The "shrinking" of CFSAC!

[Nielk]

On September 12th, HHS (CFSAC team) sent an e-mail to their listserv with the following announcement:

The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee (CFSAC) will hold its fall meeting as a webinar on November 12 and 13, 2013, from 12:00 noon – 5:00 pm ET each day. This will not be an in-person meeting. Because of budget constraints and the government-wide Sequestration, federal advisory committees have been told to conduct at least some of their meetings as webinars or use other similar formats.

We will use webinar technology to accept questions to the committee submitted in real time, similar to the questions received on note cards from the last meeting. For the first time, we will accept prerecorded videos as public comment for the fall 2013 meeting. As in the past, we will have “live” public comment via phone and will accept written public comments. Detailed instructions for joining the webinar and providing public comment will be posted on the CFSAC website www.hhs.gov/advcomcfs/ at a later date. Agenda items will be posted on the CFSAC website by October 28.

The 2014 CFSAC spring meeting will be in-person in Washington, DC; exact dates will be announced in 2014.

Their timing of this new meeting "format" is very dis concerning. This fall meeting is really of the essence. There is so much on the plate right now to discuss.
1- the IOM "travesty"
2- there has been no (zero) response from them regarding the allegations of threads to some CFSAC members, eventhough three letters have gone on to them from advocates asking for answers.
3- the CDC refusal to include the two day testing in their study
How is it that they have a million dollars to sign a contract with IOM but don't have enough for a "live" meeting of CFSAC?
See Jennie Spotila's excellent blog about this here

 

[jspotila]

And we have the failure to respond to all inquiries about the investigation we requested in June into the allegations of intimidation: http://www.occupycfs.com/2013/09/21/lips-are-sealed/