Deathmaking : Check out the Facts

Deathmaking :
Check out the facts (updated)

Greg & Linda Crowhurst
4th March 2010

A UK debate is raging right now that has profound
implications for the whole ME Community. To what
extent should we accept the psychosocial model ,
because the biomedical model is not being
advocated for, developed or created by mainstream
medicine?

This issue can only be tackled, we suggest, by taking
a step back and looking at the wider picture; the
concept of death-making is a particularly useful
framework from which to begin.

Death-making is concerned with society's potential to
bring death not life to those it does not value, This
includes the unwanted unborn, unwanted children,
people with a disability, the poor, prisoners, street
people, native populations, the elderly, the
contagious, the chronically ill, the terminally ill; any
group of people that is perceived as a threat or that
has been demonized.

Any practice, action or thought that considers a
person to be less than human, less than valid, less
than equal, is potentially a death-making one.

People or groups that society do not value often
suffer the "wounds" of being regarded as:

Non human
A menace / object of dread
A threat to the norm
Waste material, garbage, discard,
excrement
Not be taken seriously
Invalid
An object of ridicule
An object of pity
A scrounger, malingerer,
hypochondriac, manipulator, user.
Childish, immature, irresponsible,
unreasonable, demanding
Better-off dead,
An economic / emotional burden
A waste of space.

(cf. Wolf Wolfensberger (1994). The Growing Threat
to the Lives of Handicapped People in the Context of
Modernistic Values, Disability & Society, 9(3),
395-413.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a771360097~db=jour~order=page )

A notorious example of death-making was the Nazi's
putting to death of sick and disabled people in
German killing centres , as an "act of mercy", the
lebensunwerten Leben; the "life unworthy of life".
“Their life is absolutely pointless..They are a
terrible, heavy burden upon their relatives and
society as a whole. Their death would not create
even the smallest gap--except perhaps in the
feelings of their mothers or loyal nurses." argued
Law Professor, Rudolf Binding and Professor of
Medicine, Alfred Hoche at the time, echoing
sentiments that date back as far as Plato and are
very prevalent today..

All of this took place against "a background of
pernicious nonsense masquerading as legitimate
scholarly research ..the unimaginable had occurred;
physicians were being encouraged, not to save life,
but to take it."

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/

Shockingly the doctor-defendants who were involved
in this Nazi death programme never expressed any
regret at Nuremberg after the war, nor did they deny
their actions. They argued that they were following
lawful orders and that in the euthanasia program
they were motivated by the desire "to solve an old
medical problem."

( http://www.aapsonline.org/jpands/hacienda/article21.html)

This "bloody conclusion of Hegelian rational utility
and pragmatic morality" began with one fatal
assumption, wrote Dr Leo Alexander, a Boston
psychiatrist at Nuremberg :

It began with the acceptance of the attitude basic in
the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing
as a life not worthy to be lived." (Powell J 1981
Abortion : the Silent Holocaust, Argos
Communications , Allen , Texas, p.34)

It is a concern that the UK psycho-corporate lobby's
stance could be considered as a death-making one,
when you look at the underlying messages and the
impact upon people with severe ME.
For example research by the 25% Group, for
the Gibson Inquiry, uncovered a shocking picture of
severely physically ill ME sufferers being labelled as
psychiatric patients, being treated with contempt by
many GP's, doctors and nurses, being locked in
secure units and shut in AIDS wards, being refused
food and being forced to participate in inappropriate
graded exercise and behavioural therapy, designed to
convince them there is nothing seriously wrong with
them. and that proper physical testing should not be
encouraged.

The psycho-corporate lobby continue to attempt to
subvert the international classification of this
disorder from neurological to behavioural; they have
infiltrated all the major institutions, they ignore and
misinterpret the biomedical evidence for ME (over
5000 research papers). and they continue to
suppress the published findings .

It is clear that the psycho-corporate lobby are
proceeding on the basis of a vague, put together sort
¬of- an- illness- that- people- may- or ¬may- not
have, rather than the strict Ramsay ¬defined truth of
neurological / enteroviral ME.

In “Magical Medicine”, Hooper (2010) argues that the policies of the psycho social lobby, the “immoral intervention of the insurance industry into the philosophy of physicians and health workers” (p.71) bears : “an alarming similarity to the National Socialist influence that spread across the Continent of Europe during the early 20th Century.
(http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/magical-medicine.pdf)

Nederlog chillingly summarises :

“GET = Graduated Exercise Therapy: This is based on the thesis that those who claim that they are too ill, too much in pain or too exhausted to work should be forced to work, or at least to work harder than they do already, hackled as they are by psychotherapeutical nurses and doctors and blackmailed as they are with loosing their health-benefits if they don't comply gladly and thankfully with CBT and GET.
This transparently benevolent and beneficent therapy, and its combination with CBT, is once again among the masterful contributions to the benefit of mankind of professor Wessely (and his able co-workers), and may be summarized quite adequately in German as "Arbeit Macht Frei…...”
http://www.xs4all.nl/~maartens/log/2010/NL.htm


Don't be misled by any organization who says they
represent people with ME. Check out the facts.

Do ask the following questions:

Are they calling it Myalgic Encephalomyelitis?
) Are they calling it ME/CFS?

Or are they leaning towards a psychiatric definition?

Are they calling it Myalgic Encephalopathy?
Are they calling it CFS/ME?
Are they calling it CF?
Are they calling it Functional Somatic Disorder?

Currently we have a situation where anyone with
fatigue is being given a CFS label, confusing the
whole issue of who has ME and who does not. The
psycho-corporate lobby says let' us make it a
syndrome rather than a disease, let us call it "CFS"
and then let us bury the ME "needle" in a whole sea
of undefined illnesses and limited symptoms; the
CFS "haystack". Let us bury the illness in a host of
confusion and vague illnesses and then say we know
how to 'treat' it using rehabilitation techniques. Let
us focus upon fatigue and those who might respond
to Graded Exercise therapy and Cognitive Behaviour
Therapy, even though those with true ME are saying
that these practices will harm them.

If you actually have neurological multi-system
enteroviral Ramsay-defined ME then you have to
develop awareness of the current state of ME politics
and treatment in order to stay safe. These are
dangerous times for the truly physically ill ME
sufferer, who is still being left to flounder often
without any medical support or back up, monitoring
or treatment., who may be given a wrong or
minimised prognosis, will not have all the symptoms
investigated appropriately and who will most likely
struggle to obtain benefits and appropriate GP
support.

In order to survive, you need to be aware of the
whole list of your neurological / cognitive /
autonomic / neuroendocrine / immune system
malfunctions and then ask what symptoms are being
focussed upon by those who treat / represent you.

Are they acknowledging that you have a
disease?
Are they respecting your biomedical
symptoms?
Are they using the Canadian criteria?
Are they recognising that ME can be
deteriorative, severely disabling and can even
cause death?
Are they advocating biomedical research?
Are they pushing for proper tests?


Or

Are they using the Oxford criteria?
Are they excluding neurological symptoms
from their definition of ME?
Are they focussing only upon fatigue?
Are they proposing a biopsychosocial model
incorporating CBT/GET and a strict pacing
regime?
Are they suggesting that ME can be managed?
Are they pretending you are going to get better
even if you have been severely ill for more than
4 years?
Are they denying you have a physical illness?
Are they advocating a psychiatric approach?
Are they entering a mental health label into
your medical notes?


Because the psycho/corporate lobby's truth is a
relative one (to a political agenda), it can be
infinitely flexible, so the goal posts can be
constantly moved about by the corporate-psychiatric
lobby and the real truth of ME perverted, especially
by the brilliant infiltration of patient movements.

Be aware of the message those who
represent you are conveying.

) Are they independently and proactively
standing up for the truth that ME is a physical ,
World Health Organization classified neurological
disease?
Are they fully consulting with their
membership?
Are they disseminating information that is up to
date on current worldwide physical research?

Or

Are they implying overtly or covertly that ME is
wrong thought, wrong belief, hypochondria,
somatoform disorder, mental health issue?
Are they being influenced by any vested
interests or are they linked to any organization
or individual with vested interests in
maintaining a psychiatric paradigm for ME?
Are they attempting to undermine in any way
the WHO classification and terminology?
Are they recommending dialogue and
compromise with the psychiatric lobby, either
overtly or covertly?

Unless you understand that Myalgic
Encephalomyelitis is a neurological, multi-system
disease, which is severely disabling and can be
deteriorative, even to death, for which there is
currently no treatment and no cure and unless you
are aware of the eroding of this fact through the
clever use of language and compromising of facts,
then you are in grave danger of being misrepre-
sented by people and organizations that will not
truly represent your needs.

Does the truth of enteroviral, neurological ME fit
into the CFS paradigm? No, it does not !

If you have enteroviral, neurological, Ramsay-
defined ME, do you have deconditioning and
fatigue? Not likely !

Do you have only 6 symptoms? No, more like 60 !

Is the psychiatric paradigm going to help your
physical illness? No !

Is Graded Exercise Therapy going to help you feel
better physically and get fitter? No it is the worse
thing in the world for real ME !

Is a psychiatrist who does not believe you are
physically ill, going to get to the bottom of your
illness? We do not think so !
What benefit is a psychiatrist in the treatment of
ME? There are no treatments only rehabilitative
techniques masquerading as treatment.
Are psychiatrists spreading the truth that ME is
neurological with over 60 symptoms?

What is your personal experience of other medical
professionals, under the influence of the
psychiatric lobby? Have you been called a
malingerer, a hypochondriac, accused of putting it
on, been dismissed, told you only need
encouragement? Have you been refused home
visits, tests or treatments? It may not even be
that overt.
If you have raging neurological symptoms you will
not want a psychiatric service as your front line
treatment option; that is for sure !


The message to all ME organizations /
associations/ representatives is stark:

1. You need to step back from the minutiae of
issues and see the bigger picture and look at the
wholeness of your values, principles and
intentions. What are they validating and standing
for? Is there any congruence with the truth of
ME? Are you acting with integrity or from a
compromised truth?

2. Do not start from a false position and then sell
everyone short. You can convince yourself that
you are being "fair", or "pragmatic" but in reality
you are treading dangerously by denying the
silent reality of the thousands who are far too
disabled to stand up and speak out. Their reality
should not be compromised just because they
have been made invisible. Please do not make
them invalid as well.
3. Do not cloak the psychosocial issues in a cloud
of false, irrelevant arguments, such as : "He / she
is a nice person /Doctor / Nurse / OT"; "They
mean well."; "It is all that is available" Services
should not be about personalities or people. They
are about real issues, values, attitudes and
practices that either validate or deny the physical
reality of ME.

You cannot compromise on the truth of ME,
To do so, is to embark on a slippery slope
downwards towards relativism and away
from truth ; miles away from any hope of
proper research, treatment and a cure.

In short there are only two ways anyone
representing ME can go.
Life-bringing: straight-street, laser-sharp, from
the truth to the truth, with honesty and integrity
at the centre.

Death-making: slick, glossy, in an ever wider
circular cover-up of denial and manipulation; and
this begins the moment you compromise your
values.

You simply cannot sit safely on the fence believing
that you are being reasonable. There is no balance
to be struck between psycho-corporatism and a true
biomedical approach. People are dying right now from
this illness.

Martin Luther King, writing from his Birmingham
prison cell, in the midst of an equally impossible
struggle commented that "I have been gravely
disappointed with the white moderate.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion
that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride
towards freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor
or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who
is more devoted to "order" than to justice, who
prefers a negative peace which is the absence of
tension to a positive peace which is the presence of
justice, who constantly says, "I agree with you in the
goal you seek but I cannot agree with your methods
of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he
can set the timetable for another man's freedom;
who lives by a mythical concept of time and who
constantly advises the Negro to wait for a more
"convenient season".
Shallow understanding from people of good will is
more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding
from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is more
bewildering than outright rejection."

(Why We can't Wait, Letter from a Birmingham Jail,
Harper & Row 1963)


The greatest threat to people with ME right now,
comes not just from the psycho-corporate lobby;
they are so easily exposed. It comes from the
moderates, the lukewarmers, the pragmatists,
the compromisers right at the centre; who cannot
see the damage they are doing by negotiating the
truth away.

Beware.



~~~~~~

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