Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Excellent New ME/CFS Article for Sharing with Doctors

The well-respected Dr. Anthony Komaroff of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has just published an excellent article on ME/CFS in the very prestigious and high-profile Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that will hopefully help to educate doctors around the world and bring some much-needed attention to our neglected disease. You can read and print the article here (it is short).

Komaroff provides a succinct, science-based summary of our disease, referencing the latest research and the recent NIH Conference. He covers the latest findings in the nervous system, immune system, and metabolics of ME/CFS patients in a brief but powerful summary and wraps it up with some theories of overall illness models. 
 
He does get one thing wrong, which is a bit irritating. He says that ME/CFS was first described in the 1980's, but that's the U.S.'s Center for Disease Control's revisionist history, as they renamed the disease (with that much-loved moniker CFS) in the 1980's. But, historically, cluster outbreaks (where many people in a small geographical area suddenly become ill with ME/CFS) were described and recorded as early as the 1930’s in Europe and the U.S. A British outbreak at the Royal Free Hospital in 1955 led to the name ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). However, that's my only quibble - the rest of the article is stellar and will be very useful.
In fact, this brief summary is perfect for sharing with doubting doctors! 
 
I am definitely printing it to share with two new medical professionals we are seeing who "don't get" ME/CFS and also with our wonderful primary care physician who was the first to accurately diagnose me 17+ years ago, just as an update. The author's excellent reputation, the status of the hospital where he works, and the very high prestige of the journal make this a (hopefully) very impactful article.

Print and share with your doctors at your next appointments!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Sue. Thanks for this. I would love to read & print the article, but can’t access it.. won’t let me buy it or rent it or create subscription..! So frustrating! Thanks Sarah

Sue Jackson said...

Oh, shoot - I'm guessing JAMA only had it up for free for a brief period at the beginning.

What you can do instead is print the title and abstract (brief summary) that does come up when you click the link and bring THAT to your doctor - your doctor will have access to JAMA to read the full article. I wish I had copied and pasted it into a separate document while it was free, but I did not.

Sue