Byron Hyde



Dr. Byron Marshall Hyde is a family practice physician in Ottawa, Canada, who dedicated his practice solely to myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) from 1984 until he stopped practising medicine in 2019. Dr Hyde's decided to specialize in myalgic encephalomyelitis after several of his colleagues developed the illness. In 1988, he founded the Nightingale Research Foundation, to explore and understand myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and fibromyalgia-type illnesses.

In 1991, Dr. Hyde organized the first World Symposium on M.E. at Cambridge University in collaboration with Dr. John Richardson and the Newcastle Research Group in the UK. Dr. Hyde is the only living researcher who has visited ME patients and physicians from each of the classic ME epidemics: at the Los Angeles County Hospital, in Akureyri, Iceland, at the Royal Free Hospital in London, as well as in the New Zealand and Australian epidemics.

Childhood
At the age of 10, Hyde was hospitalized and bed-bound for a year with poliomyelitis. As an adult, he had the opportunity to dine and talk with the two inventors of the polio immunizations, Jonas Salk in Maine and Dr. Sabin at his apartment in Washington.

Education

 * 1961, University of Toronto in Food Chemistry and Nutrition
 * 1966, MD - University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine
 * Internship at Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal in Neuro and Vascular Surgery
 * Residency at the Ste. Justine Pediatric Hospital (Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine) and the Ottawa Civic Hospital

Professional work
Byron Hyde began practicing medicine in 1968, and specialized in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis since 1984. Dr. Hyde traveled extensively to study ME and examine thousands of patients, spending time at: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta, US; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, US; the UK; Australia; New Zealand; and Akureyri, Iceland. He is one of only two physicians invited to address the House of Parliament and the House of Lords committee on M.E. in London.

Throughout his career, Dr. Hyde's work often focused on pediatric patients. Dr. Hyde worked in research and as a physician in The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto and Ste. Justine's Pediatric Hospital, Montreal. He worked as a volunteer physician in a polio orphanage in Asia, caring for hundreds of abandoned children.

Dr. Hyde practiced medicine in Ontario, Canada until the age of 82; he gave up his medical license on Jul 9, 2019 pursuant to an investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. The College stated that "Dr. Hyde was referred to the Discipline Committee on allegations of professional misconduct and incompetence. In the face of these allegations, Dr. Hyde resigned from the College and has agreed never to apply or reapply for registration as a physician in Ontario or any other jurisdiction." One of the experts hired by the College reported that "Dr. Hyde states that he practices 'complex disease management' primarily involving Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is outside the conventionally-recognized scope of general or primary care practice." He had previously had terms imposed and been transferred to a restricted certificate on Jan 30, 2013 and again as an independent physician on Nov 9, 2018. Dr. Hyde did not respond publicly to the allegations.

Notable quotes
On the Akureyri outbreak: In the 1940’s there was in the city of Akureyri, on the north shore of Iceland, facing the Arctic Ocean, a Polio/M.E. epidemic that began in the local boarding school. [...] When I went to Iceland to examine these patients in the late 1980s, the injured were still significantly disabled and that was 40 years after the epidemic. Yet the patients told me again and again, they lived in shame due to being constantly mocked by their colleagues as inventing their disability.

On the Royal Free outbreak: In the 1950 Royal Free Hospital Polio/M.E. epidemic in London England, 292 physicians and health care workers fell ill with M.E. during the concurrent polio epidemic. Dr. A. Melvin Ramsay, one of my early M.E. teachers, who was in charge of the epidemic, not only accepted that this was a parallel injury associated with the polio epidemic, but followed his patients for years, caring for the doctors and nurses who had fallen chronically ill with M.E. He and his team were able to demonstrate significant EEG brain changes and multiple other physical findings.

On McEvedy and Beard's paper calling the Royal Free outbreak "hysteria": McEvedy was working on his MA at Magdalen College, Oxford when he initially gained recognition by publishing a thesis based upon two reputed instances of mass hysteria that occurred in two primary schools in the United Kingdom. [...] I did succeed in speaking to the head mistress of the second school. Even though it was well over ten years since the McEvedy incident she was still quite angry with him. She recalled the incident in great detail. She said that Dr. McEvedy had never been to the school, had never examined any of the children and that his thesis was a work of total imagination. [...] Over three visits to England I interviewed Dr. Ramsay on each occasion concerning the McEvedy thesis and publications. Dr Ramsay stated that Dr. McEvedy had never seen a single patient from the Royal Free epidemics. [...] Dr. Ramsay stated that Dr. McEvedy was given permission by medical records to look at some of the charts and after a few hours he left never to return. McEvedy then wrote up his thesis for which he obtained his PhD. [...] I then decided to seek out Dr. McEvedy and find out how he came to his conclusions that were so different from any evidence that I was able to uncover to date. [...] I bought a reasonably expensive bottle as a gift and then went to see him. He was at home in his small 1890s row house in a west-end London suburb. [...] I asked Dr. McEvedy did he have any records concerning the two schools he had reputedly visited? He said he did not. "Why had he written up the Free Hospital epidemics as hysteria without any careful exploration of the basis of his thesis?", I asked. His reply was devastating. He said, "It was an easy PhD, why not."

On the Incline Village outbreak: In Canada, as soon as we heard news of the Incline Village, Lake Tahoe epidemic, we knew it was caused by one or more of several enteroviruses causing the pan-epidemic across North America. We were seeing in Canada what had spread across all of the USA. We knew because the findings we were seeing in Canada exactly mimicked the US patients we were also seeing. They too demonstrated marked enteroviral titres from the Michigan and NYS patients. The major difference was that the Americans were obsessed first with Epstein-Barr Virus, then one herpes virus, then another herpes virus...

On the CDC meeting that invented the term "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome": Fast-forward to April 1987 and the First International Symposium on Immunology and Pathogenesis of Persistent Virus Infections held in Atlanta Georgia. This was a symposium hosted by the CDC and Dr Carlos Lopez. At this meeting Dr Gary Holmes gave out his new paper, "A cluster of patients with a chronic mononucleosis-like syndrome," that had just been published in JAMA. (See Holmes, Kaplan, Stewart et al: JAMA 1987:287:2297-2302) The publication essentially stated that Epstein Barr Virus was not the apparent cause of this illness in the 130 patients from which they took blood samples. But they weren't sure and suggested that further study be done. Stephen Straus who was apparently the NIH chief behind the Lake Tahoe investigation was sitting beside me at this symposium. When Dr Holmes gave both Dr Straus and myself the paper, Dr Straus, in a monologue to him, reacted very negatively, stating that the patients had tricked him. I was amazed. [...] At the termination of this meeting Dr Gary Holmes called a committee to discuss the creation of a definition for this 1984 Lake Tahoe Raggedy Anne Illness that had appeared sporadically and in clusters in many areas of the United States and Canada. Approximately 25 people showed up for the meeting. Included in this 25 physicians and scientists were Dr Alexis Shelokov, Dr J. Gordon Parish and myself. [...] It was obvious that most of the assembly associated this epidemic disease with Epstein-Barr Virus and infectious mononucleosis, what the British refer to as glandular fever. It was immediately apparent that the consensus was going to be hijacked by this majority. Dr Shelokov and Dr Parish decided that this meeting was going nowhere and so decided to leave before it terminated. I followed them. [...] It was a wise choice for me in terms of acquiring knowledge but it was a bad choice for the three of us in that, had we stayed, we might have influenced the definition that was to appear in 1988.

On Simon Wessely's influence with the insurance industry: Several years ago I was lecturing in British Columbia. Dr [Simon] Wessely was speaking and he gave a thoroughly enjoyable lecture on M.E. and CFS. He had the hundreds of staff physicians laughing themselves silly over the invented griefs of the M.E. and CFS patients who, according to Dr. Wessely had no physical illness what so ever but a lot of misguided imagination. I was appalled at his sheer effectiveness, the amazing control he had over the minds of the staid physicians. [...] His message was very clear and very simple. If I can paraphrase him: “M.E. and CFS are non-existent illnesses with no pathology what-so-ever. There is no reason why they all cannot return to work tomorrow." The next morning I left by car with my crew and arrived in Kelowna British Columbia that afternoon. We were staying at a patient’s house who had severe M.E. with dysautonomia and was for all purposes bedridden or house-bound most of the day. That morning she had received a phone call from her insurance company in Toronto. (Toronto is approximately 2742 miles from Vancouver). The insurance call was as follows and again I paraphrase: “Physicians at a University of British Columbia University have demonstrated that there is no pathological or physiological basis for M.E. or CFS. Your disability benefits have been stopped as of this month. You will have to pay back the funds we have sent you previously. We will contact you shortly with the exact amount you owe us”. That night I spoke to several patients or their spouses came up to me and told me they had received the same message. They were in understandable fear. [...] I understand that it was also the insurance industry who paid for Dr Wessely’s trip to Vancouver.

Notable studies

 * 2003, Clinical Improvement in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Associated with Enhanced Natural Killer Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity: The Results of a Pilot Study with Isoprinosine® (Abstract)
 * 2007, Thyroid malignancy association with cortical & subcortical brain SPECT changes in patients presenting with a myalgic encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Abstract)
 * 2011, TCP (tricresyl phosphate): pilot, aircrew and passenger safety and secondary myalgic encephalomyelitis (Full text)

Clinic location

 * Nightingale Research Foundation
 * 121 Iona Street, Ottawa Ontario K1Y 3M1, Canada
 * info@nightingale.ca

Dr Hyde gave up his license to practice in 2019, but continues to publish scientific research on ME.

Talks and interviews

 * 2006, A new and simple definition of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and a new simple definition of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & A Brief History of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and an Irreverent History of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (London Conference of May 12) - also known as The Little Red Book
 * 2006, Speaker at the 1st Invest in ME International ME Conference on The epidemiology, definitions and techniques of investigation of the ME and CFS patient and the resulting pathological findings - (Video)
 * 2007, Speaker at the 2nd Invest in ME International ME Conference on ME and Insurance companies -(Video)
 * 2007, Guest Speaker, U.K. House of Parliament / House of Lords Committee on M.E.
 * 2011, Keynote Speaker, IACFS/ME International Conference: Ottawa, Canada.
 * 2012, How I Help CFS/ME Patients in Canada - Byron Hyde, MD (Vimeo)
 * 2021, Why Doctors Can’t Diagnose ME/CFS and What Tests Should be Considered (Part 1, Part 2) for the Massachusetts ME/CFS & FM Association 2012 fall lecture
 * 2015, Prof. Kenny de Meirleir and Dr. Byron Hyde on ME/CFS (Daily Motion)
 * 2016 ME/cvs Vereniging Wetenschap voor Patienten / Science for Patients on YouTube (English with Dutch subtitles)
 * 82. ‪Introduction / Introductie - Dr. Byron Hyde‬, MD
 * 83. Symptoms of ME / ME-symptomen -Dr. Byron Hyde, MD
 * 84. ‪CFS / CVS - Dr. Byron Hyde, MD
 * 85. ME, viruses and bacteria / ME, virussen en bacteriën - Dr. Byron Hyde, MD
 * 86. ‪ME and the role of enteroviruses / ME en de rol van enterovirussen - Dr. Byron Hyde‬, MD
 * 3-5 May 2018, ME/CFS Canadian Collaborative Team Conference - Presentations titled: Brain Imaging and How to Examine a Prospective ME/CFS Patient and A Short History of ME and CFS

Books and book chapters

 * 1991, Chapter: Chronic Aspects of Akureyri Disease: post-viral Fatigue Syndrome. John Wiley & Sons.
 * 1992, The Clinical and Scientific Basis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Free PDF download from publisher)
 * 1993: Manual: A Physician’s Guide to M.E./CFS
 * 2004, Chapter 3: The Complexities of Diagnosis in Handbook of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Full text)
 * 2009 and 2011, Missed Diagnoses: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
 * 2009, Chapter: Diagnosis of Fatigue and Pain Syndromes. (psychiatric textbook) John Wiley & Sons. Government and General Medical Counsel of the UK.
 * 2015, Association of M.E. to Polio, Polio Epidemics and Enteroviruses. (60 page booklet) Netherlands M.E. Association (ME/cvs Vereniging), Amsterdam.
 * 2016, The Nightingale Research Foundation Definition for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.) (PDF)
 * 2019, The Return of Polio to the USA

Online presence

 * The Nightingale Research Foundation

Learn more

 * Dr Byron Hyde - 25% ME Group