Simon McGrath provides a patient-friendly version of a peer-reviewed paper which highlights some of the most promising biomedical research on ME/CFS … Recently, Professor Jonathan Edwards, with patients and carers as co-authors (including me), published a peer-reviewed editorial in the medical journal Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior. The article became their most-viewed paper within a few days. The editorial highlights
Continue
Clark Ellis spoke with Dr. Ronald W. Davis and Linda Tannenbaum about the End ME/CFS Project … History The history books record that in the nineteenth century Louis Pasteur formulated a “germ theory” of microbes as the causative agents of disease, and thus revolutionized medicine. His findings, along with his contemporary, John Snow (who linked cholera to infected water supply), changed
Continue
Sometimes ME/CFS emerges after mononucleosis, or glandular fever. Simon McGrath shares results from a long-term follow-up study from Haukeland University Hospital in Norway … “When will this end?” It’s a question that most ME/CFS patients have probably asked themselves and their doctor many times. I certainly have. Yet there is astonishingly little hard data on recovery rates from this illness or
Continue
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 The State of the Knowledge Workshop is here and it’s a good one. A hearty congratulations to Pat Fero, Mary Schweitzer, Ken Friedman, Dr. Jason, Dr. Klimas, Dr. Vernon and Dennis Mangan for what they’ve produced. The last NIH Workshop/Conference of this sort was the Neuroimmune Conference of eight years ago and was filled with NIH
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson A New Center – Much research and discussion now is not centered around XMRV but around a prostate cancer cell line called 22RV1. More than anything else this cell line that is what is causing problems for XMRV. The 22RV1 cell line was created in 1999 in response to a need to study prostate cancer –
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson March 6th The WPI’s response to CROI was “It is interesting that infectious XMRV is still found only in human cells and not in mouse cells or mice. In addition, these data have little to say about XMRV infection in humans.” In an email Dr. Mikovits stated “There is still not one piece of evidence of
Continue
Posted by Cort Johnson I first met Lisa Faust at the Symposium on Viruses in 2008. She was at a table with a group of women all of whom were battling a similar sounding illness. They were definitely the acute onset infectious disease subset. My mouth dropped as I listened to their stories; some were on complete disability, others had
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson That’s right – in the midst of the greatest economic contraction since the depression the NIH has, all of sudden, found itself in the greatest single expansion in its history. How and why demonstrates how much influence one Senator can have. Desperate to get Arlen Spectors vote on the stimulus package, the Obama administion acceded to
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson Dr. Hanna at the NIH has repeatedly said that given the tight budgetary times there’s just no money for ME/CFS. A look at NIH funding across the past few years suggests, however, there’s more to the issue than she suggests. Underneath the seemingly placid surface of a stable budget a fierce fight goes on every year
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson Dan Moricoli, the creator of the CFSKnowledge and the me-cfsCommunityCenter has just posted a fascinating account of his recent discussion with Dr. Nancy Klimas, a prominent ME/CFS researcher and physician. It seems that researchers are much closer to cracking some significant problems than we know.
ContinuePosted by Cort Johnson What do infection, stress, over-exercising and the intensive care unit have in common? Different researchers believe that each can trigger a chronic fatigue syndrome-like (ME/CFS) state. A recent article in the New York Times added a short stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) to the list.
Continue