"So what are ME patients and their families to do now having
received this appalling response from your office?
Despite no epidemiological study being recommended by your
government or insisted upon by the health service we can suspect, from studies
performed by responsible researchers, that there are between 120,000 and 240,000
people affected by ME in the UK.
Many of these can be expected to have some family and
these, in turn, can be expected to have immediate friends and relatives.
It would be no exaggeration to assume, then, that upwards
of two million people will be affected by the lack of healthcare
provision for people with ME – either as direct sufferers of the illness, direct
relations or friends of those affected. This figure could be a very
conservative figure.
Although Invest in ME does not hold party political views
it is an obvious corollary that two million citizens, or more, make up a
substantial number of voters who cannot be ignored and who may decide with
their votes what they think of the Labour governments’ policies toward ME over
the last decade.
It may be that ME organisations can mobilise enough of a
protest to make a difference in the forthcoming election and that would, indeed,
provide an irony where, to use your own words,
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