Important events timeline

1950s

Year	Date	Event
1955		Royal Free Hospital outbreak in London, England, which led to the use of the name Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

1970s

Year	Date	Event
1975		Outbreak in Mercy San Juan Hospital, in a suburb of Sacramento, California, Unites States (1975 Sacramento outbreak).

1980s

Year	Date	Event
1980		Outbreak in Ayrshire, Scotland (1980-81 Ayrshire outbreak).
1984		Disease outbreak in Incline Village near Lake Tahoe in California, United States.
1984		Disease outbreak in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States(1984 Chapel Hill outbreak).
1985		Disease outbreak in Lyndonville, New York, United States (1985 Lyndonville outbreak).
1988		First definition of Chronic fatigue syndrome produced, later updated in 1994.

1990s

Year	Date	Event
1994		Chronic fatigue syndrome criteria update to the 1994 Fukuda criteria.
1994	September	Publication of the 1994 National Task Force Report on CFS/PVFS/ME by Westcare UK, notably the London criteria

2000s

Year	Date	Event
2009		Publication of the Judy Mikovits study in Science claiming a link between Chronic fatigue syndrome and the XMRV retrovirus.
2009		Preliminary research published by Norwegian researchers proposes assessment of the use of cancer drug Rituximab to treat the disease.

2010s

Year	Date	Event
2011		The controversial British PACE trial is published in The Lancet, recommending cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy as treatments.
2011		The Science journal retracts the XMRV paper.
2015		The Institute of Medicine report is released: "Beyond Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Redefining an illness", which reviewed thousands of articles, and concluded that "ME/CFS is a serious, chronic, complex and multisystem disease that frequently and dramatically limits the activities of affected patients" (p. 209). The report recommended new diagnostic criteria, and a new name for the condition: Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID).
2015		Francis Collins announces the intent of the National Institutes of Health to take the disease more seriously.
2015		The Open Medicine Foundation announces its End ME/CFS Project, led by Ronald Davis, has support of three Nobel prize laureates.
2016		National Institutes of Health, United States begins study of ME/CFS patient in their in-house Clinical Center in Bethesda

See also

• Osler's Web by Hillary Johnson
• Thirty Years of Disdain by Mary Dimmock
• List of outbreaks
• ME and CFS in popular culture
• Notable studies
• History of myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome

myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) - A disease often marked by neurological symptoms, but fatigue is sometimes a symptom as well. Some diagnostic criteria distinguish it from chronic fatigue syndrome, while other diagnostic criteria consider it to be a synonym for chronic fatigue syndrome. A defining characteristic of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM), or post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion (PENE), which is a notable exacerbation of symptoms brought on by small exertions. PEM can last for days or weeks. Symptoms can include cognitive impairments, muscle pain (myalgia), trouble remaining upright (orthostatic intolerance), sleep abnormalities, and gastro-intestinal impairments, among others. An estimated 25% of those suffering from ME are housebound or bedbound. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies ME as a neurological disease.

systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID) - A term for ME/CFS that aims to avoid the stigma associated with the term "chronic fatigue syndrome", while emphasizing the defining characteristic of post-exertional malaise (PEM). SEID was defined as part of the diagnostic criteria put together by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report of 10 February 2015.