Another option would be to make ME a so-called "orphan initialism." This is an initialism that no longer officially stands for any string of words. ME would stand for ME and nothing else.
KFC no longer stands for "Kentucky Fried Chicken."
I think this would really hurt us. I think there are several interrelated negatives:
(1) I think a lot of people think orphan initialism is seen as meaningless, soulless naming by committee and almost (but not totally) as hollow corporate doublespeak. For example, I think people, especially when it was first adopted, saw "KFC" not standing for Kentucky Fried Chicken as seeming weak and fake. The discussions and thoughts from the public were like
"Why drop Kentucky Fried Chicken but keep KFC, it doesn't mean anything, it
stands for nothing?"
"They are trying to deny what they are and where they came from because it is now a financial liability to be associated with "fried" but the corporation wants to retain the asset value of economic 'goodwill' associated with the letters KFC."
I think being seen as standing for nothing would be a huge liability especially for us who already are already seen by some as having a made up illness.
(2) then the focus is on ME in the sense of "me" as a self-centered person, whining about nothing and wanting to "medicalize" myself into a disease.
(3) It would give the impression that Myalgia and Encephalitis and Myelitis do not exist in the disease. The psychs will seize on this and promote the hell out of it and go further saying that the intitialism is because the supposed pathophysiology was DISPROVED. This wouldn't be true, but we have seen them get away with this type of thing over and over.
Further, there IS scientific basis to use ME. In the 2011 ICC, they called it solely ME and stated that now there is sufficient scientific basis to use that name alone.
And when and if we do get even more evidence of the pathology to support ME, it will continue to be dismissed by the psychs who will perpetuate the idea that the pathology has been disproven.
(4) we would be stuck with the internet search problem (including with hashtags which is a problem both for ME AND M.E.)