Letter, Re: Mobility benefit cheat caught after walking dogs in Weston-super-Mare (Bristol Evening Post, 27 February 2012)

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Bristol Evening Post Letters.

The thing that worries me most of all about this and other similar

stories (Mobility benefit cheat caught after walking dogs in

Weston-super-Mare, Bristol Evening Post, 27 February 2012 --

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Dog-walker-caught-dishonestly-claiming-benefit/st\

ory-15332000-detail/story.html),

is that readers will reason this way: This person is said to have

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and is now known to have been been

fraudulently claiming some kind of disability benefit, at least some of

the time. It is said that CFS is exactly the same thing as M.E., y'know

that 'Yuppie flu' thing. Therefore (and the headline becomes), all M.E.

sufferers are cheats and malingerers.

The truth is that M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) is not the same thing

at all as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is such an indiscriminate

collective term that there are not many conditions you could not make it

synonymous with if you really wanted to. The erroneous conclusion is

that genuinely ill people with M.E. and many other long-term serious

illnesses are assumed guilty until proved innocent and battered

mercilessly by the government's foreign agent, Atos, to such an extent

that many of them disappear off the lists, some become dependent on

charity, some homeless and some choose to end it all. Such a shame that

the vast majority are judged by a tiny few and no one seems to ever get

a better understanding of it all.

Yours sincerely

drjohngreensmith@...

Dr H Greensmith

ME Community Trust.org