By: www.cfscentral.com
1934: The first known cluster outbreak of ME/CFS in the United States occurs in Los Angeles, California.
1987: New Zealand family physician J.C. Murdoch writes a letter to The Journal of the Royal Academy of General Practitioners (now known as The British Journal of General Practice) making a case that ME/CFS is not “hysteria” as some other physicians have concluded but is, he believes, a physiological disease with decreased cell-mediated immunity. He concludes the letter: “…. the syndrome is an acquired immune deficiency syndrome and we are presently searching for evidence of retrovirus infection in our patients.”
It is the first known mention of the word “retrovirus” to categorize ME/CFS.
1991: A young researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wistar Institute named Dr. Elaine DeFreitas discovers evidence of a retrovirus in the blood of ME/CFS patients. The CDC, however ...
Doctor Speedy and ME in search of medical honesty
Thanks for mentioning Prof Murdoch. He still has an interest in ME and the retroviral theory.
ReplyDeleteA New Zealand researcher working with him also found a Retrovirus in the blood of their "Tapanui flu" patients.
Sadly, they could not get the funding needed to do further work in this area.
It was a different retrovirus to XMRV and Elaine DF. However, the point is that this was an area fruitful and needing more work.
So that 25 years wasted. We could have had an answer if this was carried on.
I'm XMRV+ BTW.