IOM Panel Says Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Real

In a segment lasting nearly three minutes, NBC Nightly News (2/10, story 9, 2:50, Holt) reported that on Tuesday, a panel from the Institute of Medicine “declared that” chronic fatigue “syndrome is not only real, but the vast majority of people who suffer from it haven’t even been diagnosed.” NBC News correspondent Ann Thompson explained that the IOM “issued a new set of symptoms to help doctors recognize the disease,” such as “a drop-off in normal activity for more than six months with profound exhaustion, sleep that doesn’t refresh, and symptoms that get worse after physical or mental exertion, plus either cognitive impairment” or symptoms that only improve when patients are lying down.

The New York Times (2/10, Tuller) “Well” blog reported that chronic fatigue syndrome is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, and “many experts now refer to the condition as ME/CFS.” However, the IOM panel “recommended that the illness be renamed ‘systemic exertion intolerance disease.’” The blog also points out that the IOM “panel was convened at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and other federal agencies.”

Related Links:

— “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Gets a New Name,” David Tuller, New York Times, February 10, 2015.

Posted in In The News.