Waverunner
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A very long article by David Tuller. I just started reading but he seems to have done a great job in writing about CFS, the progress, the science and its perception. Moreover I feel very grateful to Prof. Vincent Racaniello for posting the text on his Virology Blog (www.virology.ws). These are great scientists in my eyes and the article is so up to date that it even reports about the release of Dr Mikovits against bail today.
http://www.virology.ws/2011/11/23/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-and-the-cdc-a-long-tangled-tale/
In the early 1990s, Mary Schweitzer, a history professor at Villanova University near Philadelphia, suffered through successive bouts of sicknessmononucleosis associated with Epstein-Barr virus, a stomach parasite, repeated episodes of bronchitis. One day, while reviewing student exams in her office, she slumped over and blacked out. Not long after, she received a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome.
In written testimony to a federal advisory committee a few years ago, Dr. Schweitzer described how disabled she eventually became: On a bad day, I would never get up at all, or would lie in bed curled up under the coversI experienced pain behind my eyes and in the back of my neck. It felt as if somebody had hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and someone else was trying to unscrew my eyeballs with a pair of pliers.
Over the years, Dr. Schweitzer has tested positive for multiple viruses. She experiences severe lapses in memory, concentration and other cognitive skills. She suffers from neurally mediated hypotension, a form of low blood pressure arising from nerve dysfunction, which causes nausea, loss of balance, and fainting. Her muscle and joint pain can be intense, and she frequently requires a wheelchair. Her white blood cell counts have been way off; her immune system is often out of whack. She left her position at Villanova because of disability and has been unable to work most of the years since.
Like others with chronic fatigue syndrome, Dr. Schweitzer is used to having her illness ignored, mocked or treated as a manifestation of trauma, depression or hypochondrianot only by doctors, colleagues and strangers but by friends, family members and federal researchers, too. So when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that people with chronic fatigue syndrome are more likely to suffer from maladaptive personality featuresin particular from higher scores on neuroticism and higher rates of paranoid, schizoid, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive and depressive personality disordersDr. Schweitzer dismissed the research as incredibly stupid but not surprising. In another recent study, the CDC had reportedalso incredibly stupidly, from Dr. Schweitzers perspectivethat childhood trauma, such as sexual or emotional abuse, was a an important risk factor for the illness...
...(In the meantime, in a bizarre and unsettling turn of events, the senior author of the original XMRV paper, Dr. Judy Mikovits, is engaged in a fierce legal battle with her former employer, the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease, at the University of Nevada in Reno. The institute sponsored the XMRV research but has accused Dr. Mikovits, its erstwhile star scientist, of stealing laboratory notebooks and other materialsa charge she has denied. Public feuding between the institute and Dr. Mikovits ratcheted up as the hypothesis they jointly championed appeared to be falling apart. The institute filed a lawsuit against her earlier this month; she has also apparently been charged with possession of stolen property, according to a news update in Science. Last Friday, Dr. Mikovits was arrested in California as a fugitive from justice and spent the weekend in jail; she was released on bail after a hearing on Tuesday.)...
Please continue at http://www.virology.ws/2011/11/23/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-and-the-cdc-a-long-tangled-tale/
http://www.virology.ws/2011/11/23/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-and-the-cdc-a-long-tangled-tale/
In the early 1990s, Mary Schweitzer, a history professor at Villanova University near Philadelphia, suffered through successive bouts of sicknessmononucleosis associated with Epstein-Barr virus, a stomach parasite, repeated episodes of bronchitis. One day, while reviewing student exams in her office, she slumped over and blacked out. Not long after, she received a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome.
In written testimony to a federal advisory committee a few years ago, Dr. Schweitzer described how disabled she eventually became: On a bad day, I would never get up at all, or would lie in bed curled up under the coversI experienced pain behind my eyes and in the back of my neck. It felt as if somebody had hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and someone else was trying to unscrew my eyeballs with a pair of pliers.
Over the years, Dr. Schweitzer has tested positive for multiple viruses. She experiences severe lapses in memory, concentration and other cognitive skills. She suffers from neurally mediated hypotension, a form of low blood pressure arising from nerve dysfunction, which causes nausea, loss of balance, and fainting. Her muscle and joint pain can be intense, and she frequently requires a wheelchair. Her white blood cell counts have been way off; her immune system is often out of whack. She left her position at Villanova because of disability and has been unable to work most of the years since.
Like others with chronic fatigue syndrome, Dr. Schweitzer is used to having her illness ignored, mocked or treated as a manifestation of trauma, depression or hypochondrianot only by doctors, colleagues and strangers but by friends, family members and federal researchers, too. So when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that people with chronic fatigue syndrome are more likely to suffer from maladaptive personality featuresin particular from higher scores on neuroticism and higher rates of paranoid, schizoid, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive and depressive personality disordersDr. Schweitzer dismissed the research as incredibly stupid but not surprising. In another recent study, the CDC had reportedalso incredibly stupidly, from Dr. Schweitzers perspectivethat childhood trauma, such as sexual or emotional abuse, was a an important risk factor for the illness...
...(In the meantime, in a bizarre and unsettling turn of events, the senior author of the original XMRV paper, Dr. Judy Mikovits, is engaged in a fierce legal battle with her former employer, the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease, at the University of Nevada in Reno. The institute sponsored the XMRV research but has accused Dr. Mikovits, its erstwhile star scientist, of stealing laboratory notebooks and other materialsa charge she has denied. Public feuding between the institute and Dr. Mikovits ratcheted up as the hypothesis they jointly championed appeared to be falling apart. The institute filed a lawsuit against her earlier this month; she has also apparently been charged with possession of stolen property, according to a news update in Science. Last Friday, Dr. Mikovits was arrested in California as a fugitive from justice and spent the weekend in jail; she was released on bail after a hearing on Tuesday.)...
Please continue at http://www.virology.ws/2011/11/23/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-and-the-cdc-a-long-tangled-tale/
