After researching this a bit further
Why this is important to notify your representative
The Institue of Medicine, IOM, redefined another illness GWI or GWS which is similar to ME/CFS in 2013. Even though the veterans have a strong lobby in Congress, they failed to sway the IOM from redefining this illness.
Even though the IOM stated that these men and women were exposed to biological and chemical toxins, depleted uranium, particulate matter and infectious agents and the IOM acknowledge them as contributors, and it found it found most compelling the scientific evidence that the prime culprits were neurotoxins — in overused insecticides, experimental anti-nerve gas pre-treatment pills, and sarin plumes from the Air Force’s bombing of an Iraqi weapons plant!
The committee evaluated all treatments for which there was evidence, including prescription medicines and alternative therapies. On the basis of the voluminous evidence it reviewed, the IOM committee cannot recommend one single therapy to manage the health of veterans with CMI and, further, rejects a one-size-fitsall treatment approach. Instead, the committee endorses individualized care management plans.
The committee notes that the best available evidence from studies of treatments for CMI and related health conditions demonstrates that veterans who have CMI may benefit from such medications as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, and from cognitive behavioral therapy, which has been shown to reduce symptoms.
Other interventions and approaches hold promise for treating CMI but lack robust scientific evidence of their effectiveness. For this reason, the VA should fund and conduct studies of interventions, such as biofeedback, acupuncture, St. John’s wort, aerobic exercise, motivational interviewing, and multimodal therapies.
"I am very concerned as an ill Gulf War veteran that IOM Gulf War committees and the board overseeing them are disproportionately made up of individuals predisposed toward views of Gulf War Illness that do not reflect current scientific knowledge, including the idea that it is fundamentally psychiatric or psychosomatic," wrote Anthony Hardie, a Gulf War vet and Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, in a letter to the institute.
So you now know what the outcome will be for ME/CFS patient community if you don't contact your respresentative! Legitimate scientific research will be defunded and the AMA medical profession will consider your illness as psycho-somatic.
Eco