Phoenix Rising Articles

Phoenix Rising Team submitted a new blog post:

Zombie Patients From the ICU

Posted 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.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant percentage of ICU patients experience significant and sometimes disabling fatigue, cognitive problems and mood changes after being discharged from the ICU unit. Particularly compelling was the case of a high school athlete who, after a week in the ICU unit battling pnuemonia, deteriorated greatly after being discharged. A year later this former athlete tested below normal in fitness with his mother proclaiming that...

Phoenix Rising Team submitted a new blog post:

On the Clock Pt I: the NIH and ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome)

Posted by Cort Johnson

We know the ME/CFS research program at the CDC is in big trouble but what about its cousin at the NIH? Three years ago the CFIDS Association of America was praising the CDC's chronic fatigue syndrome program and slamming - in a federal document - the horrible performance of the NIH's ME/CFS program. The only thing that's happened to change that viewpoint is the implosion of the CDC's program; things are still as bad as ever over at the NIH.

Despite the chronic fatigue syndrome communities obsession with the CDC the NIH program is arguably the more important one. It's the NIH, not the CDC that's the center of medical research in the US. The CDC has traditionally been in charge of command and control operations regarding disease outbreaks (Centers for Disease Control) - but it's the NIH...