Important events timeline

Victorian Period

Year	Date	Event
1869		George Miller Beard coined the term "neurasthenia." He thought it was an especially American affliction of nervous exhaustion, affected men who were "brain workers" and women who advanced too far in their education.
??		Jean-Martin Charcot - hysteria. Many of his patients were suffering from epilepsy. Influence on Sigmund Freud and the concept of functional disorders.

Early 20th century

Year	Date	Event
1934		Atypical poliomyelitis - an outbreak at Los Angeles County Hospital of a disease "resembling poliomyelitis" was recorded.

1950s

Year	Date	Event
1955		Royal Free Hospital outbreak in London, England, which led to the use of the name Myalgic encephalomyelitis.

1960s

Year	Date	Event
1969		Myalgic encephalomyelitis classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neurological disease.

1970s

Year	Date	Event
1975		Outbreak in Mercy San Juan Hospital, in a suburb of Sacramento, California, Unites States
1976		ME Association charity founded in UK

1980s

Year	Date	Event
1980		Outbreak in Ayrshire, Scotland (1980-81 Ayrshire outbreak).
1984		Disease outbreak in Incline Village near Lake Tahoe in Nevada, United States.
1984		Disease outbreak in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States(1984 Chapel Hill outbreak).
1985		Disease outbreak in Lyndonville, New York, United States (1985 Lyndonville outbreak).
1988		First definition of Chronic fatigue syndrome produced, later updated in 1994.

1990s

Year	Date	Event
1994		Chronic fatigue syndrome criteria update to the 1994 Fukuda criteria.
1994	September	Publication of the 1994 National Task Force Report on CFS/PVFS/ME by Westcare UK, notably the London criteria
1996		Osler's Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic by Hillary Johnson is published chronicling the governmental inaction and fraud in investigating ME/CFS

2000s

Year	Date	Event
2003		Canadian Consensus Criteria is developed by Bruce Carruthers, et al.
2009		Publication of the Judy Mikovits study in Science claiming a link between Chronic fatigue syndrome and the XMRV retrovirus.
2009		Preliminary research published by Norwegian researchers proposes assessment of the use of cancer drug Rituximab to treat the disease.

2010s

Year	Date	Event
2011		International Consensus Criteria is developed by Bruce Carruthers, et al.
2011		The controversial British PACE trial is published in The Lancet, recommending cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy as treatments.
2011		The Science journal retracts the XMRV paper.
2015		The Institute of Medicine report is released: "Beyond Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Redefining an illness", which reviewed thousands of articles, and concluded that "ME/CFS is a serious, chronic, complex and multisystem disease that frequently and dramatically limits the activities of affected patients" (p. 209). The report recommended new diagnostic criteria, and a new name for the condition: Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID).
2015		Francis Collins announces the intent of the National Institutes of Health to take the disease more seriously.
2015		The Open Medicine Foundation announces its End ME/CFS Project, led by Ronald Davis, has support of three Nobel prize laureates.
2016		National Institutes of Health, United States begins study of ME/CFS patient in their in-house Clinical Center in Bethesda

See also

• Osler's Web by Hillary Johnson
• Thirty Years of Disdain by Mary Dimmock
• List of outbreaks
• ME and CFS in popular culture
• Notable studies

World Health Organization (WHO) - "A specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with public health. It was established on 7 April 1948, and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO is a member of the United Nations Development Group. Its predecessor, the Health Organization, was an agency of the League of Nations." The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) is maintained by WHO.

See World Health Organization.

myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.) - A disease often marked by neurological symptoms, but fatigue is sometimes a symptom as well. Some diagnostic criteria distinguish it from chronic fatigue syndrome, while other diagnostic criteria consider it to be a synonym for chronic fatigue syndrome. A defining characteristic of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM), or post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion (PENE), which is a notable exacerbation of symptoms brought on by small exertions. PEM can last for days or weeks. Symptoms can include cognitive impairments, muscle pain (myalgia), trouble remaining upright (orthostatic intolerance), sleep abnormalities, and gastro-intestinal impairments, among others. An estimated 25% of those suffering from ME are housebound or bedbound. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies ME as a neurological disease.

See myalgic encephalomyelitis.

See chronic fatigue syndrome.

systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID) - A term for ME/CFS that aims to avoid the stigma associated with the term "chronic fatigue syndrome", while emphasizing the defining characteristic of post-exertional malaise (PEM). SEID was defined as part of the diagnostic criteria put together by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report of 10 February 2015.

See systemic exertion intolerance disease.