Hi, Caledonia.
This is a very good question, and one that many people have struggled with for a long time now. It's difficult to prove that the incidence of ME/CFS increased in the 80s, because there is not good epidemiological data available on it from earlier years. However, it does seem that it would have received attention if it had been as prevalent back then as it is now.
Dr. Cheney and Dr. Peterson have always believed that a virus was involved in the Incline Village outbreak in the 80s. Dr. Cheney suggested to me a few years ago that a virus that was related to HIV was involved. Viruses mutate over time, and his suggestion was that it mutated and became less virulent, thus explaining why the epidemic ran its course.
I don't think anyone knows for sure, but I think that one candidate for causing such a change is vaccines. I'm very interested in the papers that are suggesting that vaccines that are developed in animals and then transferred to humans may carry pathogens with them, incuding mycoplasma and retroviruses. Apparently pathogens are able to share genetic material with each other when they are present together in the same animal or human, and that can develop new infectious pathogens.
Best regards,
Rich
Hi Rich,
I want to expand the considerations of viruses. Incline Village was not the first one. I have gotten hit my one or more viruses multiple times in large scale outbreaks. In the late 60s and early 70s there were occurrences around Labor Day with college and school openings delayed, I was sick with them both times and recovered more or less in a month or 3 except for 1969-70 where I was sick all autumn. I called the CDC. This wasn't one area but rather my sister's college opening was delayed in Arizona, several schools in Ohio and Maine, all of which I was aware of personally. The CDC said "nothing is going on". Then in 1987 (I think), I might be off a year and I was kicked out of my doc's at the time practice, there was a massive outbreak in Utah. My wife was ill for 6 months with it and that was the trigger of my 16 years of constant illness. She recovered after 6 months, I didn't. The doctors were flooded.
My favorite candidate for the viruses involved are the Coxsackie and/or Echo viruses, entero viruses that used to be called "non-paralytic polio" and were then included in the Polio epidemic statistics in the 40s and 50s as there was no way to differentiate them without lab tests. However, after the polio vaccines they started ignoring these viruses which were not included in the vaccines and unlike the Pox (variola) viruses don't generate cross immunity. The word "polio" was taboo because of the terror it generated so they were called "miscellaneous entero viruses". Post polio syndrome or Fibromyalgia are differentiated based on whether a person ever was diagnosed with Polio but with Echo and Coxsackie viruses (32 in all I believe) never dignosed as such suddenly we have a whole host of mystery diseases. People always used to get sick from these and they were included with Polio epidemic statistics. Suddenly nobody gets Polio but they still get ill from Echo and Coxsackie and they are now unidentified mystery diseases. Nothing is more invisible than something too taboo to even mention. These viruses also follow nerves just like Polio.
At Incline Villiage there appeared to be some centering around water facilities such as hot tubs and swimming pools just as with Polio according to some material I read. The outbreaks I participated in also had similar links. As entero viruses can be spread other ways the linkage was not exclusive.
Also, I have identified vaccines as one of the stress factors that leads to the same results as these viral illnesses whatever they are, even physical trauma, and they all end up with a crashed b12/folate methylation block/ methyl-trap etc that often doesn't end for years or decades without the right supplements. Animal pathogens are not required in this hypothesis as the target virus itself is sufficient because it is the stress on the immune system that triggers the unrecoverable deficiency pattern.
This is just a consideration as I do not know anything on this conclusively.