It’s been a devastating summer for the ME community. We have lost Jodi Bassett, Louise Ramage, Tink Bastian, and Linda Hayes Burke. Yesterday, we learned that we lost Tom Jarrett. Jodi Bassett, 41, was a passionate advocate for ME who helped thousands of people better understand their condition through her website The Hummingbirds’ Foundation for
The Blue Ribbon Foundation, the non-profit behind the documentary Forgotten Plague, has an educational and research agenda. In addition to getting the film in front of as many people in the medical and health profession as possible, one of the primary programs they have created is a student fellowship for medical students to assist in top
The Solve ME/CFS Initiative (SMCI) is now accepting applications for the Ramsay Award Program in basic, preclinical, clinical, and epidemiology research. This competitive grant award is open to scientists and researchers at any career stage who are interested in studying myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
The staff of #MEAction, who run the communications platform that is our website, social media channels, and email list, have decided to adopt ME or myalgic encephalomyelitis for future communications about the disease, except where the name CFS or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome needs to be mentioned for the sake of clarity and to effectively communicate
Note: This is a two-part article in our series on education in ME/CFS. Part 1 covered UpToDate, the University of North Texas, Michigan State University, and the University of Nebraska; Part 2 covers the University of California–San Francisco, the University of North Carolina, and other best sellers. To read Part I of this article, click
Phoenix Rising’s Mark Berry was at the recent Invest in ME conference and has written an excellent report: A New Decade of ME Research: The 11th Invest in ME International ME Conference 2016 As the article is quite long, here are some tasters (my summaries, with quotes from Mark’s article) to whet your appetite for
Last year was a pivotal point in the battle against ME/CFS. Game-changing reports from the Institute of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health’s Pathways to Prevention Workshop delivered long awaited public credibility for our disease. The federal ME/CFS landscape has shifted, and there is newfound openness and awareness among key governmental agencies. This positive change has heightened the battle as we fight for scientific understanding, fight for treatments and fight for a cure.
Signs of bacterial infection and inflammation Recently, a team of researchers led by Ludovic Giloteaux of Cornell University measured the levels of several biomarkers in 49 ME/CFS patients and 39 controls, including LPS to measure bacteria in the bloodstream and CD14 and C-reactive protein to measure inflammation. Researchers also measured the levels of intestinal fatty
Dr. David Tuller has provided an overview and update of his work criticizing the PACE trial in a podcast interview with Professor Vincent Racaniello on This Week in Virology (TWiV). Dr. Tuller, of University of California, Berkeley, published a series of damning critiques of the study on Professor Racaniello’s Virology Blog, starting with a lengthy article
Leading scientists, organisations and patients around the world have responded to the US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Request for Information to guide its research strategy on ME/CFS. It is the first time that the NIH has asked for public input on the disease. The request, made in May, drew public responses from Dr. Ronald
