Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Article on ME/CFS in the Washington Post

It seems that finally ME/CFS is getting more and more mainstream coverage. Below is a link to the Washington Post article by . It was published in the Health & Science section of the website on October 6. The author, Julie, was diagnosed with ME/CFS over eight years ago and still struggles with the lack of knowledge, support, and research that plagues this illness. 

After reading this well-written, honest article, my eyes scanned to what is commonly the most disappointing part of an online posting (the comment section). The article eloquently points out some of the common misconceptions about the disease and why doctors and scientists have a hard time agreeing on a common definition, so it's easy to understand how the general public is especially mystified by this illness. However, the comments I read at the bottom were mind-blowing-ly ignorant. It's hard to believe that after reading Julie's article where she paraphrases an ME/CFS specialist who also works with HIV/AIDS patients as saying, "that if she had to choose between having HIV and having CFS, she’d unquestionably choose HIV."  There are approximately the same number of Americans (one million) living with HIV as there are Americans living with ME/CFS, yet HIV/AIDS gets three billion dollars for funding and research and ME/CFS only gets five million dollars. This disparity is due to lack of knowledge, specialists, and researchers in the field.


Please read this article for yourself and feel free to link to other well-written articles on the topic that you've come across.