Hi drjohn, thats an amusing question, the answer to it however isnt
The answer is that chronic fatigue is a Symptom! Of according to diagnosispro diagnostic software 299 illnesses
http://en.diagnosispro.com/differen...ific-agent-chronic-fatigue/25271-154-170.html as you can imagine its going to take a doctor a considerable amount of time, effort and testing to work out which one of these illnesses is causing the fatigue, added to which a lot of them are rare and the average doctor knows nothing about them!
By adding the word syndrome to chronic fatigue, a doctor is able to get out of doing all this work and gets to hide all their lack of knowledge about a lot of diseases, and can easily give the patient a diagnosis of CFS as if it a real disease, leaving the patient to suffer for the rest of their lives, from illnesses that in a lot of cases are curable and if not treatable and in some cases the patient lives will be dramatically shortened if the missed illness is a fatal one. More information here
http://www.hfme.org/misdiagnosis.htm and here
http://www.hfme.org/wheretoaftermisdiagnosis.htm
As for how does calling the chronic fatigue CFS make it Myalgic Encephalomyelitis the simple answer is it doesnt!!! This is an outrageous lie being promoted by the CDC and the Wessley School that is unfortunately being believed by a lot of doctors, patients and unfortunately a lot of groups that are claiming to provide information on ME and CFS on the internet.
ME is an acute and severe onset disease of the central Nervous system (its onset is described here
http://www.hfme.org/meonset.htm ) of which fatigue isnt even a defining characteristic! That has been recognized as a disease of the central nervous system by the WHO since 1969, and this damage to the central nervous system can be scientifically measured by SPECT.PET and QEEG scans, and has more in common with MS then it does with the bogus disease CFS. None of the CFS definition define ME our any specific disease! The definitions that define ME and are written by the world experts in it are the Ramsey definition
http://www.mecfsforums.com/wiki/Ramsay_definition and the Nightingale definition
http://sacfs.asn.au/download/NightingalesDefinitionofME.pdf
CFS has been used to cover up the existence of ME, by saying that theyre the same thing, and by including the lie that there are no clinical signs and no failed tests in the CFS definitions, and therefore implying that it is a psychiatric condition, this has allowed insurance companies who a lot of the members of the Wessely school work for! To save Billions of dollars because patients arent paid if their illness is a psychiatric one! Info here
http://www.hfme.org/whobenefitsfromcfs.htm
Interesting when CFS was invented by the CDC in the Holmes definition it wasnt a mystery illness! It was said to be caused by having one of these chronic viral conditions EBV, CMV, herpes type 1 or 2 and measles and you had to have a failed test for one of these viruses to qualify for the diagnosis!
The symptoms that you where supposed to have are basically those of a Chronic EBV infection. Obviously its madness to give 5 different viral infections the same name and then imply that they were the same thing as ME, but this is what they did in the Holmes definition link
http://www.ncf-net.org/patents/pdf/Holmes_Definition.pdf more information on the history of ME and the invention of CFS can be found here
http://www.imet.ie/imet_documents/BYRON_HYDE_little_red_book.pdf and information on testing for ME and diseases mistakenly called CFS or ME/CFS can be found here
http://www.wicfs-me.org/Pdf Files/Byron Hyde - Complexities of Diagnosis.pdf
CFS as a Mystery disease with no clinical signs and no failed tests was actually invented by everybodys favourite psychiatrists from the Wessely School in the Oxford definition
http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/PACE/CFS Oxford Criteria 1991.pdf written by the likes of S Wessely, MC Sharpe, AW Clare all members of the Wessely School in this criteria post infectious fatigue syndrome has become a sub set of CFS. And the psychiatrists have invented a new illness called CFS with no clinical signs or failed tests. Which means it can only be seen as a psychiatric illness.
By the time you get to the CDC 1994 Fukuda definition
http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/general/case_definition/complete.html again dominated by Wessely School psychiatrists like Mc Sharpe, I Hickie, S Wessely all pretences of post infectious fatigue syndrome has been dropped and it has become a mystery illness with no physical signs or failed tests, and because of this Doctors give this diagnosis as if its a real disease and once youve got this diagnosis it becomes almost impossible to get more testing, because doctors believe people with CFS dont fail tests so theres no point in testing people with it, and patients then get trapped into a lifetime of suffering because there real illness has been missed and frequently waste what little money they have on bogus cures being promoted for a disease that doesnt exist.
So in summary
1 Chronic fatigue is a Symptom of 299 illnesses.
2 Chronic fatigue syndrome is a bogus illness invented by the CDC and the Wessely School for the benefit of vested interest group that has no scientific or medical legitimacy! And is a waste basket diagnosis.
3 ME is a very real disease that has been extensively scientifically studied since 1934, who existence is a medical fact! And since 1988 due to the actions of the CDC and the Wessely School all of this evidenced has been ignored, there has been no government funding for research into ME and all research that has been said to be being done on it, is being done a groups of people with a large number of different illness due to the inclusion of CFS misdiagnosed people into these studies, which is why every study done since 1988 always comes up with extremely contradictory results, And ME patients have been left to suffer with no help or support and are being given the possibly most demeaning medical name ever invented Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
All the best
