Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the CDC: A Long, Tangled Tale
Independent journalist David Tuller, MPH, coordinator of a new, concurrent master’s degree program in public health and journalism at UC Berkeley, takes a deep investigative dive into the tangled history of the emergence of chronic fatigue syndrome and the CDC’s apparently mistaken assumptions about the illness’s defining traits and sources. It’s a long piece that was kindly given a home by Vincent Racaniello, PhD (@profvrr), at Virology Blog.
An excerpt:
Like others with chronic fatigue syndrome, Dr. Schweitzer is used to having her illness ignored, mocked or treated as a manifestation of trauma, depression or hypochondria—not only by doctors, colleagues and strangers but by friends, family members and federal researchers, too. So when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that people with chronic fatigue syndrome are more likely to suffer from “maladaptive personality features”—in particular from “higher scores on neuroticism” and higher rates of “paranoid, schizoid, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive and depressive personality disorders”—Dr. Schweitzer dismissed the research as “incredibly stupid” but “not surprising.” In another recent study, the CDC had reported—also incredibly stupidly, from Dr. Schweitzer’s perspective–that childhood trauma, such as sexual or emotional abuse, was a “an important risk factor” for the illness.
For Dr. Schweitzer, other patients and advocates, and much if not all of the non-CDC research community involved with the illness, those two studies symbolize much of what has gone wrong with the agency’s research program on chronic fatigue syndrome. As the country’s leading public health organization, the CDC has enjoyed remarkable success in the fight against many diseases. But its history with chronic fatigue syndrome, commonly called CFS, is a matter of bitter–and ongoing—dispute…
