@trishrhymes - you make some very good points, though I don't know if I agree with all of them.
This is likely to give the 'purest' data and therefore the clearest picture, less confounded by the effects of long term illness.
I'm not so sure there are definite effects of long-term illness - e.g., I've been ill for almost 19 years. But overall would be quite healthy were it not for ME/CFS - no diabetes, heart problems, etc. However, I won't quibble over this. At least they are studying this illness.
And you're right, they didn't say they would limit later stages of drug studies to only those sick less than 5 years. My comment was somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction to their initial limit of people ill less than 5 years. Though it probably would be good to get clarification on this matter.
I don't think it's either/or with Ron Davis's and other people's studies. I
I didn't mean it was "either/or with Ron Davis" et al. What I was referring to was that Professor Davis and his team have devised an apparatus which apparently is quite accurate in diagnosing ME/CFS. So for Dr. Nath and his team to plan on taking 3-5 years to develop a biomarker seems gratuitous when if they would hook up with the team at OMF, they could probably get this thing finalized and up and running in very short order. You don't notice Ron Davis saying they will take years to find something. They are doing everything they can to find everything they can as quickly as possible
Which ties in with your complaint and mine that the NIH plans on taking so long to accomplish anything. I wish they would build on what has already been done, instead of starting from scratch. I was thinking of AIDS and how if researchers had said we plan on taking 3 to 5 years to develop a test for AIDS, and ignoring what had been accomplished to date, and meanwhile thousands are dying, I don't that would have been an acceptable target. But because we're not dying (most of us) and instead just have our lives destroyed, it's okay to work at this pace.
I know I don't have all the info and may be drawing unfair assumptions from the article; but I just do not sense any urgency in the NIH's plan, as there was with AIDS or as Ron Davis and his team have