Interview with Professor Jonathan Edwards about the British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS

The British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS, known as BACME, defines itself as “a multidisciplinary organisation providing information, resources, education and networking opportunities to UK professionals to deliver high quality care” to people with the illness. Its members include psychotherapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, physicians, and others involved in delivering services to patients. Formerly known as the British Association of Clinicians in CFS/ME, the group was long-known as a stronghold of the graded exercise therapy/cognitive behavior therapy (GET/CBT) approach to treatment. However, in 2021, a new set of ME/CFS guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence rescinded prior recommendations for these two treatments and assessed the quality of the evidence to support them as either “very low” or merely “low.” BACME has since made some not-very-impressive efforts to adjust its orientation and align itself more closely with the new NICE guidelines. Last year, it published a revision of its “ME/CFS Guide to Therapy.” Earlier this week, Jonathan Edwards, a professor emeritus of medicine at University College London, and two colleagues sent an open letter to BACME, offering a sharp critique of its therapy guide. (The two co-signers were physiotherapist Michelle Bull and psychologist Joan Crawford.) I spoke about the issue this morning with Professor Edwards. (I referred in the video to the British Association of Clinicians for ME rather than the British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS.) BACME Therapy Guide 2025: https://bacme.info/wp-content/uploads... Edwards Letter: https://www.s4me.info/threads/an-open...