Very intelligent use of the FOIA. Just a disturbing situation taken together with the Chadler comments. You can't speak up for your illness, you just have to take what you get and be thankful for it, and even then you get painted in a negative light. If its really just a few (mildly) negative tweets than I have to say, these are among the most sensitive people on the planet. I can't imagine what they would do if they had to hear all the shit people say to someone with CFS. I guess its a grey area for people not in public office, but for those in it, even friggin Elizabeth Warren can handle the twitter insults (and the ones she gets are more plentiful and ill natured). Anyway, the Burmeister tweet is over the top, but if your arguing the financial impact of calling a disease "not abnormal" or whatever Wallitt said, then you can't really call it slander.
In fact, I remember that ridiculous thread and how much people wanted to walk on eggshells to accommodate the NIH team. I get it too, you never want to make your disease look bad, but at some point you have to be able to speak up and hold people accountable: and other patients and the medical community should never paint you in a falsely negative light for doing that, that's why I think this is such a "disturbing" situation.