Merryn Crofts (21)
Inquest Ruling: Young drama student Merryn Crofts killed by M.E. – 18 May 2018

“Mrs McKenna today concluded her cause of death as starvation caused by a withdrawal of supportive nutrition, caused by M.E. She described Merryn as someone who “bore her suffering with dignity and good grace”.  “She died on May 23, 2017, just days after her 21st birthday.”

“Pathologist Daniel DuPlessis said that a post-mortem showed low-grade inflammation of nerve roots. It was suggested that this inflammation could have made her bowel hypersensitive to processing nutrients.  

Dr DuPlessis pointed out that Merryn had inflammation of the ganglia – gatekeepers to sensations in the brain. A post-mortem into the only other UK death attributed to ME, Sophia Mirza, 32, in 2006, also found ganglionitis.”

Sophia Mirza (32)
The Inquest into the death of Sophia Mirza – 13 June 2006
ME/CFS: The Death of Sophia Mirza – 30 August 2009 (5:40)

“The verdict was Acute aneuric renal failure due to dehydration arising as a result of CFS”

“In the end it was stated that CFS is a modern word for ME.  This is why CFS was used on the death certificate.

“The pathologist also said -‘ME describes inflammation of the spinal cord and muscles. My work supports the inflammation theory. There was inflammation in the basal root ganglia.’”

Lynn Gilderdale (31)
‘It must have been hell on earth.’ ME Essential review of Kay Gilderdale’s book– 28 August 2011

“After Lynn died at the age of 31, 17 years into an illness which left her paralysed and unable to speak, a pathologist who specialized in ME discovered ‘dorsal root ganglionitis’ – infected nerve roots – and nodules of Nageotte, little tombs of dead cells, in her spinal cord. 

“These could have caused her terrible pain and sensory nerve damage. They found similar cells in the body of Sophia Mirza, an ME sufferers who died in 2005 at the age of 32, and I believe in other sufferers.”

Maeve Boothby O’Neill (27)
When the doctor doesn’t listen– by David Tuller – 27 January 2023

“At 1:45 a.m. on October 3 [2021], “Maeve was awake but incapable of utterance or focusing.” At 3 a.m., she was found dead. Doctors confirmed her death at 11 a.m., and her body was removed to a funeral home in the early afternoon.

That evening, Maeve’s GP visited [mother] Boothby. “She said she had never had a patient so poorly treated by the NHS,” wrote Boothby.

The inquest, which is not yet scheduled, will presumably shed light on the events that led to Maeve’s death and on the hospital’s actions in the matter. Philip Spinney, the senior coroner for Exeter and Greater Devon, declined to be interviewed but noted in an email that the process is at the “evidence gathering stage” and that the inquest itself could last at least two days.”