A five year survey of 333,000 children and 27,000 teachers at 1,098 schools has established that:

• one child in 1,400 and 1 teacher in 200 suffer from M.E.

• 390 schools reported long term sickness absences, 224 attributed to M.E.

• of 885 individual sickness reports, 372 were attributed to M.E.

• 51% of the children who could not attend school for a year or more produced medical certificates saying that they suffered from M.E.

In over a third of the cases there were clusters of three children or more being off school at the same time, suggesting that M.E. is a viral infection. The largest cluster (“suggestive of a mini-epidemic”) extended over a number of schools in an area containing recreational water polluted with sewage.
The report also indicates a dramatic increase in the number of cases during puberty, peaking in the mid teens, suggesting hormonal involvement. Twice as many girls as boys stayed away from school. In teachers, the largest number affected were in their forties. In this case there were four times as many women as men, again suggesting hormonal involvement. The second most common reason for long term absence in children was cancer and leukaemia, at 23% (as opposed to 51%).