The persistence of Jim Oakley resulted in a meeting being arranged with Dr Wooldridge, the Federal Minister for Health to discuss the lack of research into CFS/ME by the NHMRC. This meeting took place on Wednesday, 5th November, 1997 with Dr Wooldridge, Dr, Joanna Wriedt, Jim Oakley and Nola Miles in attendance.

Jim outlined our concerns regarding the NHMRC and Nola presented Dr Wooldridge with details of our Society. The meeting extended to almost half an hour. Dr Wooldridge was very sympathetic to our cause, having mentioned that he knows personally someone who suffers from this illness and has seen what it had done to them.

However, Dr Wooldridge advised that the NHMRC is a separate statutory body and he couldn't interfere with their processes. He did agree to consider having a meeting with all State Society Presidents mid next year to discuss progress on various issues and to arrange meetings with relevant people on the NHMRC, to allow us to put our case
directly.

As a direct result of our meeting with Dr Wooldridge, both Jim and Nola met with Dr John Best and Dr Syd Allen on 13th November, 1997. Dr Best is chair and Dr Allen is a member of the Strategic Research Development Committee of the NHMRC. Once again we received a good hearing. The SRDC is looking into areas (like CFS/ME) that could receive special initiatives for strategic research. Our submission is now on the agenda for the next meeting of this committee, so we hope for a positive outcome.

There is still a lot of work to be done and Jim has agreed to continue on as the
Society's official spokesperson for NHMRC matters. We thank Jim for all his hard work.

Reprinted from Emerge, Summer 1997.