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CHICAGO—Joseph Breen, PhD, program officer at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., opened the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) session at the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) 2017 meeting by asking presenters to describe the current state of the science to the key immunology stakeholders gathered in the room. The hope was that the presentations would stimulate new approaches to decipher the mechanistic and immunological underpinnings of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/CFS, as well as open new avenues for clinical solutions.
Elizabeth Unger, MD, PhD, chief of the chronic viral diseases branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) agreed with this call to action, stating, “It is very, very important that we have excellent scientists investigating this illness.”
What’s in a Name?
Researchers coined the name chronic fatigue syndrome in 1988 at the time of the first case definition, and the name has remained attached to the disease. Now, however, many patients and clinicians feel the name chronic fatigue syndrome trivializes the medical condition and they choose, instead, to use the name ME. CFS is also known as systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID).
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