Sunday, October 11, 2009

Chronic Fatigue, Major Discovery

Please take the time to read the blogs from Pamela Weintraub on Psychology Today's website (she is the author of the 2008 Lyme book, Cure Unknown), and Hillary Johnson's blog (she is the author of the book on the investigation into chronic fatigue syndrome, Osler's Web). They talk about a recent discovery, published in the October issue of Science magazine (reported online at Medical News Today, that pinpoints a retrovirus as a major cause, perhaps the cause, of chronic fatigue syndrome (also called myalgic encephalomyelitis).

Remember chronic fatigue syndrome? It was called the "yuppie flu" 20 years ago. People who had it were called malingerers or worse.

Today, some researchers want to lump chronic Lyme, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and Gulf War syndrome under one label: chronic multisymptom illness. As Ms. Weintraub points out, if chronic fatigue seems to have an infectious origin, might not these other conditions also? Could a retrovirus be a player in chronic Lyme? Yes, there is evidence that retroviruses can be tick-borne, though a link between Ixodes ticks and this particular retrovirus has not yet been made. It is just one more intriguing piece of the puzzle.

Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University told the New York Times,

"My first reaction is, ‘At last,’ ” Dr. Schaffner said. “In interacting with patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, you get the distinct impression that there’s got to be something there."

Upon hearing so many similar histories from chronic Lyme patients, I would tend to say the same thing.


Grady, D. (2009). Virus is found in many with chronic fatigue syndrome [Electronic version]. New York Times, October 8, p. 18. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/health/research/09virus.html?_r=1&em