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http://www.medicalsociologyonline.org/oldsite/archives/issue41/pdwolfe.html
.Medical Sociology online volume 4, issue 1 (June 2009)
ME: The rise and fall of a media sensation
Patricia de Wolfe
patricia@dewo.demon.co.uk
ABSTRACT*
ME (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome), a medical disorder of unknown aetiology, generated considerable media attention in the late 1980s and during the 1990s.
Patients insisted they suffered from an organic disease, while certain lay and medical commentators construed the condition variously as an effect of female hysteria; as a form of depression manifesting itself in physical form; and most famously, as 'yuppie flu', an affliction of stressed young professionals.
This article documents the origins of the controversy, explores the principal constructions of ME that arose amongst commentators and the assumptions that underlay them, and traces the differing fate of the diverse constructions in subsequent years
* I gave each sentence its own paragraph.
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EDITORIAL FOREWORD
[..]
We have included two papers in this edition: the first is ME: The rise and fall of a media sensation, where Patricia de Wolfe explores the natural history of the controversial and influential media coverage of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). In her analysis, de Wolf draws attention to the different constructions of this illness which delineated and divided medical practitioners and sufferers alike. While many people with ME/CFS favoured an organic explanation of ME/CFS as a disease, and actively sought social recognition as people experiencing a chronic illness, others, usually from bio-medical sciences, including doctors, tended to favour the explanation of ME/CFS as a mental health disorder, manifesting itself as a collection of apparently physical symptoms. By locating the roots of the disease in documented cases of female hysteria, these gendered biomedical explanations were picked up and turned over by the media, leading to new constructions of the illness over time. Similarly the class/ occupation influenced designation of Yuppie Flu reflected contemporary preoccupations with new working practices and upward social mobility.