My view is that the IOM report is likely going to be beneficial, but I don't state this with any vehemence, simply because we cannot know this with any degree of certainty.
The reason I think many ME/CFS patients were very pleasantly surprised by and happy with the IOM report is because of the background context in which this report was created.
Given that many in the medical profession and general public alike regard ME/CFS as "all in the mind," or view ME/CFS patients as merely lazy, it was surprising and refreshing to see such an enlightened view on ME/CFS come out of the IOM report. This report clearly came down on the side of ME/CFS being a biological disease, rather than supporting the mumbo-jumbo psychosomatic ideas on ME/CFS that have dominated the arena for many decades. So I think many patients saw the IOM report as a great watershed in leaving the psychosomatic mumbo-gumbo behind.
The fact that the IOM so strongly supported the biological view is even more surprising given the background of bad politics involved with ME/CFS, where insurance companies lobby governments and health services to get them to adopt the biopsychosocial model of diseases like ME/CFS, in order to avoid these diseases being seen as purely biologically based.
I certainly expected the worst, and feared that the IOM report would, due to political interference, just continue to cast ME/CFS as an "all in the mind" psychogenic condition that must be dealt with by the biopsychosocial model. Yet the IOM report did not succumb to these bad politics. How they avoided these bad political pressures, I don't know, but I for one am very grateful that they did.
It did occur to me that these bad politics might the reason they chose not to have any ME/CFS experts on the IOM committee, because many of the biopsychosocial / somatoform experts have insurance company links, and so this might have brought these corrupt politics into the heart of the IOM committee.
Being happy with the IOM report does not mean that we should not continue to strive for better clinical treatment for ME/CFS patients and more ME/CFS research. This is certainly needed. One thing that
@Nielk said that I do agree with is that the ME/CFS diagnosis should be confirmed by specialists, just like a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is confirmed by a neurologist.
If a primary care physician suspects multiple sclerosis on the basis of a patient's symptoms, he will refer the patient to a neurologist who will confirm or deny this. The same should be true for ME/CFS: if your primary care doctor suspects ME/CFS (on the basis of the SEID criteria say), he should then ideally refer you to an ME/CFS specialist (who might be neurologist) who will confirm or deny this using a series of more detailed criteria (such as the CCC / ICC) and preferably also some tests.
However, the IOM report is a definite step in the right direction, so while more needs to be done to improve the lot of ME/CFS patients, I don't think this is going to be achieved by attacking IOM report; rather, I think it will be best achieved by accepting the IOM report as a welcome step forward, and then continuing to fight to battle from there.