Wendy Boutilier

Wendy Boutilier, a Canadian artist, developed ME in 2008, after a bout of sepsis and necrotizing fasciitis, caused by a very severe infection of Streptococcus pyogenes Necrotizing Fasciitis sometimes called “flesh-eating bacteria." She continues to suffer from moderate to severe ME leaving her disabled and 75% housebound.   She holds a Batchelor of Arts Degree in fine art, art history & anthropology from Western University, London, Ontario.  She worked in the Caribbean, Central and South America until she became ill in Barbados in 2008. She uses her art as her solace.

Advocacy work
Boutilier guest blogged for Just ME on 12 May 2014 where she discussed Sophia Mirza's death, the image problem cause by the trivializing disease name and outdated psychological explanations of its etiology. She highlighted Dr. Kenny de Meirleir's work and outlined biomedical abnormalities caused by the illness. She admins on several ME Support facebook pages and is an active ME Advocate.

Since 2014, Boutilier has been working on an art project called Tears for ME, a pictorial memorial wall of some of those who have lost their lives to ME. She grants permission for the images to be reused to promote the suffering of ME, especially on Severe ME Awareness Day on Aug 8.

Boutilier supplies art images to be used on social media for May 12th Awareness Events, sponsored by the May12th.org.

In 2016, she wrote to the Canadian Federal Minister of Health after the Canadian Institute of Health Research denied a grant for ME based on a psychological approach to the illness and that their denial cited erroneous and outdated research. In her letter she urged the ministry to adopt the WHO ICC 2011 definition and diagnostic code for ME.

She has also been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal with respect to treatment of ME. She urged the Medical Profession to remove GET & CBT since the Scientific Research Trial Study of PACE was found to lack good science. The PACE trial has been debunked. Published in Stonebird, UK on the cost of ME.

Global Advocates for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
Together with Guido den Broeder and John Gabor, Boutilier is the founder of Global Advocates for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (GAME), an international group of advocates dedicated to education and information about myalgic encephalomyelitis.

Learn more

 * The Faces of Sepsis - Wendy Boutilier
 * Body Count: the tragic stories of severe ME
 * http://stonebird.co.uk/Price%20of%20Myalgic%20Encephalomyelitis.pdf

Online presence

 * Artzstudio/Wendy Boutilier Facebook