Angela Kennedy

Angela Kennedy is the author of the book Authors of our Own Misfortune? The Problems with Psychogenic Explanations for Physical Illnesses and was an advocate for the rights of the ME community from 2003-2015. She is a carer to her daughter who was given an ME diagnosis two years into her illness. She is a sociologist primarily researching in sociology of science, medicine, disability and health. Kennedy was active with the advocacy group The One Click Group from 2004-2006. She has written extensively on the PACE trial and its flaws, on psychogenic explanations for physical explanations for physical impairments, and on research methodology in the literature on ME/CFS and other conditions.

Notable articles

 * 'The social myth of mind over matter' in response to Chalder et al ('Epidemiology of chronic fatigue syndrome and self reported myalgic encephalomyelitis in 5-15 year olds: cross sectional study' BMJ 2003; 327: 654-655)


 * 'The Doctor must not close his or her mind to all possible factors in regard to treatment' in response to Chalder et al (('Epidemiology of chronic fatigue syndrome and self reported myalgic encephalomyelitis in 5-15 year olds: cross sectional study' BMJ 2003; 327: 654-655)


 * 'Re: your own worst enemy' in response to Thomas Szasz (The psychiatric protection order for the "battered mental patient" BMJ 2003; 327: 1449-1451) 29 December 2003.


 * 'When Doctors say 'Psychosomatic', What do they Mean?' Quest (Magazine of the Canadian National ME/FM Action Network) No. 66, Fall 2004.


 * 'Some serious problems in Doctors' attitudes towards ME/CFS sufferers uncovered' Response to Raine et al ('General practitioners' perceptions of chronic fatigue syndrome and beliefs about its management, compared with irritable bowel syndrome: qualitative study BMJ 2004; 328: 1354-1357) 28 May 2004.


 * ' The term 'heartsink' is an insult to patients' Response to Scott Pereira (Immunology BMJ Career Focus 2004; 329: 113-a-114-a).


 * 'Failure to consider the issue of differential diagnosis now inexcusable' Response to Viner and Christie ('Fatigue and somatic symptoms BMJ 2005; 330: 1012-1015') 3 May 2005.


 * 'Some key issues neglected in this paper' Response to Thomas and Smith ("Primary healthcare provision and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: a survey of patients' and General Practitioners' beliefs" BMC Family Practice 2005, 6:49 doi:10.1186/1471-2296-6-49) 22 August 2006.


 * 'Problems in the Pace trial' Response to White et al ('Protocol for the PACE trial: A randomised controlled trial of adaptive pacing, cognitive behaviour therapy, and graded exercise as supplements to standardised specialist medical care versus standardised specialist medical care alone for patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis or encephalopathy' BMC Neurology 2007, 7:6) 13 November 2007.


 * Response to Wessely et al ('Failure to Detect the Novel Retrovirus XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome', PLoS ONE, 6 January 2010)


 * 'The 'validity' of patient needs in 'CFS'?' in response to Drachler et al ('The expressed needs of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A systematic review' BMC Public Health 2009, 9:458) 1 February 2010.

10. 'What were the characteristics of the patient cohort?' Response to Groom et al ('Absence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in UK patients with chronic fatigue syndrome' Retrovirology 2010, 7:10) 22 February 2010. http://www.retrovirology.com/content/7/1/10/comments#393658

11. 'Questions about 'CFS' and 'ICF' selection criteria of cohort' Response to Byrnes et al ('Expression in Peripheral Blood Leukocytes in Monozygotic Twins Discordant for Chronic Fatigue: No Evidence of a Biomarker' PLoS ONE 4(6): e5805 2009) 3 January 2011. http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=3801

12. Stakeholder Submission to the American Psychiatric Association on the proposed DSM-5 Criteria made January 2011. http://dxrevisionwatch.com/dsm-5-proposals/dsm-5-submissions-2011/2/

13. Authors of our Own Misfortune? The Problems with Psychogenic Explanations for Physical Illnesses (2012) Market Rasen, The Village Digital Press.

14. “'Cost-effectiveness' is irrelevant when safety has not even been addressed in the PACE trial” Response to McCrone et al (“Adaptive Pacing, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Graded Exercise, and Specialist Medical Care for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis”) PlosONE  August 01, 2012 http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=52481

15. "SSD" reifies and rejiggles already unsound concepts of 'psychogenic illness' Response to Frances ('The new somatic symptom disorder in DSM-5 risks mislabelling many people as mentally ill' BMJ 2013;346:f1580) 21 March 2013. http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1580/rr/637165

16. “Bad thoughts can’t make you sick, that’s just magical thinking” Aeon Opinions 18 November 2015 https://aeon.co/opinions/bad-thoughts-can-t-make-you-sick-that-s-just-magical-thinking

2016, Summary of my specific concerns about PACE with annotated bibliography

Online presence

 * Twitter