Research goes on

Margaret Cook’s article "ME sufferers have found enemy in Wessely" (Doctor’s Notes, 6 October) shows the real battle is not between myself and sufferers of ME but between your correspondent and the facts.

I have never suggested that CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) does not exist. Unlike Margaret Cook, I have spent the past 15 years of my life looking after sufferers from this condition, and do not need reminding of the reality of the illness or the damage it can cause.

Likewise, I would delighted if anyone could find a diagnostic marker for CFS. She might like to read our 20 or so papers dealing with immunological, virological, nutritional, endocrine and even haematological aspects of CFS. No, we haven’t found a marker, but we keep trying.

Quite how Margaret Cook thinks that I, or any single individual, could block research into this condition is beyond me, but if she had read the recent Lancet editorial I co-wrote with the chief executive of Action for ME, she would have seen a powerful plea for more, not less, research into all aspects of CFS/ME.

She begins her article by saying she has "minimal expertise or knowledge" of the subject. Indeed so.

(PROF) SIMON WESSELY

Director, CFS Research Unit

King’s College London

Camberwell

London