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NIH Lead investigator promotes 'mental illness' theory of CFS

gbells

Improved ME from 2 to 6
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1,494
Location
Alexandria, VA USA
NIH lead clinical investigator thinks CFS and fibro are somatoform

Brian Walitt is the lead clinical investigator for the NIH’s new intramural ME/CFS study. His appointment has raised serious concerns due to his strong views of diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia as psychosomatic.

In 2015, Walitt co-authored a paper in which it was stated that CFS and fibromyalgia are somatoform illnesses, characterized by a “…discordance between the severity of subjective experience and that of objective impairment.”

Similarly, in an interview with Family Practice News, Walitt described fibromyalgia as a “psychosomatic experience,” part of the “range of normal,” rather than an abnormal disease state; a way of “dealing with the difficulties of just being a human.”

https://www.meaction.net/2016/02/20/nih-lead-clinical-investigator-thinks-cfs-is-psychosomatic/ #MEAction via @meactnet