Posted by Cort Johnson The funder of big, complex and expensive studies whose costs often run into the millions of dollars, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) presents a resource like no other. It’s never been easy to secure an NIH grant; for one thing, substantial data backing up one’s hypothesis is needed – which means researchers need to access
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson Could chronic fatigue syndrome be an autoimmune disorder? The Fluge/Mella Rituximab study was effective in at least temporarily reducing the symptoms of about 60% of the chronic fatigue syndrome patients in the study – a fact that no doubt shocked many who considered CFS purely a neuropsychiatric disorder. Rituximab started out as a chemotherapy drug but
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson It doesn’t always take a village; sometimes it just takes a committed few to possibly change the future of a disorder; in this case, it may come down to just thirty patients and two researchers in Norway. The news that 2/3rds of CFS patients taking a chemotherapy drug called Rituximab significantly improved in a rigorous, double-blinded
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson (Looking Forward: Dr. Peterson on ME/CFS was derived from notes I took after a talk with Dr. Peterson; the views enclosed hopefully reflect the essence of the talk but any mistakes, of course, are mine. Materials were added from the IACFS/ME Ottawa conference to supplement the article). Thanks to Corinne for arranging a meeting with Dr. Peterson. Dr.
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Posted by Cort Johnson Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the Pathophysiology of EBV Infection – Dr. Glaser Dr. Glaser started off by noting that studies have found a strong association between HHV6, EBV and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and then, perhaps in reference to all the attention given to XMRV over the past year and a half, stated that any other
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson Dr. Montoya at Stanford Hospital on CFS March, 2011This definitely wasn’t an ‘get acquainted with CFS’ talk. There was no boring scholarly introduction to CFS (“Chronic fatigue syndrome effects blah, blah, blah….has x number of symptoms….blah, blah…..)…Dr. Montoya was clearly trying to wake people up. Calling ME/CFS one of the most ‘mis-perceived’ illnesses in medicine, Montoya
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