You know, @ Philipp, what is really hard for me to understand, too, seems to be the fact we cannot do anything legally. I just can't believe it. I just can't believe you can't do anything concerning this:
'I am a moron and all my colleagues are morons, we don't really mean anything by it' is hard to disprove as a defence from and outside standpoint. Being dangerously incompetent and being dangerously psychotic has roughly the same effect on the output produced here. So there go my dreams of locking up the entire MDK I guess.
You are absolutely right.
In general, in law, not-knowing doesn't save you from being sentenced. So maybe 278 is not applicable, but something else?
What were your dreams concerning the MdK? We shouldn't give up too easily. Maybe there is a way.
To prove intent wrt. MdK, we could need a whistleblower; or an investigative journalist; or any experience stories.
To work on several fronts could be promising. The German Association is on important fronts. We can add more.
The foundation of the re-analysis and critisization of PACE was a legal process; the authors would have never released the data without that (which, in fact, is a disgrace).
In this thread I realize I have many questions concerning the law.
Concerning Degam: They're a General Practitioner's Organisation. If you look at the authors, if I remember correctly, they are (Professors) General Practitioners. So they are no experts; on no area, strictly.
The BPS folk in the UK can claim they do research on CF(S). The Degam can't do that. The Degam strictly ignores other publications and only references to the BPS publications. That could be attacked. Because, as the Bundesrat said, actual scientific publications and ongoings have to be considered. Which, obviously, the Degam and the S3 guideline don't do.
I fear we may have to start by discrediting our own national BPS brigade based on their shitty work,
Yes! Let's think about where we could start.
but it may be harder than in the UK since there is no healthy culture of discussion in our country (in my opinion at least).
That's my opinion, too. Also, we need courage, especially to be unpleasant.
We could do with some more real professors of medicine apart from the one we have...
That one is difficult.
Of course, there's Prof. Scheibenbogen; she already is pretty engaged. Then there is Dr. Bieger - who spoke up for ME in the past, e.g. regarding Degam - then Prof. Huber, who showed willingness to help (both aren't reasearchers, but maybe that's not needed), and I know Prof. Stark who is a psychiatrist, but he says ME/CFS is a physical illness, not a psychiatric one.
Hmm... so maybe we have to find out how to discredit the bullshit arguments Henningsen et al propagate effectively as soon as we have found out more about the legal framework around which they operate.
I wanted to contact Mr. Henningsen as soon as possible, see here:
https://www.s4me.info/threads/discussion-promoters-of-bps.2043/#post-36732
I want to check out the legal frame here, too.
Please don't laugh at me: Mr. Gysi is a lawyer, and he is known to run legal cases to change the political milieu. He has an office in Berlin (with two partners); one of the areas is medical criminal law. I thought about that...(There's also another lawyer who is quite competent...)
The BPS people operate in the political frame, I'd say comparable to the UK. I think we have to consider that. One also has to understand that we have the "Roman Law"; and obviously, as in the UK, the political field stands behind the BPSers.
The FOI thing is interesting, especially if we could get a mainstream journalist interested in our problem.
I will try to keep that in mind. That's a question to ask.
How do we get a mainstream journalist? It would be
major.
People not getting pensions for ME/CFS can simply be an artifact of people not being correctly diagnosed
That's a tricky one. Since ME is diagnosed with clinical symptoms - as is depression and so on - every other doctor can say these symptoms are due to a psychiatric disorder. So a psychiatrist might say "It's psychological" and another doctor says "it's ME". It's a little bit like word against word. In a way I will see how that one will end legally (I have an ongoing case).
Sure you can the blame the DRV. They choose the surveyers. If you apply with an ME diagnosis, why are you sent to a psychiatrist and not to an ME expert?
By the way, in my opinion it is absolutely ok - and needed - to go against psychiatry in general. And I personally do. But I understand that maybe ME advocates can't do that and that both topics - at this point - need to be treated distinctly.
Most of the work was done even before I started to volunteer and all the letters written without me. I just happened to see the BMJ report on the first day it was published but I think that was the only source I contributed. (Apologies if I made it sound otherwise, I edited my post above). I just meant that when it comes to scientific evidence, the DEGAM has seen it all.
