1984 Chapel Hill outbreak

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The 1984 Chapel Hill outbreak occured in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States.

Newspaper accounts[edit | edit source]

The Oklahoman (2009) reported: "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. [emphasis added] 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.'[1]

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."[1]

Medical texts[edit | edit source]

"... a series of studies at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center focused on an apparent outbreak of a fatiguing illness involving members of a symphony orchestra in North Carolina (Grufferman et al.,1988; Eby et al., 1989). The studies documented four cases of cancer (B-cell non-Hodgkins's lymphoma, glioblastoma multiforme, acinic cell carcinoma, and breast cancer) among the orchestra members and close contacts. The cancer cases had lower levels of activity, as compared to controls, of natural killer cells, a set of white blood cells that can directly kill cancer cells."[2]

See also[edit | edit source]

Learn more[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Garloch, Karen (May 5, 2009). "Cause of illness remains unknown". The Oklahoman. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
  2. Patarca-Montero, Roberto (October 29, 2004). Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise: Clinical Differentiation and Intervention; What Does the Research Say? (1st ed.). Binghamton, NY: CRC Press. pp. 83–84. ISBN 0789021951.