Some patients may question what is wrong with advocates being employed by research/treatment centres like Simmaron.
Simmaron competes as a business entity, for a pool of government and private funding, with other so-called me/cfs centres. This is occurring both within and without the borders of the US and thus takes place on a global stage. Whoever has the best business model and fits within the CDC's allocation parameters gets to survive.
These centres each behave like a business entity. They promote themselves vigorously to their target markets. In most cases their research is tailored to support their treatment options. Yet ironically, each centre believes they offer the best treatment. There is no empirical check or evaluation procedure to assess treatment options, so one particular centre is not able to prove they are better or worse than another.
At the moment and essentially for decades, research into NK function and cytokines, which is where most of these centres are now focussing, has yielded little in the way of treatment options or markers and it could be argued that the government is happy to keep it that way. Funding into other biological areas is non-existent, and the results of current immune research is too easily ignored by the wider research community.
For patients to argue that their dollars are going to worthwhile research when they donate to centres like Simmaron is essentially not supportable.
Of late we have seen a relatively new tactic being employed by research/treatment centres to bring in the dollars: the employment of highly visible and respected advocates. Cort Johnston is one notable recent addition to the ranks of Simmaron, the wife of Robert Miller being another.
Cort, in particular, is heavily promoted by Simmaron:
http://simmaronresearch.com/simmaron-rising/
and Cort promotes Simmaron, so we have effectively what is typically called a 'cross promotion'.
Cort and Robert can no longer be called me/cfs advocates.