A Summit of CMOs for ME

As noted in a November 2016 newsletter Invest in ME Research are to visit the Chief Medical Officer of England's office in January - http://www.investinme.org/Documents/Newsletters/Invest%20in%20ME%20Research%20November%20Newsletter%202016.pdf

As we stated "after the recent orchestrated, biased and misleading headlines relating to the PACE Trial II on children - encouraged by the Science Media Centre and establishment media organisations such as the BBC - then we felt a new approach is required."

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) is the most senior advisor on health matters in a government. There are four CMOs in the United Kingdom who are appointed to advise their respective governments: Her Majesty's Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government[1] and the Welsh Government. Each CMO is assisted by one or more Deputy Chief Medical Officers.

In England, the CMO is a member of the board of the National Health Service (NHS), a civil servant in the Department of Health, and head of the medical civil service. The Republic of Ireland has a similar officer.

The Chief Medical Officer is a qualified medical doctor whose medical speciality traditionally was public health medicine, and whose work focused on the health of communities rather than health of individuals. More recently the appointees have been clinicians without training or experience in public health medicine. In the UK, the CMO is one of six chief professional officers who advise the government in their respective health and social care disciplines.[2]

The equivalent US term is Surgeon General.

Invest in ME Research is already approaching the issues around ME with an international context.

We have already engaged with researchers and clinicians in other countries. So in this discussion we can also use the knowledge and collaborative activities from discussions the charity has had with all of our international contacts.

Along with our colleagues in the European ME Alliance (EMEA) we are looking at ME in Europe and EMEA has been working very hard within the European Federation of Neurological Alliances (EFNA) to look at ways to raise the profile of ME.
We will have news of developments here very soon.

We are also in continuing discussions with NIH on ways to improve diagnosis, research and treatments for ME.

Regarding the CMO meeting - this is a UK problem -and therefore requires a UK strategy.

Invest in ME Research has therefore invited the CMOs of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to this meeting.

CMO Visit

Accompanying us to the visit to the CMO will be Countess Mar, Dr Ian Gibson, Professor Jonathan Edwards, Dr Nigel Speight and Fane Mensah.

All of the UK's CMOs have been invited to our 12th International ME Conference 2017 in London