Be Aware and Beware: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is an Equal Opportunity Disease

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or CFS, is an innocuous name given to a debilitating disease. Its seriousness is better indicated by the term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), a label preferred by many of its victims. On May 17-18, the Department of Health and Human Services hosted the biannual public meeting of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee by webinar. This was a fitting time for such a meeting, as May is International ME/CFS Awareness Month. The trigger for CFS/ME is not known. The lack of research on the disease means there is no truly effective and widely available therapy that would allow the more seriously ill victims to lead meaningful lives free of pain and incapacitating fatigue. The disease often appears to strike at random. It's impossible for any of us to know how to protect ourselves from the illness. Periodically, outbreaks have occurred, well-documented in Hillary Johnson's remarkable history of the disease, Osler's Web. Two notorious outbreaks in the mid-1980s each affected hundreds of people. One was in a prosperous community at the edge of Lake Tahoe and another in a less affluent farming community near Lake Ontario. Most victims near Lake Tahoe were adults; most near Lake Ontario were children. Today, while some of the children have recovered to some degree, many of the adults remain very ill 30 years later. Disease outbreaks are often due to pathogens that have increased in prevalence or virulence. But no pathogen nor any toxic envi...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news