heapsreal - You pose the million dollar question "Will they still go looking for a cause??" They will probably keep looking for a "single" cause and will probably find a partial answer, which seems to be wrong to research. It is either all or none when my "gut" feeling is that the answer is going to be a combination of things that is going to lead to a cure.
There was the one thread about "What happened in the 80's?" I know vaccines was by far the focus of the thread, but what about global industry changes like increased use of plastics, food additives, changes in household goods (cookware, cleaning products ???), fillers added to medication or supplements? Were we exposed to a substance that took advantage of a genetic defect during a time of stress that altered hormones while the body was fighting a pathogen, but instead mistakingly permanently altered the way our body generates neurotransmitters. We make take a serum blood test that says that the levels of the neurotransmitters are in the normal range, but what if that neurotransmitter is faulty and only functions at 50% of what it should be or not even functioning at all?
The above statement is just quickly generated scenario and probably has no scientific basis at all. Could something similar ever be studied? Science wants to look at one component at a time, which may eventually get there if all of the information from the individual studies are easily accessible and centrally located. I think science is going to have to establish a sequence of events to eventually get to the root cause of ME/CFS and the sequence is obviously going to be different for the various subsets. It would be very nice to see a study funded to look for any possible contributor to ME/CFS, but better yet a study that was by multiple researchers utilizing their particular strengths that could tie their findings together! Maybe some day!!
