Chronic fatigue syndrome

The recent acquittal of Kay Gilderdale, who had been charged with the attempted murder of her 31 year old daughter Lynn, has led to blanket press coverage this week. She was given a one year suspended sentence for the lesser charge of aiding and abetting suicide, to which she had earlier entered a guilty plea. The debate in the media has focused on the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide, the wisdom of bringing a prosecution for attempted murder, and whether the law needs to be changed.

Yet perhaps the most striking aspect of the case from the clinician’s point of view is the largely uncontested media portrayal of a condition referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (now commonly if unsatisfactorily called CFS/ME) as a progressive, paralysing, and commonly fatal illness. Little has been said in the media about the uncertainties and controversies that this diagnosis has always attracted. The details of the Gilderdale case and the coroner’s inquest and postmortem are not available to us, so it would be inappropriate to comment on this specific case, and as in any criminal …