Action for M.E. and Facebook; CISSD Final Report finally published
WordPress Shortlink: http://wp.me/p5foE-2gi
Action for M.E. maintains a Facebook site at: http://www.facebook.com/actionforme
Over the past few weeks, questions and criticism around Action for M.E.’s governance, the way in which it relates to its membership, its policies and operation and its relationship with government have been raised by various users on its Facebook “Wall”.
Action for M.E. has chosen not to respond to these questions individually, on the Wall, itself, but by issuing a set of responses in a PDF document. The first document was this one: Facebook responses 20.10.09
A second, updated, set of responses was issued yesterday. It’s not clear whether these responses have been compiled by Action for M.E.’s new Policy Manager or by another member of staff, as the document is unsigned, but it’s interesting to see how the organisation has fielded these questions and concerns.
[To clarify – none of the questions for which responses were provided had been raised by me. I prefer to liaise directly with organisations for information, documents or for policy and position statements or, where applicable, obtain information via the Freedom of Information Act.]
Action for M.E. is becoming rather discomforted that its Facebook site is being used by some as a vehicle for raising political issues but you cannot take the politics out of ME. Users are already asking how the organisation intends to define “political”.
Those of us who were members, in 2003, of the joint charities’ message board “MEssage-UK” will recall how rapidly first Action for M.E., then AYME pulled out of this venture when faced with too many awkward questions; how the message board was then set for pre-moderation by the ME Association; how the moderator, Tony Britton, vetoed posts of a “political nature” without ever setting out how he was going to define what came under the heading of “political” and what did not; how the archives were sifted through for “contentious” messages by senior ME Association staff and then quietly excised without the authors being informed; how the board was closed down suddenly just days before the critical December 03 AGM in which Dr Shepherd was standing as a candidate in the Trustee elections…
When will our patient organisations learn that if they are going to place themselves on public platforms they first need to develop policies for the fielding of questions?
This latest set of responses can be opened in PDF format here:
PDF file: ONGOING FB Q and A document. 29.10.09
Answers to questions raised on the Action for M.E. facebook page, October 2009. Updated
or from Action for M.E’s website, here: http://tinyurl.com/ongoingFB-responses291009
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One of the responses is for a question raised (note, not by me) around the CISSD Project, for which Action for M.E. had acted as principal administrators throughout the project’s life (2003 to 2007).
In response to this question, on Page 23:
Question: “What was your involvement in the CISSD project Conceptual Issues in Somatoform and Similar Disorders for which you received a grant of 67k and why was this project kept so secretive from your members? Only information about it was released when freedom of information act requests were made that pushed you in to a corner where you had to confirm you were involved in it. Was this CISSD project set up with the purpose as suggested by other sources with the intent to look at changing the ME/CFS ICD-10 coding* to that of a Somatoform disorder?”
Action for M.E prefaces its reply with, “As a charity, Action for M.E. is not obliged to answer questions under the Freedom of Information Act but provides information of its free will, as resources allow.”
I should like to clarify that the Freedom of Information requests submitted by me in relation to the CISSD Project had been submitted to the Institute of Psychiatry. Information resulting out of these requests under the FOIA is available here: https://meagenda.wordpress.com/dsm-v-directory/information-obtained-under-foi-act/
One of my requests to the Institute of Psychiatry had been for a copy of the December 2007 “CISSD Final Report” from Dr Richard Sykes to Action for M.E. I had suggested to the Institute of Psychiatry’s Legal Compliance Office that the report ought to be provided with a erratum note, by Dr Sykes, addressing a number of errors he had made in the document that had come to light in June 09, when an unauthorised copy of the text had been placed in the public domain.
Unfortunately, what the Institute of Psychiatry were provided with by Dr Sykes, in order to fulfil the request, is evidently an earlier draft of the December 2007 text. It is missing the Contents page, and there are other disparities between the text that I was provided with and the Final version. No erratum note had been attached, either.
However, as part of its response to the Facebook question, Action for M.E. has now elected to publish two files. The first is a copy of the December 2007 CISSD “Final Report” to Action for M.E., the second, a copy of the “Co-ordinator’s Report”, with a covering letter and summary.
Action for M.E. has finally put these documents in the public domain!
Open PDF files here:
The CISSD Project and CFS/ME Report on the CISSD Project for Action for ME
Conceptual Issues in Somatoform and Similar Disorders
Report to be read in conjunction with Co-ordinator’s Final Report
Richard Sykes December 2007
Covering letter
The CISSD Project 2003-2007
(Conceptual Issues in Somatoform and Similar Disorders)
Summary
FINAL REPORT OF CO-ORDINATOR Richard Sykes PhD, CQSW
or from Action for M.E’s website, here:
http://www.afme.org.uk/res/img/resources/CISSD%20project%20report%201.pdf
http://www.afme.org.uk/res/img/resources/CISSD%20project%20report%202.pdf
In August, Action for M.E. had published an article titled “Classification conundrum” on pages 16 and 17 of Issue 69 of its membership magazine, InterAction.
You can read a copy of the article here, in an ME agenda posting dated 25 August 2009:
“Action for M.E. stuffs the elephant back into the cupboard”
Note that although the Project had been initiated by Dr Richard Sykes, Dr Sykes does not appear to have contributed to this article – basically an apologia piece authored by Dr Derek Pheby.
In fact, Dr Sykes and his role as instigator and co-ordinator of the Project is not mentioned in the article at all. Nor is the Project’s source of funding – the charitable Trust run by Dr Sykes’ brother, Sir Hugh Sykes, a non-executive director of A4e, the largest European provider of Welfare to Work programmes.
The December 2007 “Final Report” document has historical significance. It also contains material (including an entire Appendix) which was omitted from the “CISSD Summary Report” that the ME Association published in June, this year, having negotiated with Dr Sykes for an article. (But having trumped Action for M.E., the MEA has made no comment whatsoever on the implications of the CISSD Project nor provided its membership with an analysis of the various papers and documents that came out of it. Nor has the MEA made any comment or published any information on the progress of the ICD-10 and DSM revision processes for which the CISSD Project was initiated and has fed into.)
The document sets out Dr Sykes’ views, opinions and perceptions (and misperceptions) that had not previously been publicly available. It would have been appropriate for Action for M.E. to have negotiated with Dr Sykes for this document to have been published in 2007. Instead, it kept the lid on this project – a project that had been chaired by Professors Michael Sharpe and Kurt Kroenke and had involved many influential, international researchers and clinicians from the field of liaison psychiatry and psychosomatics – several of whom are now directly involved in the revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV.
In August, I called publicly on Action for M.E. to publish a copy of the CISSD “Final Report” on its website and to preface it with an erratum note addressing both the errors of coding within “Appendix B” of the document and also Dr Sykes’ misconception that “Chronic fatigue syndrome” does not appear in ICD-10.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is listed in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems: 10th Revision Version for 2006, Volume 3, the Alphabetical Index (ICD-10 Volume 3).
For the entry in question, see page 528, top right hand column:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7350978/ICD10-2006-Alphabetical-Index-Volume-3
Since no erratum note has been published with these documents please be aware that where Dr Sykes has written “G33.3” and “G33.4” on Pages 12 and 13 of document:
http://www.afme.org.uk/res/img/resources/CISSD%20project%20report%201.pdf
this should read “G93.3” and “G93.4”.
Why has Action for M.E. published these documents without negotiating with Dr Sykes for an Erratum?
Why did Action for M.E. not publish these documents in August to accompany the article in InterAction?
*There is no coding for “ME/CFS” in ICD-10.
Postviral fatigue syndrome is classified in Chapter VI of ICD-10 Volume 1: The Tabular List at G93.3.
(Benign) myalgic encephalomyelitis is classified in Chapter VI of ICD-10 Volume 1: The Tabular List at G93.3.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is listed in ICD-10 Volume 3: The Alphabetical Index under G93.3.
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Text version of December 2007 CISSD “Final Report” here: CISSD Final Report to AfME 2007
Text version of December 2007 CISSD “Co-ordinator’s Report” here: CISSD PROJECT Coordinators Final Report
June 2009 Summary Report on CISSD as published by the ME Association
The Editorial: The proposed diagnosis of somatic symptom disorders in DSM-V to replace somatoform disorders in DSM-IV – a preliminary report by DSM-V Work Group members, Joel Dimsdale and Francis Creed was published in the June issue of the Journal of Psychosomatic Research:
Free access to both text and PDF versions of this Editorial at: http://www.jpsychores.com/article/S0022-3999(09)00088-9/fulltext
For detailed information on the proposed structure of ICD-11, the Content Model and operation of iCAT, the collaborative authoring platform through which the WHO will be revising ICD-10, please scrutinise key documents on the ICD-11 Revision Google site:
https://sites.google.com/site/icd11revision/
https://sites.google.com/site/icd11revision/home/documents
For information around the DSM and ICD revision processes see DSM-V and ICD-11 Directory page: https://meagenda.wordpress.com/dsm-v-directory/
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