition for the Gibson Enquiry. This is it.
Dr. Byron Hyde's Little Red Book	pdf	143Kb	InvestInMe
Dr Hyde's 2006 description of what ME is and isn't.
Dr. Myhill's CFS Book	pdf	6.9MB	drmyhill
Dr Myhill treated many patients with ME and has developed a specific set of tests and treatments. This is her book about it.
Dr. Myhill's mitochondrial theory	pdf	1.6MB	IJCEM
Dr Myhill has a specific theory about ME viz. that it is due to a malfunctioning of the energy-pathway in the mitochondria, which is a theory I am myself a bit partial to, because I thought up much the same theory for my complaints in 1987.
Dr. Bell's mitochondrial theory	html	29Kb	InvestInMe
Dr Bell treated many patients with ME and also developed a theory about it. The above reference is to a html-file. There also is a book on paper by him on his theory, for which see his booklist on his site.

Important sites with much material

InvestInMe	InvestInMe: InfoCentreLibrary
This is a well-done extensive site with much material and many pages (left) and a fine collection of html and pdf files (right) part of which is linked on the present page.
Phoenix Rising	Phoenix Forums
The left links to a fine site by Cort Johnson, an American with ME for some 30 years, which much material and many files. He also created a forum (right) about ME/CFS which has at present nearly 1500 members, that must be interesting for anybody with ME or with an interest in ME.
David Axford	Dr. Ellen Goudsmit
David Axford is an English ex-seaman with over 30 years and an extensive site, on which there are many papers/pages by Dr. Ellen Goudsmit, who is a psychologist with over 30 years of ME.
DoctorMyhill	Dr. Myhill's ME-Book
These are the same links as above and are repeated here because especially dr. Myhill's book may be helpful - in some respects - for persons who do not have access to a good medical doctor who is informed about ME.
Hillary Johnson	The Why
Hillary Johnson is an American investigative journalist with ME since decades who wrote a fine book about the oddities surrounding ME in the US in the 1980-ies and 90ies. The book is called "The Osler" and the left side gives the link to the site about the book, while the right site gives the text of a lecture by Hillary Johnson in May 2009 that explains and comments some of medical, political and institutional mismanagement of ME.
The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.	The medical facts about ME
This is an extensive site hosted in Australia by patients with ME. It is a good systematic overview of the facts about ME.

The controversy around ME

In fact, there are quite a few controversies around ME, but most of them are connected to if not caused by the fact that three groups of mostly psychiatrists - organized around doctor Reeves in the US, doctor Wessely in the UK and doctor Van der Meer in Holland - have succeeded over the last 20 to 30 years in (1) psychosomatizinig ME: according to them it is a psychiatric disorder without somatic basis and (2) manipulating the research funding for ME into the pockets of psychiatrists of their own kind and not into any scientific biomedical research.

This is odd for various reasons four of which are that (a) the theory of Wessely and co. is not properly scientific or rational in any decent sense of the terms "scientific" and "rational"; that (b) there is a lot of excellent biomedical evidence that ME is a real organic disease, as indeed it is according to the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1969; that (c) although not helping persons with ME, as is the normal course for such persons in the US, England and Holland, at least, since decades, surely must be profitable for governments and insurance-companies that want to save money, even so this practice is neither moral, nor medically warranted, nor legally correct, and many persons with ME, that is a real and serious disease according to the WHO and thousands of medical doctors, are without any real medical or social help essentially because a handful of psychiatrists have succeeded in manipulating the health funding and governmental health policies with regards to ME; whereas (d) there are excellent scientific arguments to the effect that the psychosomatic psychiatrists of the Wessely school are mistaken in all their major claims about ME and that their published so called "scientific research" on the subject of ME is scientifically worthless and morally despicable.

This section needs more documentation, but for the moment here are three links

Malcolm Hooper	Magical Medicine (pdf)
This is professor Malcom Hooper's 2010 summary of the many arguments against the psychosomatic psychiatric school of Wessely, also with much evidence about the great harm Wessely and his co-workers have done to ill people.
Malcolm Hooper	THE MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT:   PERSECUTION OF PATIENTS?
This is professor Malcom Hooper's 2003 argument against the psychosomatic psychiatric school of Wessely, and in defense of many of his patients
Criona Wilson	Sophia and ME
In 2005 Sophia Mirza died, horribly and painfully, after having spend years in bed without help, without being able to speak or sit up, and after having been sectioned and maltreated horribly by co-workers and/or followers of professor Wessely. The link is to the website that her mother Criona Wilson made about her, her disease, death and maltreatment, and is quite impressive, also because everything that happened is given in precise detail.
Eleanor Stein	Clinical Guidelines for Psychiatrists (pdf)
Not all men nor all psychiatrists are evil, bad or mad, and Eleanor Stein is a psychiatrist who isn't and who wrote a good set of guidelines how a good psychiatrist should react to persons with (apparent) ME.

Maarten Maartensz       
last update: Mar 11 2010