The NIH on ME/CFS Part I
We just did an overview of what a governmental British medical agency is funding on ME/CFS. Now we turn to the biggest medical research funder in the world – the NIH. While NIH’s contribution to CFS research is paltry ($6 million/year) given their resources ($30 billion plus/yearly), their penchant for funding large, complex and expensive studies means they’re a very important player in ME/CFS research. Even with their weak focus on ME/CFS they are still the biggest single ME/CFS research funder in the world; in other words what they think and do with ME/CFS matters - a lot.… Read More
The Medical Research Council is a government agency responsible for coordinating and funding medical research in the UK. No slouch in the medical world, MRC funded research has lead to numerous breakthroughs including, way back in 1918, the discovery that influenza is caused by a virus, the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 1953 and most recently the 2009 Nobel prize for work on ribosomes.
The MRC’s record on innovative research pretty much stopped at CFS, however. Bogged down in a purely behaviorist stance towards the disorder, recent MRC funded studies have focused almost entirely on CBT with precious few funds devoted to pathophysiology.… Read More
