News from Scandinavia

[rvallee]

They really seem to think that writing things differently than how they are makes those imaginary things happen and is the same as actually doing something for real. This is insane cult mentality.

 

[Midnattsol]

An account by Trude Schei from the ME Association of a court meeting for a severe pwME applying for disablity but NAV/Norwegian welfare argues against it as they claim most recover and it's all about motivation and other, uh, interesting takes.

Court case regarding disability benefits for severe ME (Google translate)

Some quotes:

She [NAV's consulting physician] talked a lot about “motivation,” and that a lack of faith in treatment would cause it to not work. I took it as meaning that the family and Kolbjørn lacked motivation, which was why he was still sick.

She [Signe Flottorp] also believed that it was important for recovery to read stories on Recovery's pages about people who have recovered, but that the ME Association's user surveys could not be trusted, they were probably manipulated to show the results the association wanted.

She also claimed that "many are recovering."

He [NAVs lawyer] ]said that NAV did not need to deal with the Civil Ombudsman's statement because NAV assumed that all treatment provided by the Norwegian health service was reasonable, and that one could therefore not get sicker from it. PEM was only a few hours of discomfort.

On the plus side, I do look forward to the research Anne Kielland mentioned they had not published on how patients in the NAV system do not become able to have an income/work. Kielland is one of the researchers behind the Tjenesten and MEg project that has its own thread here, where they among other things have used registry data to follow patients in the NAV system and see if they manage to return to work or not.

 

[Liie]

While formally claiming to have separated ME from functional disorders, access to documents shows that the practice is quite the opposite. At one center (Center for Functional Disorders), 41 out of 44 patients with an ME diagnosis have been recoded as functional disorders. Since 2019, four centers have had zero patients registered with an ME diagnosis and have not made the diagnosis themselves.

This sounds remarkably similar to what has been going on at the "ME clinic" in Göteborg in Sweden: https://www.s4me.info/threads/swede...e-to-avoid-the-diagnosis-me.45927/post-674111

I'm not at all surprised if this is not a coincidence. The functionalist lobby in Sweden has expressed admiration for Per Fink and Denmark.

Also related to this thread: https://s4me.info/threads/the-disappearance-of-me-cfs.38068/