Investigating Morgellons Syndrome
Chronic fatigue Syndrome
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS came to prominence in the early 1980s and was closely associated with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV). The event that kick-started the coming epidemic and controversy was the Lake Tahoe outbreak in 1985 which was investigated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Despite the skepticism of some local doctors it was reported that there had been a fatigue causing outbreak of prolonged viral-like syndrome in over one hundred patients.
The conclusions drawn by the CDC were inconclusive at best, but this did not stop a surge of interest among medical professionals in chronic Epstein-Barr virus infection, the reality of which came to be widely accepted in the medical community.
However, by 1988 opinion was changing, largely due to the lack of concrete evidence of E-BV infection in any of the patients. As a result the medical community renamed the condition as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, thus stripping away much of its legitimacy; now there was no virus, no infection, just a collection of vague symptoms whose role in diagnosis was criticized as ‘an arbitrary menu’. Robert Aronowitz
The importance of pathobiological mechanisms in defining and legitimating diseases is illustrated by the fact that CFS gained notice as a new disease only as a result of attention given to the apparent correlation between abnormal EBV serologies and a vague viral-like illness. Although this causal link between CFS and E-BV was later severed, CFS began to take on a life of its own.
The wave of scepticism that led to the change in medical opinion had much to do with the highlighting of the psychological state of sufferers. Studies began to doubt the somatic basis of CFS and found that patients had a high incidence of psychiatric disease, however these studies were not without their flaws. For example; it should be noted that all chronically ill patients show high incidences of psychiatric problems, especially as measured by psychometric tests.
Subsequently studies further undermining a somatic basis for CFS received much attention; one by the National Institute of Health (NIH) was as flawed as it was influential, whilst those studies which drew conclusions favourable to the idea of CFS as a bona fide illness were roundly criticized, regardless of their merits or otherwise.
CFS, then, due to its association with E-BV was initially thought to be caused by an infectious entity and it was this association that gave the condition legitimacy. Later, when it was established that the link to E-BV was erroneous, the condition was 'downgraded' to the status of 'syndrome'.
However the condition continues to be recognised by the medical community despite being highly controversial. Without the initial link to E-BV it is doubtful that CFS would have become recognised even to the extent it is today. Extremely vocal and militant advocacy groups have also played a major role in CFS's acceptance as a medical reality.