Yesterday’s CFS Advisory Committee meeting was insane. Wait, maybe the meeting just drove me insane. Or was the whole thing just insanely inane? I don’t even know anymore. Wait a second, hang on.
Ok, let me start again.
Yesterday’s CFS Advisory Committee meeting served up a generous helping of frustration on a silver platter. While some of the mistakes from the last meeting were corrected, many mistakes were repeated and new ones were made. I’m going to be as succinct as possible in summarizing another episode of
Tech, Wreck and Waste....
The Silver Platter
The disconnect between the accountability and progress that ME/CFS patients deserve and the decisionmaking put on display at CFSAC meetings remains large. These meetings are so frustrating, and increasingly so, that it is easy to see why some people believe HHS is doing this on purpose. Maybe they blame individuals, maybe they blame the Department, maybe they blame a highly placed policy maker, but many ME/CFS advocates believe that the sheer volume of problems can only be explained by intentionality.
How else can we explain a repetition of technical difficulties from the December meeting? How else can we explain the CDC’s failure to be forthcoming about their own website? How else can we explain the conduct we see in these meetings, and the way CFSAC’s recommendations are handled by the Department? How else do we explain the lack of urgency?