List of news articles on ME and CFS

Funding
'''I'm disabled. Can NIH spare a few dimes?'''

Washington Post: To Your Health section reprints Open Letter By: Brian Vastag.

"Three years ago, a sudden fever struck me on a blue-sky Wisconsin morning. I've been sick ever since. On my third “illiversary,” I presented an opportunity to Francis Collins, the head of the NIH:"

PACE trial
Hope For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

SLATE: Health and Science Section By: Julie Rehmeyer

"The debate over this mysterious disease is suddenly shifting."

How millions of patients with a crippling, misunderstood disease were misled by bad science

Business Insider Science By: Julie Rehmeyer

"If your doctor diagnoses you with chronic fatigue syndrome, you’ll probably get two pieces of advice: Go to a psychotherapist and get some exercise. Your doctor might tell you that either of those treatments will give you a 60 percent chance of getting better and a 20 percent chance of recovering outright. After all, that’s what researchers concluded in a 2011 study published in the prestigious medical journal the Lancet, along with later analyses.

Problem is, the study was bad science.

And we’re now finding out exactly how bad."

Illness
Huddersfield woman Nathalie Wright talks about the misery of living with ME

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner By: Nathalie Wright

"In this thought provoking first person feature Huddersfield 22-year-old Nathalie Wright reveals how her life has been devastated by the crippling illness ME. Nathalie grew up in Pole Moor above Slaithwaite, went to Wilberlee Primary School, Crossley Heath School in Halifax and then Greenhead College. Day and night became indistinguishable"

'No one chooses to have ME - everything changed when I became ill'

Independent.IE: Life Health Features Section By: Tom Kindlon

"As a new study suggests that ME can be beaten through therapy and exercise, long-term sufferer Tom Kindlon says it's not that simple"

What it's like to live with severe ME

The Telegraph By: Naomi Whittingham

"Ordinarily, illness is measured in days or weeks; and for the unfortunate months or even years. Then there are those of us for whom illness, pain and suffering is measured in decades. This is my twenty-fifth year of being ill: a quarter of a century spent mostly in housebound, bed-bound isolation."

Viewpoint: Telling the hidden story of chronic fatigue syndrome

USA Today: College By: Ryan Prior

"Seven months ago I wrote a story for USA TODAY College that changed the direction of my life.

I wrote of my six-year struggle with a little-known illness called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis)."

Favourite place: Reminder never to take health for granted

Leamington Observer By: Laura Kearns

"MY FAVOURITE place isn’t particularly awe-inspiring, or even beautiful, but to me it is a reminder never to take your health for granted.

It is a small field behind my house on the outskirts of Nuneaton, not much bigger than half a football pitch.

But after months of being stuck in the house – which felt more like a prison – this field was the first place I visited, and where I felt my health was turning for the better."

A disease that causes debilitating exhaustion affects more than a million Americans, and no one's addressing it

Business Insider STAT By: Rivka Solomon

"It started with a bout of mononucleosis. Two college roommates and I got it at the same time. They felt better after a month. I didn’t."

'My life got taken away from me' - what it's really like to suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

The Telegraph By: Hannah Radenkova

"On hearing the news that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is finally being recognised by doctors as a 'real' illness, my first desire was to run around shouting 'I told you so!' at the top of my voice."

Millions Missing
'''ME affects four times as many women as men. Is that why we’re still disbelieved?'''

The Guardian By: Nathalie Wright

"Today friends and families of people with myalgic encephalopathy (ME) are taking to the streets of cities around the world to call for more funding for medical research and education about ME. I am joining them at the London demonstration of the Millions Missing campaign, outside the Department of Health."

Funding
A job for a lone Congress member: Speak up for a forgotten disease

The Hill Congress Blog By: Llewellyn King

"The cause is research on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome -- and often known by both sets of initials as ME/CFS. It's a disease I know quite a lot about because I've been writing and broadcasting about it for the last five years."

PACE trial
Reporter Excoriates Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study: I Stopped at 14,000 Words-Enough Was Enough

California Magazine: By: David Tuller

"Years ago, I never thought to myself, ‘Hey, I’ve gotta be the guy who writes about chronic fatigue syndrome.’ I mean, why would I? It just sort of happened. When research suggested in 2010 that the illness might be linked to a mouse retrovirus, I wrote a piece about it for The New York Times.

After that I wrote another story, and then more stories, and then a few more—probably a dozen or so in all. But within a couple of years the mouse retrovirus hypothesis fell apart. And media interest in the illness vanished."

GET and CBT
ME – the truth about exercise and therapy

The Guardian: By: Jane Colby "However, in the latest study of GET and Cbt for people with chronic fatigue syndrome, researchers concluded that the treatment resulted in worse physical function and bodily pain scores (Clinical Rheumatology, 15 January 2011)."

Funding
Chronic fatigue syndrome recognized at last

San Francisco Chronicle By: Rivka Solomon

"After 30 years of neglect, the federal government promised late last month to bolster research on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome — the equivalent of promising to help multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s, two other important neurological diseases with no known cause or cure."

Rethinking chronic fatigue syndrome

The Saturday Paper By: Sylvia Rowley

"Despite world-class research into chronic fatigue syndrome being undertaken nationally, government funding and support for sufferers is grossly lacking." (Note: This article was also in the Aug. 6, 2016 hard copy edition with the title "What about ME?"; online non-subscriber readers are allowed one free article per week.)

ME is often dismissed – but sufferers like Emily Collingridge are dying

The Guardian: Opinion By: Scott Jordan Harris

"How many young people have to die before 'chronic fatigue syndrome' merits properly funded biomedical research?"

The Tragic Neglect of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

The Atlantic By: Olga Khazan

"It leaves people bed-bound and drives some to suicide, but there's little research money devoted to the disease. Now, change is coming, thanks to the patients themselves."

Stigmatized Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers seek recognition

"As many as 400,000 Canadians suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. But according to a federal review, their condition is all in their minds.

Canada's largest scientific funding agency recently decided that ME/CFS is not deserving of research funding because it is not a legitimate disease, and more likely made up by patients."

Illness
Jennifer Brea ’05: Shooting Pain - Struggling to capture life with chronic fatigue [sic] on film in Canary in a Coal Mine

Princeton Alumni Weekly By: Dorian Rolston '10

"One warm day last March, Jennifer Brea ’05 rose from her bed, walked out onto her deck, and lay down. It was a modest outing for someone who had been confined indoors for five months. Brea suffers from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, a form of chronic fatigue that is inexplicably crippling and easily exacerbated. To capture what life is like for those with the disease, she is directing Canary in a Coal Mine, a feature-length documentary that is scheduled to be released in 2017."

Why it will take more than exercise and a positive attitude to help people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Belfast Telegraph: By Kerry McKittrick

"After a psychiatrist sparked controversy by suggesting exercise and a positive attitude could help people recover from this chronic condition, two sufferers explain why it will take more than that."

Laura Hillenbrand releases new book while fighting chronic fatigue syndrome

The Washington Post By: Monica Hesse

"Then there are the more recent wins. The time she managed to take an entire shower standing up. The time she and her husband, Borden Flanagan, drove to the alley at the end of their block so she could see something other than the cemetery behind their yard, and the time, a few weeks later, that they drove all the way to Starbucks. Sat in the parking lot. Drove home."

The Unbreakable Laura Hillenbrand

The New York Times By: Wil S. Hylton

"Since 1987, Hillenbrand has been sick with chronic fatigue syndrome, which has mostly confined her indoors for the last quarter century."

I've gone from a super-fit party girl to being almost bedridden at 33

Liverpool Echo News By: Dawn Collinson

"Just 18 months ago, Faye Dempsey had a career, ran up to eight miles a day and loved a night out with friends. Now, she says, she's like a prisoner in her own body, wracked with pain so badly there are days when she is virtually bedridden."

ME/CFS is 'poor relation' of other neurological conditions say Worcestershire campaigners

Worcester News By: James Connell

"A DEBILITATING condition which feels like 'permanent flu' is being treated as 'the poor relation' of other neurological conditions say frustrated sufferers in Worcestershire."

‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome isn’t What You Think it is, it’s Much Worse’

Huffpost Healthy Living By: Stephanie Land

"I found out recently an old friend of mine, Whitney Dafoe, has a severe disease. He’d posted on his website that he was sick, but when he’d said “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” I thought that meant normal or mundane tasks overly exhausted him and that was the end of his affliction. I thought he’d get over it, eventually. The last message I’d received from him said, “Can’t type,” and from that point he sent little red hearts and links to songs by John Prine. That was Thanksgiving of 2014."

Is chronic fatigue syndrome finally being taken seriously?

The Guardian By: David Cox

"CFS is believed to affect around 1 million Americans and approximately 250,000 people in the UK. The effects can be devastating."

Fatigue illness inspires documentary by filmmaker from Warner Robins

The Telegraph By: Michael W. Pannell

"While some still imagine the disease is "all in your head," Prior and others know otherwise. He said some cope with a measure of their former lives intact, but others enter a hidden existence of desperation and suffering."

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS): Uncovering a Mystery

Healthy Magazine - Lifestyle - Wellness By: Michael Richardson

"When the media talks about a mystery illness, it’s often in reference to some obscure disease with a horrific symptom. But there is an elusive, misunderstood illness that affects more than a million Americans of all ages, and researchers are hustling to get a grip on it, to create better pathways of care."

Be Aware and Beware: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is an Equal Opportunity Disease

HuffPost - Healthy Living By: Maureen Hanson

"Two notorious outbreaks in the mid-1980s each affected hundreds of people. One was in a prosperous community at the edge of Lake Tahoe and another in a less affluent farming community near Lake Ontario. Most victims near Lake Tahoe were adults; most near Lake Ontario were children. Today, while some of the children have recovered to some degree, many of the adults remain very ill 30 years later."

Declan Vallance’s desperate search for a cure to mystery illness

Geelong Advertiser By: Bethany Tyler Twitter @staplessarah1 - Hard Copy News Post

"A MISUNDERSTOOD illness has progressively crippled a young Barwon Heads man who has spent the past four years searching for a cure.

The extreme pain and fatigue started when Declan Vallance was at university, and has gradually robbed movement from the 24-year-old by sapping energy from his arms, legs and now his vocal chords."

Research
With his son terribly ill, a top scientist takes on chronic fatigue syndrome

The Washington Post Health & Science By: Miriam E. Tucker

"Before he got sick, Whitney Dafoe was an award-winning photographer and a world traveler. He’d helped build a nunnery in India, ridden a motorcycle in the Himalayas and visited all 50 American states.

He also worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and although he was already ill by January 2009, pushed himself to travel to Washington from his California home to photograph the inauguration."

The puzzle solver - A researcher changes course to help his son

Stanford Medicine By: Tracie White

"For three years, Whitney Dafoe’s world has been a darkened room at the end of a hallway in the back of his childhood home. An insidious disease, one with no known cause or cure, has slowly stolen his life from him, turning his body into a prison."

Psychiatric paradigm
It's time for doctors to apologize to their ME patients - For too long the medical community has dismissed 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome' as a mental illness which can be cured with therapy and exercise

The Telegraph By: Dr. Charles Shepherd

"The mud from the BMJ stuck. Like most doctors at the time, I left medical school believing that ME was not a real disease and I would probably never see a case. I was wrong."

Living life
Dear Graham Norton: I have M.E. and can't stop being jealous of friends

The Telegraph By: Graham Norton

"I’m sure you are getting the medical treatment you need but depression can often be associated with conditions such as yours, so make sure you are talking to someone about that alongside your M.E."

Financial hardships
Finanacial hardships of chronic illness

The Dominion Post By: Caitlin Slater

"In 1983, when Coddington was a high-achieving university student, she was struck down by a sudden flu-like illness. Years later she is still suffering. Her condition is called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) which followed a viral infection. Like Fibromyalgia, there is no cure for ME and no universally effective treatment."

Tipp teacher taking action against Zurich Life Assurance claims she was followed by investigators

BreakingNews.ie

"A retired secondary school teacher claims she was followed by private investigators after taking legal action against Zurich Life Assurance.

Bridget Majella Daly from The Chase, Clonmel in Co. Tipperary is suing them for withdrawing payments under a salary protection scheme.

In 1999, Bridget Majella Daly was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and was forced to stop teaching a few years later."

Drug therapy success
Is This Why You're Still So Tired?

"O" Magazine By: Cheryl Platzman Weinstock

"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome finally gets its due."

Advocacy and awareness
Cool customer Tom hopes to race into record books

Sussex Express By: Susan King

A superfit Crowborough teenager is running from Lands End to John O'Groats to say thank you to an inspirational teacher.

Millions Missing
Chronic Fatigue Patients Fight for Research, Funding, and Recognition

Boston Magazine By: Jamie Ducharme

"On Tuesday, in 25 cities around the world, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) patients and allies will raise the voices they feel they’ve been denied for decades.

Under the name Millions Missing, the ME community is protesting the neglect it says it’s felt from the government and the medical field—a neglect spokespeople say has left millions of people undiagnosed, untreated, and unnoticed."

Rows of empty shoes outside the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford will represent Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers at Millions Missing

Oxford Mail By: Pete Hughes

'“We miss him, but we’ve been missing him for a long time.”

Beth Jarrett, who lost her brother Tom mere months ago to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), was one of many protesters at Radcliffe Camera today hoping to raise awareness for the disease.'

Life-draining disease needs research

Green Bay Press-Gazette  By: Bonnie Vastag

"Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) — It’s the difficult to spell, hard to pronounce illness that afflicts our son, Brian Vastag, and millions of sufferers in the U.S. and around the world. On Sept. 27, the second Millions Missing protest is scheduled for Washington, D.C., and worldwide. I have mailed a pair of shoes to D.C. representing Brian — missing from the job he loves, missing from socializing with his friends, missing health care professionals who understand his disease. They’ll be displayed with thousands of other pairs as advocates work for adequate research dollars to help solve this scourge."

Rows of empty shoes outside the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford will represent Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers at Millions Missing

The Oxford Times By: Pete Hughes

"MORE than a hundred pairs of shoes will be lined up outside the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford tomorrow to represent sufferers unable to attend a demonstration to raise awareness for one of the most debilitating and least understood conditions of our time."

COMMENTARY: A day of action for a hidden epidemic

Courier Post By: Rivka Solomon

"A hidden epidemic has swept the globe — and your neighborhood is not immune. In its wake are millions of lives ruined. Its silent victims are all ages and backgrounds, in every state across America: Up to 99,000 in Illinois, 152,000 in New York and 211,000 in Texas. There is no prevention, no treatment and no cure for this barely acknowledged disease that gets barely any government funding."

Dozens Rally To Bring Attention To Incurable Disease

CBS Chicago By: Lisa Fielding

"It’s called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and it affects 17 million people worldwide.

“This particular illness is more functionally debilitating than chronic congestive heart disease and cancer. The quality of life is significantly less. There’s over a million people in this country with this illness, 25% are homebound or bedbound,” said Leonard Jason, DePaul University, who’s been studying the disease for 25 years."

Silent shoe protest at lack of funding for ME

iTV News

"More than a hundred pairs of shoes have been laid out on College Green in Bristol in a silent protest at the lack of funding for research into ME, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

The empty shoes represent people who couldn't be at the protest because of the condition."

Shoes for a syndrome

Sandton Chronicle By: Pascale Michael

"On 27 September, residents are encouraged to put out a pair of shoes to remember the sufferers of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)."

100 pairs of shoes used to make poignant protest on ME research in Bristol city centre

Bristol Post By: David Clensy

"A hundred pairs of shoes were laid out on College Green in a poignant silent protest against the lack of funding for research into the causes of ME, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

Each pair of shoes represented a sufferer of ME who was unable to attend the rally in Bristol city centre, but was too exhausted as a result of their condition to attend in person."

Demonstrators at Stormont urge more research into chronic disease ME

The Irish News

"A MAJOR demonstration urging more research into M.E. was held at Stormont on Tuesday as part of a global day of action.

Protests took part in 25 cities across the world, including Belfast, Melbourne, London and New York."

Protesters Demand Increased Funding or ME/CFS Research

U.S. News & World Report By: Fallon Schlossman and Rishika Dugyala

"Protesters placed dozens of pairs shoes in front of the Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday, symbolizing people so affected by Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, that they're unable to fully live their lives."

MillionsMissing: A Hidden Epidemic and a Day of Action

The Huffington Post By: Rivka Solomon

"A hidden epidemic has swept the globe — and your neighborhood is not immune. In its wake are millions of lives ruined. Its silent victims are all ages, from all backgrounds and in every state across America: Up to 99,000 in Illinois, 152,000 in New York and 211,000 in Texas. There is no prevention, no treatment and no cure for this barely acknowledged disease that gets barely any government funding."

More than a million Americans are suffering from a debilitating disease that makes simple tasks impossible — and they're sick and tired of being ignored

Business Insider By: Rafi Letzter

"Imagine living with a disease that renders you disabled and exhausted, unable to meet the physical demands of daily living. Now imagine that much of the medical establishment refused to believe your disease was "real" in the sense of a physical illness, and failed to fund research into its true causes and treatment."

PACE trial
Patients, Scientists Fight Over Research-Data Access

Wall Street Journal By: Amy Dockser Marcus

Article is paywalled.

"A controversy surrounding a study of chronic fatigue syndrome is prompting some scientists to push back against demands that they make medical research data more widely available to other researchers and patients."

The Misleading Research at the Heart of Disability Cuts

Huff Post - Politics - UK By: Dr. Simon Duffy

"Unfortunately it turns out that this research is often deeply flawed. For instance, the Centre for Welfare Reform has just published a report by George Faulkner which suggests that, on the basis of its published results, many of its claims cannot be validated."

PACE Trial data release
Chronic fatigue sufferers getting the wrong treatment—thanks to a falsified study

What Doctor's Don't Tell You By: Bryan Hubbard

"Sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are not getting the proper treatment. The standard approach these days is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)—known as the ‘talking therapy’, which implies the problem is mainly in the sufferer’s head—but this is based on a landmark study whose results were falsified, it has been revealed this week.

The PACE study had concluded in 2011 that 61 per cent of sufferers were getting well on CBT and exercise—but the numbers who really benefited had been inflated three-fold by researchers."

The Implosion of a Breakthrough Study on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

NYMag.com Science of Us By: Cari Romm

"And now, definitive proof has emerged that the latter camp was correct. In a column published in Stat today, writer Julie Rehmeyer — herself a CFS patient — explained how a supposed breakthrough blew up so spectacularly."

Exercise and therapy cure for ME is ‘seriously flawed’

The Times By: Tom Whipple

Paywalled Tweet of Hard Copy

"A landmark study suggesting that ME could be treated with exercise and psychological intervention is seriously flawed, scientists have claimed.

If correct, it would mean that treatments recommended on the NHS, which have proved hugely controversial among Britain’s 250,000 sufferers of ME, are ineffective."

'''Do you suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? There's some good news for you'''

SBS By: Naomi Chainey

"The Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has been ordered to release previously withheld data from a treatment trial under the UK Freedom of Information Act. Patients and advocates hope the ruling will lead to more rigorous critique of the trial’s controversial treatment recommendations."

Research
NIH announces new effort to tackle chronic fatigue syndrome

The Washington Post To Your Health By: Lenny Bernstein

"The National Institutes of Health announced a new initiative Thursday to find the cause and a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, the mysterious, debilitating condition that disables many of its more than 1 million Americans who have it."

Chronic fatigue syndrome: new diagnostic tool to speed up treatment and reduce stigma

ABC Gold Coast - Australia By: Damien Larkins

"Griffith University has developed a tool to diagnose CFS faster and hopes it will reduce the stigma around the disorder. Professor of Immunology Sonja Marshall-Gradisnik headed the research to develop the new screening tool."

Gut Bacteria Are Different in People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

The New York Times - Well By: Nicholas Bakalar

"A new study has identified a bacterial blueprint for chronic fatigue syndrome, offering further evidence that it is a physical disease with biological causes and not a psychological condition."

Brain images
Brains of People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Offer Clues About Disorder

New York Times: Well Section By: David Tuller

Brain Scans by Dr. Jose Montoya, Dr. Michael Zeineh and colleagues at Stanford University.

Unraveling the mystery of chronic fatigue syndrome

Palo Alto Online By: Sue Dremann

"Researchers are making headway toward finding evidence of chronic fatigue syndrome and how it may change the brain."

Chemical signature in blood
'Chronic fatigue IS a real condition': People with the debilitating illness have 'telltale signs in their blood'

Daily Mail.com

"It is often dismissed as being all in the mind. But chronic fatigue syndrome is real, doctors said today. They have shown that people with symptoms of the debilitating condition have a specific chemical signature in their blood."

Scientists find signature of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in blood which suggests disease is the body going into hibernation

The Telegraph By: Telegraph Reporters

"A chemical signature of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome suggests the disease may be caused by the body going into a semi-hibernation state, a study has said."

Chronic fatigue syndrome could be the body trying to hibernate

The Times By: Tom Whipple

This article is pay-walled.

"Chronic fatigue syndrome may be caused by the body mistakenly going into a semi-hibernation state, a study has suggested."

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome could be identified from your blood

iNews Health By: Jem Collins

"It can take years to get a diagnosis for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). However, a team of researchers from America claim to have found a unique “chemical signature” for the condition. If confirmed, it could pave the way for simple diagnosis tests, as well as better treatments."

How Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Affects Your Metabolism

Pacific Standard By: Nathan Collins

"There are somewhere around one or two million Americans with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a disease that often leaves sufferers barely able to move or think. But after decades in the dark, researchers have finally taken a step toward better understanding CFS: Among other things, the disease is correlated with a substantial decline in metabolites, the waste products our cells produce as part of their normal function."

Researchers Identify Characteristic Chemical Signature for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

News Wise Source Newsroom: University of California San Diego Health Sciences

Dauer is the German word for persistence or long-lived. It is a type of stasis in the development in some invertebrates that is prompted by harsh environmental conditions. The findings are published online in the August 29 issue of PNAS.

‘Chronic fatigue syndrome could be the body trying to hibernate’

ME Association Source: The Times

From The Times, 30 August 2016. Story by Tom Whipple, Science Editor. Online link to full story not available.

"An estimated 250,000 people have CFS, also known as ME, in Britain. The mysterious disease, which is difficult to diagnose, causes people to suffer from persistent exhaustion and can strike with no obvious cause. Theories about the cause have ranged from a bacterial or viral infection to psychiatric issues, and there are few effective treatments."

Chronic-fatigue syndrome - Blood simple?

The Economist

"CHRONIC-FATIGUE SYNDROME, or CFS, which afflicts over 1m people in America and 250,000 in Britain, is certainly chronic and surely fatiguing. But is it truly a syndrome, a set of symptoms reliably associated together and thought to have a single underlying cause—in other words, a definable disease?"

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome May Leave A 'Chemical Signature' In The Blood

The Huffington Post Sleep+Wellness (Original article on Live Science)

People with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) can wait years before being diagnosed with the condition, and there is no singe test for it. But a new study may have found a "chemical signature" for the condition - a set of molecules in the blood that's unique to people with CFS.

Chronic fatigue syndrome may be a human version of ‘hibernation’

The Washington Post

"A new study raises the extraordinary possibility that humans may be able to put themselves into a kind of hibernation state as well — but in a way that hurts us rather than helps us."

Chronic fatigue resembles hibernation

NZ Herald By: Ariana Eunjung Cha

"A new study has raised the extraordinary possibility that humans may be able to put themselves into a kind of hibernation state - but in a way that hurts us rather than helps us."

Metabolite abnormalities pinpointed in chronic fatigue syndrome

Chemical & Engineering News By: Stu Borman

"Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis, is a complex disorder characterized by malaise, sleep problems, and pain. The cause of the condition is unclear and difficult to diagnose and treat."

Funding
Update: New, if Belated, Gov't Interest in CFS Encourages Patients

MedPage Today Neurology By: Shannon Firth

"In February, the National Academy of Medicine published a report attempting to better define the condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome, also called myalgic encephalomyelitis; in September, we reported that advisers to the Department of Health and Human Services recommended increasing funding for research into the condition.The following is a look at what has happened since that story."

PACE Trial data release
Virology blog by Vincent Racaniello has covered the PACE trial extensively. David Tuller has written most of these articles. A list of links can be found on Virology Blog here.

The article that has a link to the RAW DATA at Reference 10.

No ‘Recovery’ in PACE Trial, New Analysis Finds

Virology blog By: Vincent Racaniello

"Last October, Virology Blog posted David Tuller’s 14,000-word investigation of the many flaws of the PACE trial (link to article), which had reported that cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy could lead to “improvement” and “recovery” from ME/CFS. The first results, on “improvement,” were published in The Lancet in 2011; a follow-up study, on “recovery,” was published in the journal Psychological Medicine in 2013.

The investigation by Dr. Tuller, a lecturer in public health and journalism at UC Berkeley, built on the impressive analyses already done by ME/CFS patients; his work helped demolish the credibility of the PACE trial as a piece of scientific research. In February, Virology Blog posted an open letter (link) to The Lancet and its editor, Richard Horton, stating that the trial’s flaws “have no place in published research.” Surprisingly, the PACE authors, The Lancet, and others in the U.K. medical and academic establishment have continued their vigorous defense of the study, despite its glaring methodological and ethical deficiencies."

Bad science has misled millions with chronic fatigue, court order reveals

Science Alert By: Bec Crew

"Up to 1 million Americans and 2.6 percent of the global population are estimated to have chronic fatigue syndrome, and for decades, the illness has been trivialised due to a lack of scientific evidence supporting its diagnosis.

But for those living with the disorder, the effects can be profound, and now an investigation into the two most commonly prescribed treatments - psychotherapy and exercise (seriously) - has found that they’re being recommended based on some seriously shoddy science."

Independent investigation reveals NICE approved treatment only a fraction as effective as experts cllaim it is.

Health Insight UK By: Jerome Burne

"Would any doctor continue to prescribe a drug which they had been told would benefit 20 per cent of patients with a specific illness, once the truth was revealed to be around 7 per cent, only one percent better than no treatment at all? You’d have to hope not and that concerned and angry doctors would then shout loudly that they had been lied to and that patients had endured years of pointless treatment."

Research
2015 Recap: Call for Real Answers to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

MedPage Today Neurology By: Shannon Firth

"In 1996, Judith Curren, 42, took her own life with help from Jack Kevorkian, MD.

Curren was thought to have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), an illness associated with immune and neurologic symptoms that remains difficult to diagnose. A medical examiner questioned whether Curren was ever sick, according to The New York Times."

"The New York Times1 on July 7, 2016 featured an article about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) published on June 23, 2016. The Times heralds that this article “proves” that ME/CFS is not a psychological illness as it has long been scornfully conceptualized by doctors and the medical world. This is a good thing, I suppose…because it once again emphasizes that ME/CFS is a biological condition and once again emphasizes that infectious agents cause ME/CFS.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Not Merely Dysbiosis

Psychiatry Advisor

Unfortunately, it takes the medical care of ME/CFS in the wrong direction."


 * The article continues...

"Moreover, the Giloteaux article puts undue causal value on the gut bacteria for the symptoms of ME/CFS. What they label as a precipitant may, in fact, be a consequence. Let me explain… Some studies have shown Human Herpes 6 and Epstein-Barr virus can impair the function of the human immune system. If one or both of these viruses indeed cause ME/CFS, and they invade the entire body, including the gut, then they could also disrupt the immune function of the gut. So, conceivably, the viral infection created a favorable environment for the pro-inflammatory bacteria. As a result, all of the disruption in the microbiome could stem from the underlying viral infection."

NIH Gears Up for First-Ever Chronic Fatigue Study - Patients' advocates share concerns about trial protocol, bias

MedPage Today Neurology By: Shannon Firth

"The National Institutes of Health gave the green light for a novel study of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), but the news elicited mixed reactions from patient advocates."

Brain imaging
Chronic Fatigue Patients Suffer 3 Major Brain Abnormalities; Findings May Lead To Clearer Diagnosis.

Private Health Care

"The incessant fatigue characterized by chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) that affects between one and four million Americans is often quite difficult to diagnose. But a new study, which found three distinct differences between the brains of patients with CFS and those of healthy people, promises to revolutionize diagnosis and provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of the condition."

Chemical signature in blood
Researchers identify characteristic chemical signature for chronic fatigue syndrome

Eureka Alert

"Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a mysterious and maddening condition, with no cure or known cause. But researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, using a variety of techniques to identify and assess targeted metabolites in blood plasma, have identified a characteristic chemical signature for the debilitating ailment and an unexpected underlying biology: It is similar to the state of dauer, and other hypometabolic syndromes like caloric restriction, diapause and hibernation."

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Characteristic Chemical Signature Identified For Debilitating Ailment

Medical Daily By: Suman Varandani

"Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating and complex disorder that causes severe fatigue that is worsened by physical or mental activity and not improved by bed rest. While there is no cure or known cause for the debilitating ailment, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a characteristic chemical signature."

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome May Leave a 'Chemical Signature' in the Blood

Live Science Health By: Rachael Rettner

"People with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) can wait years before being diagnosed with the condition, and there is no single test for it. But a new study may have found a "chemical signature" for the condition — a set of molecules in the blood that's unique to people with CFS."

Characteristic chemical signature for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

Science Daily Source: University of California - San Diego

"Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a mysterious and maddening condition, with no cure or known cause. But researchers, using a variety of techniques to identify and assess targeted metabolites in blood plasma, have identified a characteristic chemical signature for the debilitating ailment and an unexpected underlying biology: It is similar to the state of dauer, and other hypometabolic syndromes like caloric restriction, diapause and hibernation."

Association of biomarkers with health-related quality of life and history of stressors in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome patients

Journal of Translational Medicine

"Conclusion: In ME/CFS patients, severe alterations of the muscle excitability, the redox status, as well as the CD26-expression level are correlated with a marked impairment of the quality-of-life. They are particularly significant when infectious stressors are reported in the medical history."

Chronic fatigue syndrome appears to leave a 'chemical signature' in the blood - And it's similar to that of hibernating species.

Science Alert By: Josh Hrala

"Researchers have uncovered a chemical signature for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and found that the condition shares certain hallmarks with a type of hibernation that certain species undergo to survive environmental stress."

Biological evidence of chronic fatigue syndrome found in sufferers’ blood

Science AAAS

"Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) affects 2.5 million Americans, often leaving them unable to think or move."

Researchers Identify Characteristic Chemical Signature for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

UC Sandiego Health By: Scott LaFee

"Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a mysterious and maddening condition, with no cure or known cause. But researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, using a variety of techniques to identify and assess targeted metabolites in blood plasma, have identified a characteristic chemical signature for the debilitating ailment and an unexpected underlying biology: It is similar to the state of dauer, and other hypometabolic syndromes like caloric restriction, diapause and hibernation."

Metabolomic Deficiencies Characteristic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Clinical Pain Advisor By: Cindy Lampner

"In a study designed to test the utility of targeted metabolomics in the diagnosis of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), researchers identified a unique chemical signature that differentiates affected patients from healthy individuals."

Advocacy
Chronic Fatigue Patients Take to the Streets - Global protest highlights demands for more research, physician education

MedPage Today Neurology By: Shannon Firth

"The chronic fatigue syndrome community demanded stronger investment in scientific research, and greater accountability from public agencies to address their illness, at the recent "Millions Missing: A Global Day of Protest for ME/CFS."'

Media spin
The Science Media Centre and the PACE Trial – a deceptive partnership Spinning the Results to the Media

Peter Kemp Blog

This blog post has screen shots of a collection of media articles that reported on the PACE trial as spun by the Science Media Centre.

"On Feb 17th 2011, the Science Media Centre (ScMC) hosted a press conference for the publication of the PACE Trial in the Lancet. The ScMC state: “The overall goal of the Centre is to help renew public trust in science by working to promote more balanced, accurate and rational coverage of the controversial science stories that now regularly hit the headlines”, and; “…the Centre will be free of any particular agenda within science and will always strive to promote a broad spectrum of scientific opinion – especially where there are clear divisions within science. It will not shy away from promoting voices that are critical of particular aspects of science.”[i]"

Millions Missing
Written and TV media, and Videos of Millions Missing protests from around the world collected by #MEAction.