Petition update September 17th 2025
Response from Elsevier regarding our Erratum request
We have heard back from Elsevier regarding our request for an Erratum of their most recently published book, Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine (11th edition).
The request was for the following:
1) To take ME/CFS out of ‘General hospital psychiatry’ and placed in ‘Neurology.’
2) That the term Myalgic Encephalopathy should be corrected to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as it appears in the scientific literature and World Health Organisation (WHO) classification.
3) That the claim ME/CFS is in part psychological to be withdrawn.
4) That the PACE Trial is removed from ‘Further reading’, as it promotes Graded Exercise.
Only one of these requests has been granted, which is the addition of the term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. The letter from Elsevier can be seen below:
RE: Erratum request to Kumar and Clark's Clinical Medicine, 11th edition
Dear Catherine
Thank you for your recent erratum request. We have discussed your concerns in detail with the editors of the new edition, the founding editors of the book, and the contributors to the General Hospital Psychiatry chapter.
The section on Medically Unexplained Symptoms and Functional Neurological Disorders currently consists of 772 words in total, with the specific subsection on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) / Myalgic Encephalopathy consisting of 80 words. This coverage provides an introductory overview tailored to medical students and is not intended to serve as a comprehensive guide for diagnosis or management without further study and clinical experience. Additionally, CFS is referenced in the Infectious Disease chapter.
As noted in the preface, "multidisciplinary care of the patient is now the norm." Within this framework, Psychiatric departments have a well-established and significant role in managing CFS, and medical students are most likely to first encounter CFS patients in this setting. Therefore, the inclusion of CFS within this chapter reflects current clinical practice in the NHS, where collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches are standard.
We recognise that this is a continually evolving situation, and with each edition of this textbook we will review the prevailing standards of care and make revisions as necessary to reflect current clinical practice.
Regarding your specific comments on the PACE trial, we believe it is important to leave it in the Further Reading section to encourage students to engage broadly with the literature and develop critical appraisal skills.
However, we will address your request to include the term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis in addition to Myalgic Encephalopathy as a reprint correction.
We appreciate the important role of the patient groups who have signed your petition in advocating for more rigorous research and greater recognition of the biological aspects of CFS/ME. Nevertheless, as an educational resource, our emphasis is on current treatment approaches rather than prospective or future therapies. Our subject matter experts, who are actively involved in caring for CFS patients, agree that the current placement of the content is appropriate. Altering the placement of content solely to accommodate your request would compromise the educational integrity of the textbook. Accordingly, the content will remain in the General Hospital Psychiatry chapter.
Thank you again for your feedback, but for this edition the topic is now closed.
Yours sincerely,
VP Global Medical Education and English Language Content
ELSEVIER | Global Content Partners
In-the-meantime, Margaret Williams has written the following paper, entitled ‘Is Elsevier Guilty of Publishing Misinformation about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis? ‘
is-elsevier-guilty-of-publishing-misinformation-about-me.pdf from her site http://www.margaretwilliams.me/
Please circulate this update and keep signing the petition. The more signatures, the better.