Elaine DeFreitas

Elaine DeFreiras was an early ME/CFS researcher.

She lodged a patent for the diagnosis and treatment of ME/CFS, which she believed was caused by a virus she termed CAV, CFIDS-Associated Virus.

A summary of the 1990 edition of CFIDS Chronicle stated "This Chronicle issue reported on research linking CFS to a human retrovirus called HTLV-2 by Dr. Elaine DeFreitas based on patient samples provided by Dr. David Bell and Dr. Paul Cheney. 23 of 30 samples from CFS patients tested positive for genes resembling HTLV-2, while none of the samples from 20 healthy subjects were positive. There was heavy media coverage of these early stage results by USA Today, Newsweek, the New York Times and other major dailies and broadcast networks. Later studies testing this association, including blinded case-control studies, found positives in equal percentages among cases and controls and the initial discovery was never validated.".

Dr DeFreitas is included in the 1996 TV segment Sick and Tired.