Estimate of 560 000 Canadians from a population of 32 million, yet UK ME/CFS estimates, from a population double in size, is between 200-600 000. We have great confusion on numbers I think ? Are Canadian dollars equivalent to US because if so that’s around £1.5m, which like the Australian funds exceeds UK (comparing by population size), which is falling behind now. It Might be small but there are small efforts underway from USA, Canada, Australia and Norway now and I have not seen much from Canada before? In the UK We aren’t doing any lobbying on funding and I think that it Is astonishing the mrc, who sat in on every CMRC meeting including MEGA updates from 2013, have been allowed two years nearly to decide yay or nay to funding it, not that MEGA is actually wanted above a general funding call, if patients were actually asked.
I believe it's safe to assume that MEGA is a dead duck now. I am aware of a new large request for funding that has been made to the MRC, it looks a solid proposal but gaining funding can be a lottery at the best of times, let alone anything for ME.
Do you think? I saw at some recent minutes Dr Charles Shepherd made mention of still waiting to hear , maybe it was for the other project. I think that its unacceptable how charities just let MRC do nothing in U.K. No doubt if there is funding for the Oxford researchers it will be announced on the eve of millions missing, which is supposed to be about research funding in the UK. I actually would have thought it in their interests to at least be able to point to doing sonething to Deflect from the fact they aren’t doing anything near enough, a fig leaf suited them in the recent past rather than brazen nakedness.
No doubt any estimates any where are going to be sketchy for ME, although Canada also has the highest MS rates if that means any thing. Indeed, a group of us have been preparing for this funding opportunity since December when we met with the government in Montreal. We should receive the reviewers' decision in October-ish. Fingers crossed.
It’s about 1.3 million USD. I think it’s a start, I’d rather have that amount than zero. And maybe once they’ve built teams and started doing the work for a while they’ll want to keep it going and ask for more funding. One can dream.
