Hi KnightofZERO, one of the issues with the Cheney data is the difficulty of getting a good diagnosis. While some might argue he can't be sure and is over-estimating, many would argue he is under-estimating. One of the issues he had to face, iirc, is that the curve always seemed to be tapering off - no matter the year you took data from. People who became ill didn't show up till years later, it always looks like the spread is tapering off. If we had rapid diagnosis and a central reporting agency, I suspect we would see a serious pandemic growth curve in the early stages. The mere suspicion of this should be enough to warrant close attention but this is still being ignored so far as I know.
The CDC has spread the definition so wide its useless. One effect of this is that if a subgroup is growing rapidly, people with the core biological ME or CFS, then it would be lost in mass data, shown as a small increase at best. The problem with epidemic growth curves though is they start off small and then when they reach a critical population penetration they take off. I don't want to see this happen for ME or CFS.
The delay in diagnosis might also be putting a stop to the reporting of epidemics. Wait six months for a diagnosis and the epidemic is over. Besides, who wants to report mass hysteria - even the docs have been treated so badly they might be wary of reporting things. Of course, there might be other reasons why we rarely see epidemics. I can think of several which I have discussed elsewhere.
I have heard assurances repeatedly that ME or CFS are not increasing in prevalence. After all the numbers at major ME and CFS clinics are not going up much if at all. First, such clinics are rare, and are difficult to get into - and second they are often expensive. So they do not adequately survey the population. Such is the disrepute of an ME or CFS diagnosis that I suspect many are simply not even diagnosed - a decrease in diagnostic rates might well cover up an increase in prevalence.
One thing that suggests to me that prevalence has to be rising is the apparent disparity between recovery and new cases. More and more new cases, very few recover - where is it going to go but up? Sure we can die young from this, but it takes decades in most cases, and wont really make a dent in numbers.
Several common sources do indeed look suspect. My guess is that if vaccines are a source of contamination only some will have the causative agent, others will be safe. This might even be the case for a single batch of vaccine. Hence some get sick but most don't, and so it might be easy to dismiss as coincidence i.e. it can't be the vaccine because only some got sick. This is also the case if it requires some other factor, like a co-infection or genetics - only some will get sick so the vaccine is "safe".
These are complex issues begging for attention. I think I recall Anthony Komarof has been asking for funds for such studies since the 80s. Such funding has never been available, the only programs were for the CDC surveillance, and they used increasingly irrelevant definitions.
I actually have a lot of time for Fukuda himself. He did insist that his definition was only a beginning, that subtyping was necessary.
Bye
Alex