First, may I add my support to the motion as set out on the Order Paper and congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on leading the way in securing this debate and also on her excellent speech.
I spoke in a previous Westminster Hall debate and later put down written questions on ME on the basis suggested by Dr Ian Gibson, whom longer-standing Members may remember as the Labour Member for Norwich and a distinguished medical scientist in his own right. Ian was incensed by the use of graded exercise therapy. He said that it was less than useless and actually damaging to sufferers as well as causing them pain and raising false optimism that such therapies would work. Given that ME causes extreme fatigue, suggesting more exercise seems to me about as sensible as asking frostbite sufferers to walk about in snow. The other suggested treatment, cognitive behavioural therapy, helped to underpin the myth that ME is a psychological problem, not a physical condition. Neither of those supposed therapies should have been given credence and efforts should have been focused long ago on discovering the real causes of ME and on undertaking proper and thorough research to develop effective treatments.
I first became aware of ME more than 25 years ago when two of my young relatives were found to be suffering from the condition. The fact that I was not aware of ME until then is itself extraordinary given that some 25,000 children are estimated to be suffering from the condition. That is more than 38 children, on average, for every one of our constituencies.
I later became informed of sufferers in my own constituency and recall one man in particular who suffered constant pain and had to lie in a darkened room because he could not bear the light. Such symptoms are well known, but, of course, like so many illnesses, the severity of symptoms can vary greatly. MS, for example, can advance rapidly, or can remain fairly mild and stable for many years. Such variations do not invalidate the condition.
I have mentioned children with ME, but if all adults were included, the figure reaches 250,000, or nearly 400 per constituency; it really is that serious. The impact on the lives of those constituents is enormous, but the cost to society and to the economy is over £3.3 billion a year—an enormous sum. Therefore, finding causes and
discovering effective treatments are vital. Funding research must be a priority, first, to reduce the level of suffering, but also to reduce the wider social and economic costs. Research into ME represents just 0.02% of all grants given to funding agencies—just one 500th of the total, a pathetic amount.
In conclusion, I hope that we are now putting behind us all the myths and misdiagnoses related to ME. It is a physical condition and it is causing untold suffering. Recent research has looked very promising, and has pointed to possible causes of ME. One factor in particular has recently received publicity—the overactive immune system in many sufferers. It seems that we are starting to move in the right direction. We must congratulate the scientific and medical researchers who have done, and who are doing, so much valuable work towards finding solutions to the scourge of ME and alleviating the suffering that it causes.
I hope that Ministers and other hon. Members will take note of the reports in “Breakthrough”, the journal of ME research—