1984 Chapel Hill outbreak

"In the mid-1980s, chronic fatigue syndrome was first identified as a cluster of symptoms in clusters of patients in a few spots in the United States. Dr. Charles Lapp, then a family physician in Raleigh, N.C., identified one such outbreak among all the members of the N.C. Symphony Orchestra. Seven remained ill with chronic fatigue.

'Patients started coming to me with persistent flulike symptoms,' said Lapp, now medical director of Hunter-Hopkins Center in Charlotte, N.C. 'They would work one day and have to sleep for two. Perfectly well-adjusted people became disabled almost overnight.'

By the time Lapp notified the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about his findings, the agency had heard similar stories from Lake Tahoe and Rochester, N.Y."