360 sporting figures ask PM to meet Beth Dobbin over ME research funding
More than 360 people from the world of sport have written to Prime Minister Andy Burnham, asking him to meet former sprinter Beth Dobbin and commit to more funding for research into ME, a long-term illness that can leave people severely exhausted.
The letter asks Burnham to "level the playing field" between ME research and the research funded for other illnesses. Its signatories include Olympians Dina Asher-Smith and Tom Daley, along with football manager David Moyes, Chelsea and England women's coach Emma Hayes, and England defender Millie Bright. In total, 114 Olympians and Paralympians backed it, among them Laura Muir, Eilish McColgan and Adam Gemili.
Dobbin ran for Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She is 32 and has ME, and she now spends more than 22 hours a day in bed. On 21 October she wrote to the prime minister. She has not had a reply. In her call for more research, she has described the illness as "life-decimating".
The letter sets out the gap in money. UK government research funders committed £6.6m to ME research between 2019 and 2024. Over the same period, Parkinson's research received £79.1m and dementia research received £496.4m.
The government has made some moves since. In May 2026 it said £4.7m would fund the SequenceME programme, which aims to sequence the genomes, the full genetic code, of up to 6,000 people with ME/CFS. Its 2023 interim plan on the condition listed 21 actions to improve understanding, research and care. A delivery group was set up to check progress on those actions and meets every six months to review how the plan is working.
What makes this stand out is who is asking. Most letters to a prime minister come from campaign groups or charities. This one comes from people whose careers have been built on fitness and fine margins, and who know what it takes to train for a single race. For readers outside sport, the question is simpler. Research money decides which illnesses get studied, and the letter argues that ME has been left behind.
The letter asks for a meeting, not a specific sum. Whether Burnham responds, and what he commits to, is not yet known.
