The recent article (The Argus, December 14) on the patchy provision of services for ME patients needs to be counterbalanced by the number of promising developments in the field of research.

For years, doctors, benefits providers, insurance companies, government departments and others were able to dismiss this illness as not a proper clinical disease, as a form of depression, or even as “mass hysteria”.

This led to the provision of care, and much of the funding for research, being monopolised by psychiatrists.

Last year Dr Jonathan Kerr of St George’s Hospital discovered a genetic component to the illness, finding that 88 genes were abnormal in sufferers.

Early this year, Dr Sarah Myhill and colleagues announced a mitochondrial dysfunction test, which means that there is now a clinical method of measuring the energy being supplied to the body cells, and therefore for measuring the level of fatigue.

As Dr Myhill observed, the current psychological treatment of patients, with antidepressants, cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise therapy, is “completely inappropriate for patients who have mitochondrial pathology and indeed is likely to make it worse”.

Then in June, two Belgian doctors announced a simple urine test which measures the level of hydrogen sulphite metabolites.

Hydrogen sulphite is a poisonous gas, naturally occurring in the body, that in excess can suppress the immune system and damage the nervous system and which in some animals is produced to shut down the body for hibernation – these doctors believe it is responsible for ME.

Finally, two months ago, researchers in Nevada found evidence that a retrovirus, XMRV, was implicated in ME, which would appear to put the illness on a level with HIV/Aids.

Dr Kerr has been awarded $1 million to replicate this retrovirus research in this country.

Meanwhile, the Medical Research Council, which for years has funded only psychiatric research into the illness, is now, under new leadership, willing to fund research on a wider basis. The 6,000 ME sufferers in Sussex will be hoping the new year will bring further progress in the diagnosis and treatment of this horrible illness.

Graham Chainey Marine Parade Brighton