By David Tuller, DrPH
October is a crowdfunding month at University of California, Berkeley. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a donation to the university (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) here.
In the last few years, geneticist Chris Ponting, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, has become a leading researcher in the field of ME/CFS. He is the principal investigator of DecodeME, a large gene-wide association study funded with a major grant from the UK’s Medical Research Council. This week, he published a commentary in The Conversation, an online site that posts articles from academics seeking to write for a larger audience beyond those who read the peer-reviewed literature.
The headline–“Ignored, blamed, and sometimes left to die – a leading expert in ME explains the origins of a modern medical scandal”—pretty much sums it up. Professor Ponting’s article is an impassioned, heartfelt plea for greater understanding and awareness of the terrible plight of patients and the neglect that they have been subjected to by the health care and medical systems. He and I spoke earlier today about the friendship with a university mate that prompted his decision to focus on ME research, widespread misogyny in the medical profession, and related issues. (We had a bit of a time lag in the call, so occasionally we seem to be talking over each other.)