Harvard Prof Pens Powerful Support for ME/CFS in Major Journal

[Cort]

Dr. Anthony Komaroff of Harvard got a great editorial in a top journal - the Annals of Internal Medicine...\\

• http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2322808

Following up on the release of the P2P and IOM reports Komaroff hit the readers of the Annals with some hard facts:

The IOM estimates that 836 000 to 2.5 million Americans have ME/CFS (5).
The direct and indirect economic costs of the illness to society are estimated to be between $17 billion and $24 billion annually.

Komaroff quashed persistent reports that ME/CFS is a symptom-based illness stating

According to the most widely used case definition (6), the illness is characterized exclusively by symptoms; therefore, physicians have understandably wondered whether there are "real" underlying biological abnormalities. The IOM, AHRQ, and NIH panels concluded that there are such biological abnormalities

Simply restating what the reports said was more than enough:

After evaluating thousands of published articles, the IOM committee stated that "ME/CFS is a serious, chronic, complex systemic disease that often can profoundly affect the lives of patients" (5). Summarizing the committee's deliberations, Ganiats (1) said that the illness "is not, as many clinicians believe, a psychological problem," while emphasizing that psychiatric comorbid conditions occur in some patients with ME/CFS and need to be diagnosed and treated.

Komaroff ends with this powerful paragraph:

These reports from the IOM, AHRQ, and NIH demonstrate how much we have learned about ME/CFS and how much we still do not know. We do not understand its pathogenesis, and we do not have a diagnostic test or a cure. However, these recent reports, summarizing information from more than 9000 articles, should put the question of whether ME/CFS is a "real" illness to rest. When skeptical physicians, many of whom are unaware of this literature, tell patients with ME/CFS that "there is nothing wrong," they not only commit a diagnostic error: They also compound the patients' suffering.

 

[Hello!]

Love it!

 

[Cort]

It helps to work at Harvard!

Love it!

 

[Hello!]

He's 74 now. It looks like he stepped down from his Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Health Publications Division post in January. I hope he is able to continue to bring his clout and advocate for ME/CFS awareness, he's very good at it.

 

[Cort]

Wow. 74 - He looks good for 74. It's been a long road for him and for many of us. I just realized I've had ME/CFS for 36 years! Wow! Way more than half my life.

He's been big for us...I'm sure it hasn't been easy.

 

[Hello!]

Oh, I am so sorry, Cort. That's a long time.

 

[Cort]

Oh, I am so sorry, Cort. That's a long time.

Most of my life - yep, it's a long time. You'd think I would have gotten used to it by now....(lol)

 

[Hello!]

I would never think that anyone would get used to it. How could they?