Just My Honest Opinion

So it's been a bit frustrating and disheartening for me due to personal circumstances, lately. I was looking to the January Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee meeting to be a justified distraction for a couple of days. But, it brought on more frustration, I hate to say. So, I must purge. And this is the place for me to do so. On Friday, they revisited a previous recommendation because the committee did not get the response they had hoped for from the secretary/government agency. They were discussing what to do, reword? resend as is? don't sent again? The recommendation is: The IOM has acknowledged and identified a distinct medical condition involving systemic exertion intolerance with PEM and universal core criteria.  CFSAC recommends that the disease identified by the IOM be clearly distinguished from other causes of chronic fatigue, such as conditions described by Fukuda et al, 2005 Reeves, Oxford and other forms of chronic fatigue which include pati...

On November 9, Dr. Edward Shorter of Toronto gave a presentation to NIH officials on the history of ME/CFS. The fact this was going to occur was not shared in the NIH conference call with patients just 7 days before. It was quite a surprise considering the other NIH activities related to ME/CFS that was shared. Dr. Avindra Nath , the NIH official leading the new clinical study on ME/CFS, was there on that patient conference call, coming in late. In fact, you can listen to it or read the transcript here . When patients found out about this from someone not at the NIH, advocates sent out the alarm. One of them was Jennie Spotila. She wrote a blog and sent a letter to the leader of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Strokes (Dr. Walter Koroshetz) because Shorter's 2015 comments about ME/CFS were disparaging of the patients and discredited the biological basis for the disease (along with a book he wrote about it in the '90s). I too wrote a letter. My letter...