Dr. Schweitzer is pretty well known to many of us CFIDSers. She gets herself to the meetings and has been very active in CFIDS research and advocacy despite being quite sick.
I don't know if her site is on our forum, but here it is. She is top notch and really does know her stuff. I have immense respect for Dr. Schweitzer and make it a point to read what she writes.
FYI
Mary Schweitzer
http://slightlyalive.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-do-we-have-if-we-do-not-have-cfs.html
http://www.cfids-me.org/
Sunday, August 8, 2010
What do we have if we do not have CFS?
I have always despised the concept and name chronic fatigue syndrome, created in 1988 to describe a group of patients who had previously been thought to have Chronic Epstein-Barr Virus. CFS is not scientific. It is a social construct, a shape-shifter, something that gets redefined as those in a position of power, or society at large, wish to redefine it. But it had one advantage. It helped researchers study a group of patients who have been sick for decades with a mysterious, apparently contagious, disease. It helped researchers define subgroups of patients who exhibited similar patterns of biomarkers and pathogens. If CDC defines CFS so that those patients are no longer considered to have the disease, then what can we say they have? And what is left that can be called CFS? Why would we study CFS at all?
THERE IS MUCH MORE TO THIS BLOG. I JUST PUT THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OUT THERE BUT YOU SHOULD HIT THE BLOG AND HER WEBSITE AND READ. GOOD STUFF BY A DARN GOOD SICK ADVOCATE.
I don't know if her site is on our forum, but here it is. She is top notch and really does know her stuff. I have immense respect for Dr. Schweitzer and make it a point to read what she writes.
FYI
Mary Schweitzer
http://slightlyalive.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-do-we-have-if-we-do-not-have-cfs.html
http://www.cfids-me.org/
Sunday, August 8, 2010
What do we have if we do not have CFS?
I have always despised the concept and name chronic fatigue syndrome, created in 1988 to describe a group of patients who had previously been thought to have Chronic Epstein-Barr Virus. CFS is not scientific. It is a social construct, a shape-shifter, something that gets redefined as those in a position of power, or society at large, wish to redefine it. But it had one advantage. It helped researchers study a group of patients who have been sick for decades with a mysterious, apparently contagious, disease. It helped researchers define subgroups of patients who exhibited similar patterns of biomarkers and pathogens. If CDC defines CFS so that those patients are no longer considered to have the disease, then what can we say they have? And what is left that can be called CFS? Why would we study CFS at all?
THERE IS MUCH MORE TO THIS BLOG. I JUST PUT THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OUT THERE BUT YOU SHOULD HIT THE BLOG AND HER WEBSITE AND READ. GOOD STUFF BY A DARN GOOD SICK ADVOCATE.
