The Systemic Betrayal of ME/CFS Patients Demands a Public Inquiry
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/georgemonbiot. "Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed | George Monbiot | The Guardian." September 24, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
Monbiot argues that people with ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) have been failed for decades by doctors and health systems that keep prescribing harmful treatments even after official guidelines changed to say those treatments don't work and can make things worse. Because this failure is so widespread, so damaging, and so resistant to change even after new evidence emerged, he says it's time for a full public inquiry into why the system keeps letting patients down.
Conclusion
There has seldom been a stronger case for a public inquiry into the systemic neglect, mistreatment, and abandonment of ME/CFS patients by healthcare systems.
Premises
- ME/CFS is a devastating condition affecting hundreds of thousands of people (400,000 in the UK alone), yet it receives almost no political or media attention.
- Official guidance for decades was based on flawed research (promoting CBT and graded exercise therapy) that NICE itself found to be of 'low' or 'very low' quality, leading to the 2021 withdrawal of these recommendations.
- Graded exercise therapy is not merely ineffective but actively harmful, as it can trigger post-exertional malaise, worsening patients' conditions and sometimes rendering them bedbound.
- Despite updated guidelines, testimonies from patients across the UK and internationally show that doctors continue to prescribe discredited and dangerous treatments (GET, CBT), often rebranded under euphemisms like 'pacing up' or 'building tolerance.'
- Medical professionals remain largely uneducated about current guidance, evidenced by only 74 of tens of thousands of NHS practitioners completing a new training module after a full year.
- Government bodies themselves perpetuate outdated, discredited understandings of the illness, as shown by the DWP teaching trainees the old psychological model as recently as last summer.
- The consequences of this systemic failure are severe, including patients being pushed into harmful treatments, parents being falsely accused of medical child abuse, and a coroner ruling that NHS provision for severe ME 'was and is nonexistent.'
- This pattern of neglect and mistreatment is international, appearing in countries with otherwise progressive healthcare reputations (Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Netherlands).
Assumptions
- A public inquiry is an effective and appropriate mechanism for addressing systemic healthcare failures.
- The persistence of outdated treatment despite guideline changes reflects institutional failure rather than isolated incompetence.
- Patient testimonies collected informally (via social media call-out) are representative of broader systemic patterns, not merely anecdotal outliers.
- The historical dismissal of ME/CFS as a 'hysterical' or psychological illness is causally linked to its current under-treatment, particularly given its disproportionate impact on women.
- Government and insurance incentives to minimize benefit/payout costs have measurably influenced medical guidance and practice.
- The scientific consensus has sufficiently shifted (via NICE 2020/2021 findings and recent biological research) to make continued use of GET/CBT indefensible rather than merely outdated.