NIH Director Francis Collins Talks Up Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Again

[Cort]

We've never had a bully pulpit like this. Yes, we need more money above all but talking is taking action as well. Changing hearts and minds is important. NIH director Francis Collins and NINDS director Walter Koroshetz are helping to dispel false ideas and create a new understanding of ME/CFS as a serious and significant disorder with their public statements.

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[/fright]Last year Collins used one of blog posts as a NIH director to emphasize that ME/CFS is a serious and underserved disease.

• https://www.healthrising.org/forums...-advocates-press-politicians.5338/#post-28092

Dr. Koroshetz highlighted NINDS work on ME/CFS during a top level meeting at the NIH.

• https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2...inadequate-mecfs-nih-research-center-funding/

Medscape Interview

This time in an interview on what's going on the NIH at the Medscape website, Medscape led, not with cancer or cancer - which Collins talked about - but with ME/CFS. (Medscape apparently decided that ME/CFS was the hot topic). From the article:

"Collins said he has been "greatly moved and troubled" by the stories of CFS patients, "especially when many of those stories start with people who are highly active, and many of them fairly athletic, and some illness that sounds viral, like a really bad flu, hits them, but they don't get better ... Many of them are unable to resume normal activities and end up bedridden for months or years."

Medscape gets it wrong with this quote. Collins is clearly saying that something is really going on here and he must have said "unfair". It's big mistake by Medscape but the intent of Collins statement is clear: people going from a full life to being bedridden is pretty darn dramatic....

Although the medical community has been criticized for not taking ME/CFS seriously criticized for not taking ME/CFS seriously, "it's very hard for me to see how [that criticism is] fair when you hear stories of people who've gone rather suddenly from a full life to bedridden status -- something dramatic happened there," said Collins.

Check the full interview out here. (You may have to register with Medscape).