NIH director Francis Collins was on the Charlie Rose PBS show yesterday evening and he discussed his strong desire to find out what's going on in ME/CFS, etc. it appeared to me that he had a strong personal investment in pushing for more ME/CFS research. my memory is poor and I've already forgotten some of what he had to say, but he spoke for a few minutes. he didn't get everything right about the symptoms of ME/CFS, but his intent to push hard for a significant research program on ME/CFS came through loud and clear. when he described ME/CFS patients, he cited a viral trigger and how severely some patients are affected – bedridden, etc. he did mention PEM and exercise intolerance. he mentioned how valuable it would be to discover and understand exactly what is "fatigue", because it could be applied to other illnesses that are fatiguing also.
a side tidbit was that I thought it was interesting also that Charlie Rose asked him about his recent statements about "chronic fatigue", Dr. Collins did not bring it up on his own.
I searched the Internet and I could not find any place where the video of him talking about ME/CFS was posted, yet.
it certainly will be interesting to see who gets funded and what gets funded