ME/CFS and H1N1

[JennyJenny]

Did we see this one? Hornig and Lipkin are involved.

Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is associated with pandemic influenza infection, but not with an adjuvanted pandemic influenza vaccine.

I don't think they are saying it is exclusive to H1N1, only that the virus gave them the opportunity to see ME/CFS patients onset. Otherwise I believe we would see everyone who had H1N1, or very high number, go into ME/CFS. I think it came along and found those genetically disposed to going into ME/CFS and could have been mono or another viral flu or toxic mold exposure or a reaction to environmental exposure or bacterial infections... you get the idea, the H1N1 just got to them before another virus, etc.

However, it is proof that this is not a psychiatric illness and a vaccine is not responsible for onset.

Anyway, I don't remember seeing this before so I am posting.

 

[weyland]

I think that the statistical model used in this study probably works good to show that the vaccine wasn't associated with a higher risk of ME onset, but I don't think it's a good model to try to link influenza virus with ME onset. Correlation is not causation, especially when you're simply just looking at patients' health records to see who has had both an influenza and ME diagnosis. I'm guessing they did not look to see whether or not the ME diagnosis followed the influenza diagnosis immediately. This correlation could also be explained by some type of host factor that predisposed the patient to both conditions for example.