Fivefold to eightfold increase in the incidence of ME from 1980 to 1989

[Hip]

@Hip would one time exposure to diazinon have a harmful effect? Also how long does it take to get delayed neuropathy from this stuff?

In the case of the farmers who applied sheep dip to their herd of sheep (sheep dip is an organophosphate-based or pyrethroid-based preparation which kills external parasites like mites, ticks and lice on the sheep), these farmers would often suffer a flu-like illness for hours or days after doing this dipping, or experience headaches, fatigue and brain fog for hours or days after.

Sheep dip would be applied to sheep twice a year, so farmers got two such heavy pesticide exposures per year. It is in these farmers who used regularly applied sheep dip that you find 4 times the rate of ME/CFS. Furthermore, farmers who used organophosphate-based sheep dip were found to be 10,000 times more likely to suffer from mental health disorders (ref: 1).

The worst thing is that the UK government knew of the dangers of sheep dip, but covered it up, and did nothing about it. The law required compulsory sheep dipping twice a year, so farmers had no choice but to do it.


So to answer your question: if you had an exposure to the organophosphate diazinon that produced a flu-like illness or headaches and brain fog afterwards, I would think that would be a significant exposure; though if this exposure only occurred once, it's probably not as severe as these farmers who were getting a major pesticide exposure twice each year on a long-term basis.

Also what the fuck insurance companies. No wonder so many diseases were considered "psychological". That is so unbelievably disgusting.

Yes, exactly, and nothing has changed today, as insurance companies are now championing the biopsychosocial model of illness, which basically holds the view that many chronic debilitating illnesses (especially the ones that would cost disability insurance companies a lot of money) are in part psychologically-caused, so this again helps these insurance companies withhold disability payment from patients with chronic diseases.

Yeah, but that doesn't tell us much about incidence.

I would have thought it tells us a great deal about the incidence. The more ME/CFS patients you have to provide long term regular disability payment for, the more it costs a disability insurance company.

In any case, various researchers at the time, who would have been dealing with ME/CFS patients on a regular basis, state that there was a major increase in diagnosed cases of ME/CFS in the 1980s. I have no reason to doubt their statements.

@Hip, association is not proof of causation.

Obviously.

 

[Esther12]

I would have thought it tells us a great deal about the incidence. The more ME/CFS patients you have to provide long term regular disability payment for, the more it costs a disability insurance company.

In any case, various researchers at the time, who would have been dealing with ME/CFS patients on a regular basis, state that there was a major increase in diagnosed cases of ME/CFS in the 1980s. I have no reason to doubt their statements.

But we don't really know what would have happened to the various people who had the symptoms of CFS in the 1970s. I don't feel confident making any claims about this - not enough evidence (or if there is, I've not seen it).

 

[Hip]

not enough evidence (or if there is, I've not seen it).

So apparently you did not read the epidemiological paper by Dr Elizabeth Dowsett and Dr John Richardson that I quoted earlier, where they combined the data from four different ME/CFS incidence studies (covering the UK, Canada and the USA), and found a worldwide 5 to 8-fold increase in ME/CFS incidence during the period 1980-1989?

 

[Esther12]

So apparently you did not read the epidemiological paper by Dr Elizabeth Dowsett and Dr John Richardson that I quoted earlier, where they combined the data from four different ME/CFS incidence studies (covering the UK, Canada and the USA), and found a worldwide 5 to 8-fold increase in ME/CFS incidence during the period 1980-1989?

Nope, only the quotes provided. Just had a quick look, and didn't think that there was solid evidence to support that claim.

 

[Hip]

Just had a quick look, and didn't think that there was solid evidence to support that claim.

Well I'd prefer to go by the considered opinions of Dr Elizabeth Dowsett, Dr John Richardson and Professor Malcolm Hooper, rather than an opinion that you hastily offered after spending just a few minutes glancing at the paper.

 

[Esther12]

Well I'd prefer to go by the considered opinions of Dr Elizabeth Dowsett, Dr John Richardson and Professor Malcolm Hooper, rather than an opinion that you hastily offered after spending just a few minutes glancing at the paper.

I wouldn't decide on that basis, but by looking at the evidence presented. Up to you what you do though.

 

[Rvanson]

There are loads of things, I bet correlative graphs would seem to tie in with many things.

The 80s were a bit of a boom time for developed capitalistic nations, we got exposed on so many levels to so many things in big ways.

Air travel
Car ownership (lead)<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Vaccinations
Personal computers
Mass consumerism of foodstuffs
Wireless technology
Nuclear everything
Rise of plastics
Psychiatric medications wholesale

And many many more.

Tetraethyl Lead was removed from gasoline in the US in 1974-1975. It clogs up the catalytic converter exhaust emissions device. Lead is really nasty stuff in old paint that children chew. It was used to boost octane levels of
gasoline cheaply for 50 years and can be found in the soil samples along just about any road that was used during the years of 1925 to 1975.Lead was also used in some lubricants, like railroad grease and gear boxes, as an anti-wear additive, so trains and the tracks they ran on were also a source of lead as well and most train repair depots are chock full of lead contamination.

A substance called MTBE, (link below) was used for quite a long time in gasoline, after lead was removed. It was supposed to clean up emissions, as well as boost octane,but what it did do was leak from possibly millions of underground storage tanks, tainting the water, so it was finally replaced with Ethanol made from corn, the same kind of alcohol that people consume in beverages, and not Methanol which can kill quickly and is quite poisonous to humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether

Edit: If you are older then 35 or 40, you can slowly remove the toxic lead from your body by using vitamin C daily in mega-doses of at least 1000 mg or more. I use 3000 mg per day.

It will not cure CFS/ME/SEID, but overall I believe vitamin C should be taken daily by everyone. Unfortunately humans cannot produce our own internal vitamin C, like most mammals can, and cooking foods can destroy much of it. Its very good for all manner of ills and promotes collagen formation and healthy gums. I have taken Vitamin C since I was 12 years old, and I always will.

 

[Hip]

I wouldn't decide on that basis, but by looking at the evidence presented.

If you just saying that the apparent large increase in ME/CFS cases in the 1980s could be just due (or in part due) to better surveillance and diagnosis, I agree and accept this possibility. I mentioned this in my initial post.

But in this thread, I am working on the assumption that the increase was real, and then looking out for possible hypotheses that could explain this increase.

 

[Esther12]

But in this thread, I am working on the assumption that the increase was real, and then looking out for possible hypotheses that could explain this increase.

You're free to do that, but I am not going to assume that there was a 'fivefold to eightfold increase in the incidence of ME from 1980 to 1989', and a number of other people have also pointed out that we do not have good reason to assume that this did occur.

 

[user9876]

Has there been a steady increase in auto immune diseases? I seem to remember reading about it somewhere.

In terms of the prevalence of ME i think its very hard to tell if it is increasing or if there is an increase in diagnosis. I've wondered if people with ME in the past would have got diagnosed with other things (post polio syndrome?) or if there were less as more people died from illness epidemics. However, numbers in the 70s may be interesting or really new diagnoses in the 70s.

 

[Hip]

Tetraethyl Lead was removed from gasoline in the US in 1974-1975.

Lead in petrol (gasoline) is not a bad suggestion. The lead in petrol has been linked to an increase in violent crime levels in society. The huge increase in violent crime incidence that occurred from the 1960s onwards has been attributed to lead in petrol, and the significant decrease in violent crimes that began from around 1990 onwards (a decrease that occurred in countries throughout the world), has been attributed to removing the lead in petrol. See this graph:

Lead in petrol (gasoline) and violent crime level

Source: here.​

Lead exposure has been linked to aggressivity, impulsivity, ADHD and reduced IQ. Some historians have proposed that lead exposure was a factor responsible for the decline of the Roman empire. Sheets of lead were used to line Roman aqueducts (which channeled drinking water from mountain springs many miles away).

However, although lead from petrol could potentially explain the huge in ME/CFS incidence during the 1970s and 1980s, it would not seem to be able to explain why the incidence of ME/CFS has remained high ever since. You can see on the above graph that by the mid-1980s, exposure to lead from petrol had all but disappeared, so if lead from petrol was playing this causal role in ME/CFS, you would expect to see a major decline in ME/CFS incidence during the 1980s and onwards.

Though the lead issue is complicated by the lag effect: the actual increase in violent crime occurs 23 years after the increase in lead exposure. That's why in the graph above, you have the lead exposure level superimposed onto the violent crime level that occurred 23 years later.

 

[Dufresne]

If you just saying that the apparent large increase in ME/CFS cases in the 1980s could be just due (or in part due) to better surveillance and diagnosis, I agree and accept this possibility. I mentioned this in my initial post.

But in this thread, I am working on the assumption that the increase was real, and then looking out for possible hypotheses that could explain this increase.

I'm with you. There's a flip-side to @Snow Leopard's thought "If you aren't looking, you won't see." I think if you aren't looking you'll also likely never find.

You believe you see an increase, so do I, the problem is environmental changes are only growing more and more complicated. There are so many things you can focus in on and it's almost impossible to isolate the effects of any one toxin. It's true that association is not causation, but my does a lot of evil shit hide behind that maxim. Can cigarettes cause cancer? Do green house gases lead to global warming?

Shoemaker suggested Benomyl could have caused mutation to more deleterious molds. Some people think wireless technology, some vaccines, some chemicals, etc. Who knows? I believe microbes play a big part in it, along with any number of environmental stressors. It's likely quite complicated and won't conform to Koch's postulates. And I guarantee when they mostly figure out the facets of these diseases it's going to be unpopular.

I'm not sure it's only the insurance companies that cooked up the plot against chronic illness of unknown origin. Sure I think they have a hand in perpetuating it, but much of it is just the result of the nature of science as a conservative system. Nothing is accepted until you can outright prove it, nor should it be. But does that mean we should do nothing about it? And only those with a good motive are going to try, especially when it comes to controversial work like Lyme, ME/CFS, environmental medicine, etc. It's easier for those in the field to ascribe complaints to neurosis and the aches and pains of life.

So it's more or less acknowledged there is around 300K people infected with borrelia every year in the states alone. I know it factors into my illness, as do other infections, as well as environmental toxins. I believe there's been an increase, for whatever reason, in borrelia problems that coincides with this period. Proving it is another story, barring us digging up corpses and doing some serious DNA analysis.

 

[alex3619]

This has to be considered in the context that even today the vast majority of patients may not be diagnosed at all.

In the past they were diagnosed with other things. I am willing to bet many were diagnosed as psychiatric cases (especially depression), but also MS.

Having said that, anecdotally I see more and more people in real life not just with CFS or ME, but also fibromyalgia. Fibro seems to be very common here.

So the possibility exists that patients are getting alternative diagnoses, and the incidence is not rising, but ...

... the claimed prevalence just keeps rising. How much of this is real, and how much a problem with prevalence data?

 

[alex3619]

Wireless technology can interfere with voltage gated ion channels. Its not damage, so much as dis-regulation, which of course may cause secondary damage. This has not been proven in humans but demonstrated in animals and tissue samples, including the work of Martin L. Pall. I do not know if this is published though.

 

[Hip]

Wireless technology can interfere with voltage gated ion channels.

That's a good thought.

A quick Google check reveals that the first cellular phone network in the UK began in 1985. It only covered London at that stage, but by 1987 it covered a substantial portion of the UK (old UK coverage maps here).

Timing-wise, though, 1987 is a bit too late to account for the supposed increase in ME/CFS incidence that occurred between 1980 and 1989.

 

[Rvanson]

Lead in petrol (gasoline) is not a bad suggestion. The lead in petrol has been linked to an increase in violent crime levels in society. The huge increase in violent crime incidence that occurred from the 1960s onwards has been attributed to lead in petrol, and the significant decrease in violent crimes that began from around 1990 onwards (a decrease that occurred in countries throughout the world), has been attributed to removing the lead in petrol. See this graph:

Lead in petrol (gasoline) and violent crime level
View attachment 15049
Source: here.​

Lead exposure has been linked to aggressivity, impulsivity, ADHD and reduced IQ. Some historians have proposed that lead exposure was a factor responsible for the decline of the Roman empire. Sheets of lead were used to line Roman aqueducts (which channeled drinking water from mountain springs many miles away).

However, although lead from petrol could potentially explain the huge in ME/CFS incidence during the 1970s and 1980s, it would not seem to be able to explain why the incidence of ME/CFS has remained high ever since. You can see on the above graph that by the mid-1980s, exposure to lead from petrol had all but disappeared, so if lead from petrol was playing this causal role in ME/CFS, you would expect to see a major decline in ME/CFS incidence during the 1980s and onwards.

Though the lead issue is complicated by the lag effect: the actual increase in violent crime occurs 23 years after the increase in lead exposure. That's why in the graph above, you have the lead exposure level superimposed onto the violent crime level that occurred 23 years later.

Indeed so. I never meant to imply that lead is a major cause of CFS/ME at all, but like Mercury tooth fillings, it doesn't belong in the human body at all. In fact, one of the reasons why Lead became so prevalent in higher quantities then earlier in time was the advent of very high compression, high horsepower motors used in the "Muscle Cars" of the 1960's, which required very high octane gasoline to prevent pre-ignition, or as it was called back then, "knocking".

As US vehicles exhaust emission standards were imposed in the early 1970's, the compression ratio of internal combustion gasoline engines was reduced to lower levels to prevent pre-ignition, resulting in both a loss of power in the new lower compression engines. Lead was not needed to stop pre-ignition, due to better refining of gasoline, reduced camshaft timing and ignition timing, as well as the introduction of MTBE, and later on, Ethanol-laced fuel.

By 1973 most motors built for the vehicles during this time period lost lots of power, compared to the gasoline motors of the 1960's Needless to say, but US car owners were less then thrilled by the lower-powered vehicles..

By 1975 most all vehicles were fitted with the new catalytic converters, that reduced both carbon monoxide and HC "hydrocarbon" (unburned fuel) emissions, along with EGR (Exhaust Gas Recycling) valves to ,lower nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions. The use of leaded gasoline would have made both system fail early on, due to the build-up of lead coating the systems and plugging them up, rending them useless and unable to pass the Smog testing required.

It was not until computer controlled ignition and fuel-injected motors were introduced during the mid to late 1980's, that US vehicles were able to produce the same high-power as the older, leaded gasoline motors of the 1960's. Too,
hydrocarbon emissions were vastly reduced by the replacement of carbureted motors, with fuel-injected engines.

 

[Hip]

I never meant to imply that lead is a major cause of CFS/ME at all, but like Mercury tooth fillings, it doesn't belong in the human body at all.

Well in this thread we are specifically looking for environmental factors that could play a causal role in the development of ME/CFS, and in particular, factors that were introduced or increased during the 1980s that might explain the reported huge rise in ME/CFS cases during that decade.

 

[taniaaust1]

I think we can pretty certain that there was a large increase in diagnosed ME/CFS cases during the 1980s, otherwise the disability insurance industry would not have been so worried about the many billions it would have had to pay out for this wave of new ME/CFS patients (they got out of paying by creating "chronic fatigue syndrome").

The large increase in diagnosed ME/CFS cases though could of just been due to more drs having heard of it as after all the Lake Tahoe outbreak is quite famous so it was hitting the headlines. Do we really know if it wasnt for the lake Tahoe outbreak if it would of been send to have increased in the 1980s by some.

As far as I can tell no good incidence records have been kept for this illness so all we are hearing is peoples subjective views of it in whatever area you live in. Even today we know good records of incidence arent kept world wide (there could be an epidemic going on with this in one part of the world today and it could go unreported. ME/CFS is not considered a reportable disease).

the studies which have been done on this really vary in the numbers one study was 6 fold higher in numbers then another study, It all just comes down to what definitions they are using. So the reports its more common.. maybe too could be due to this.

Just maybe it just is one in every 200 gets ME (as according to one study) and maybe it was that before.

One thing I do agree with is that insurance companies wouldnt want to be paying out large amounts for an illness out there which was previously being ignored or not diagnosed.

 

[Hip]

@taniaaust1
Hard to say, but don't forget that the UK's famous outbreak in the Royal Free Hospital, London in 1955 led to the creation of the name myalgic encephalomyelitis, and the modern understanding of the characteristics of this disease. So I would have though that ME was already well known in the UK.

Although I did not have ME/CFS myself at the time, I remember how UK and London newspapers in the 1980s were full of stories of "yuppie flu". Since yuppies were often an envied, hated and derided social class in those days, newspapers would love a story of how a fast living, partying, high flying, highly paid yuppie came crashing down to earth with yuppie flu (ie, ME/CFS). In these articles, there was often a subtext of social justice, ie, the hint that they burnt themselves out by working, living and partying too much.

So even the general public were well aware of ME/CFS in those days.

 

[taniaaust1]

In any case, various researchers at the time, who would have been dealing with ME/CFS patients on a regular basis, state that there was a major increase in diagnosed cases of ME/CFS in the 1980s. I have no reason to doubt their statements.

and how were these patients knowing who to go to to get diagnosed? I dare say this knowledge would of been passed around in the communities and over time more and more patients would get to know certain drs who deal with this illness (just like things are today with it, you find out which dr to see from another who's got same symptoms). This would of caused these drs to end up getting more and more ME/CFS patients seeing them and "may" of made it look like the incidence of ME/CFS is increasing.

Things can be hard to tell without using good studies without the same diagnostic criteria