If you know anything about the history of post-infectious illnesses, like Long Covid and ME/CFS, this happening in The Hague is hugely symbolic. A crisis of choice built on hubris and perpetuated by failed systems that refuse to learn from destroying millions of lives.

Guus Liebrand aan het woord...(foto: Lizzy Smits) Een woord van dank aan #NietHersteld en Guus die echt een wonder hebben verricht door zoveel mensen fysiek op de been te krijgen en online thuis mee te laten demonstreren. Diep buiging! Overige foto's: Yvonne Smits #PAISProtets #NietHersteld

Some photos from the #PAISProtest now happening at the Malieveld in The Hague. Looks like a nice crowd has gathered.

ME/CFS is a devastating condition that has long been denied, dismissed, psychologised and underdiagnosed. Research is at last starting to catch up with it, with glimmers of hope for those who have been left untreated for so long. There's a huge BUT coming ...🧵 www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

#MaeveInquest update! All credit to NHS Devon for innovating the first step towards an ME specific NHS pathway. For planned and unplanned hospital admissions, details are now public and available here, www.royaldevon.nhs.uk/services/mya...

The Irish health service has initiated a process to develop a clinical guideline for ME (#MyalgicEncephalomyelitis). I am honoured to be part of its Steering Group The process so far has been extremely progressive I am hugely optimistic that a world-leading guideline will be produced #pwME #MECFS

As a person with Very Severe ME, I hate how articles describe ME. “chronic fatigue, some people can’t exercise and work, often people have headaches and nausea”. I haven’t * left my bed in 2 years * spoke in 1.5 years * heard a human voice in 1.5 years And that’s how you describe my illness?

A Dutch #pwME urgently needs TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) because she has gastroparesis and cannot tolerate food or any other form of tube feeding. But the hospital refuses, saying they don’t provide this to pw ME. Is there anyone in the international community who can help?

Today (Sat 9th) from 6pm on LBC -Labour is trying to deter small boat crossings and neutralise Farage with scary videos. - Have ever been told your ME ‘isn’t real’? -Badenoch claims Black & white working class kids are discouraged from applying to Oxbridge & pushed to vocational quals by teachers.

I am once again contemplating this banger.

Isla's mother has been arrested under suspicion of causing her death from ME last year (heart failure). There was no inquest. Isla's younger sister (15), who also has ME, has been removed from the only people who understand how the disease must be managed. Imagine her fear. #MEKills #HumanRights

The BMJ has now published my rapid response to Miller et al's Opinion piece. www.bmj.com/content/389/...

Friends, please follow @meactnet.bsky.social and other #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #MECFS #LongCovid #IACC orgs and join in #WorldMEDay #MillionsMissing actions in May and beyond ❤️. #GreatestMEdicalScandal #TeachMETreatME #pwME #SevereME #MEKills #DontLetMEDie #JohnVsJonVsME

My friend @catofrederiks.bsky.social is launching a fundraiser for her spinal fusion. She has ME/CFS and has severe issues. Please share around, any 5€ is more than welcome 🙏🏻 🙏🏻

This is deeply shocking and disturbing, the opposite of scientific good practice. As I see it, a group of diehards promoting a discredited treatment (exercise "therapy" for ME/CFS patients) are seeking to stifle medical progress - to protect their reputations. And Cochrane has kowtowed to them. 🧵

ME ⊂ LC

I'm impressed by this handout on PEM. This is attached along with the information every GP needs to register patients with the Long COVID clinics in the Netherlands. I will put the salient text below in thread.

“We’re getting by, but we’re … Jesus, I don’t know. We’re probably going to have to tap into our retirement funds. It’s really impacted our life financially, medically, just everything.” www.hrdive.com/news/employe...

So bookmarks aren’t a thing over here?

#NEISvoid in the Netherlands: Does anyone in NL know of a facility that could provide tube feeding and also accommodate the needs of severe ME (even the stimulation of a home visit is causing crashing)? CC @uselesspriest.bsky.social

Shared research agenda setting in #LongCovid. Grateful to colleagues for being a part of this important open access work: "Priorities for Research, Education, Clinical Practice, and Policy From the Long COVID Physio International Forum." @longcovidphysio.bsky.social journals.lww.com/cptj/pages/a...

Anyone has any experience with StadHolland or DSW? My therapist has reached an agreement with them so without my #Restitutiepolis I need to go with either to continue (paid) care, but I don’t know them and I’m very overwhelmed. #NEISVoid #Nederland #Zorg #Zorgverzekering #Combinatiepolis #Help

HELP! Huishoudelijke hulp via de #WMO. Be have been offered: Veade, Origin Zorg, Tzorg and Wens je zorg. Does anyone have any experience with them or advice? We need to choose but we have zero knowledge and really need the help and that they mask, since I am high risk for COVID. #Thuishulp #NEISVoid

Survivalism but it's just a person with chronic illness.

I set up a GFM for Long COVID research. Everything will go to PLRC. gofund.me/cc9ab16a

A common response in my experience is, “I know someone who got Long COVID and they recovered.” I don’t think this one is cognitive dissonance so much as it’s an “unfortunate” reflection of the fact that many people did recover from transient sequelae.

Yes, I’m definitely #ThereForME. Too many #pwME live with darkness. We’re all poorer for it. It’s time for @DHSCgovuk and @NHSuk to finally give #ME & #LongCovid the response they deserve.

Everything is on the patient. Everything. Finding out how the illness works. Finding out you need to pace (despite what you're told). Deciding how to much risk to take with infection. Finding out how to mitigate infection. Deciding how much risk to take with treatment.

Did monetelukast help anyone? I'm aware of the black box warning.

❌ 62% of people are not confident their GP understands ME ❌ Lack of specialist ME healthcare provision forces many to go private You can help us educate the next gen of doctors through our medical student essay competition! Donate today 👇 tinyurl.com/afme-bgcc24 #pwME #MECFS #ChristmasChallenge

🚨 URGENT: Covid Inquiry🚨 Time is running out! Submit your ANONYMOUS story to the Every Story Matters portal before Christmas. After this, data on children will stop being as useful. Make sure CV/CEV families are heard! If you've submitted before, you can submit again. 1🧵

📣 OMF's StudyME Registry Has Over 11,000 Participants! 🎉 Will You Help Us Reach 15,000? Accelerate research for #MECFS and #LongCOVID through research participation. Join StudyME—a free, global recruitment tool—today 👉 ow.ly/Bhi350UlKlQ #pwME #pwLC #mecfs #longcovid

📢 New publication by Christopher Armstrong, PhD, & colleagues: "Discriminating ME/CFS and Comorbid Conditions Using NMR Metabolomics in UK Biobank." 👉 ow.ly/psV750UilEj There are only 4 days left to TRIPLE your impact! 🫶Donate hope: www.omf.ngo?form=TGN2024!

Proud to be an ambassador for #ThereforME. This campaign was launched earlier in the year on BBC Breakfast. It brings together 14 main Long Covid and ME charities. The team are lobbying hard for change. Please support and follow; youtu.be/7u40KIuz8Y4?...

I’d say it’s, “the more informed you want to be”

I don't think I've seen a single article on Long COVID (and not many on ME) that explicitly calls out that patients move between severity states. Pay attention to the prognosis of an average mild patient, say. It will improve understanding and research.

ME, whether acquired after COVID or not, is about watching - with perfect discipline and minimal emotion - your life drift away in slow motion.

Everyone with PEM/PENE has dysautonomia but not everyone with dysautonomia may have PEM/PENE. Pass it on.

It‘s a pleasure to work with colleagues such as @sunsopeningband.bsky.social @fvrhijn.bsky.social @profmarkfaghy.bsky.social and many others on the Long Covid Toolkit. Plse Support our project and donate: longcovidtoolkit.org/give #LongCovid #LongCovidToolkit

I can handle a lot but I can’t handle GPs telling people with Long COVID they’re just depressed in 2024.

In the runup to Xmas it's worth highlighting our book as a possible present for #physios and other #hcps wanting to learn about #ME. I'm still v proud of what we produced and it is still v relevant. @PhysiosForME www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781839...

New paper by Peter Novak and David Systrom that studied patients with orthostatic intolerance. One group had orthostatic tachycardia (POTS, red), the other hypocapnic cerebral hypoperfusion (HYCH,blue). Both groups had similar QASAT scores with only mild autonomic dysfunction in other domains.

Please read and sign this position. People with ME and other energy limiting chronic illness are NOT lazy. They can’t WILL themselves better. If you push them - it causes devastating harm. It’s junk science, bad medicine and it needs to stop.

HUGE THANKS 🏆 to everyone who has signed so far! We're at ✨8300 signatures✨-- can you help get us to 10k? This petition closes TODAY so please sign and share, not just here but w/your networks!

Economic burden of Long Covid in the UK estimated to be >$20 billion per year from real cohort data bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/1...

More of this from GPs. “How can all this be caused by something that’s basically the flu?”

"What did you do at the weekend?" "Got myself angry playing out hypothetical future conversations with my relatives regarding whether my by-then-severe Long COVID symptoms are imaginary or the result of social media usage. And watched a film."

This may be a new platform but it’s still possible to get #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis from COVID, and how ME patients have been treated, both in previous decades and still today, is the biggest medical scandal of the 21st century. ✌️

A timely reminder of how members of this "ideological sect" were key players in the culture wars in recent years www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This story is one of the most disturbing I've ever covered. It's about how the views of a deeply weird ideological sect affected science, medicine and the media, with devastating impacts on patients. Please read and pass on. This horror has to stop. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...