Understanding a Complex Illness: Mangan, Komaroff, Wessely, Holgate Q&A

[WillowJ]

Free Access thru Sept 8 only, HT Research 1st

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 12, 539-544 (September 2011) | doi:10.1038/nrn3087

Viewpoint: Chronic fatigue syndrome: understanding a complex illness

Stephen T. Holgate, Anthony L. Komaroff, Dennis Mangan & Simon Wessely

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating illness that affects many people.

It has been marred by controversy, from initial scepticism in the medical community about the existence of the condition itself to continuing disagreements mainly between some patient advocacy groups on one side, and researchers and physicians on the other about the name for the illness, its aetiology, its pathophysiology and the effectiveness of the few currently available treatments.

The role of the CNS in the disease is central in many of these discussions.

Nature Reviews Neuroscience asked four scientists involved in CFS research about their views on the condition, its causes and the future of research aimed at improving our understanding of this chronic illness.

You will notice Komaroff on the "patients' side" and mentioning the research/literature (vaguely, no space for him to be specific), taking a bit of punch out of the typical spin of poor deluded patients versus lofty scientists in the two opposing camps.

full text here: http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v12/n9/full/nrn3087.html
pdf also available at that link, for the 8th (USA date) only

 

[Esther12]

I thought Holgate was okay too, and Wessely seemed like the outlier. The article left me feeling somewhat hopeful that we might be moving away from the quackery of the past. It has been posted before though.

 

[WillowJ]

I forgot to search for it. thanks for letting me know