Mary Dimmock

Mary Dimmock worked in the pharmaceutical industry but became a patient advocate after her son, Matthew Lazell-Fairman, became sick in 2010. Her advocacy work includes: authoring papers on the history, the disease burden, and common data elements for research of ME/CFS; participating in government committees; and public speaking.

Thirty Years of Disdain
In 2015, Dimmock wrote an extensively referenced advocacy paper with her son, Matthew Lazell-Fairman, titled Thirty Years of Disdain: How HHS and A Group of Psychiatrists Buried Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, which documents the history and the politics of ME since the 1980s, with a particular focus on how the US Health and Human Services (HHS) and a group of British psychiatrists led by Simon Wessely have mishandled the disease.

Studies and articles

 * 2016, Estimating the disease burden of ME/CFS in the United States and its relation to research funding (Full Text)
 * 2017, Public Review - Draft of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Common Data Elements (CDE); Fatigue Subgroup Materials - (Full Text)
 * 2018, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: What Every Family Physician Needs to Know (Full text)

Committees

 * 2017-2018 - Co-chair of Post-Exertional Malaise Working Group and a member of the Fatigue Working Group, the Neuroendocrine Working Group, and the Immune Working Group of the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Common Data Element (CDE) Project sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
 * 2018 - served on the Clinical Trials and Treatment Working Group of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee (CFSAC), sponsored by the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Department.

Talks and interviews

 * Jan 2014, Public Comment 3 Mary Dimmock Comments to Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee.
 * 2015, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - A Disease Looking for Doctors and Researchers - WHC 7044 (Full Episode) Llewellyn King interviews Mary Dimmock.
 * 2016, Episode 78 - Mary Dimmock via ME/CFS Alert.

HHS/CFSAC Testimony

 * CFSAC Public Testimony at Nov 2011 CFSAC Meeting
 * CFSAC Public Testimony at May 2013 CFSAC Meeting
 * CFSAC Public Testimony at Dec 2013 CFSAC Meeting
 * CFSAC Public Testimony at Jun 2014 CFSAC Meeting
 * CFSAC Public Testimony at Dec 2014 CFSAC Meeting
 * CFSAC Public Testimony at May 2016 CFSAC Meeting

Online presence

 * Twitter
 * Facebook
 * LinkedIn
 * YouTube

Learn more

 * 2016, Is chronic fatigue syndrome finally being taken seriously?