#MEAction has written an open letter to NIH institute director, Dr. Walter Koroshetz, and CDC division director Dr. Inger Damon to express our lack of confidence in their interagency approach to ME/CFS. Drs. Koroshetz and Damon co-lead the Interagency ME/CFS Working Group, which met last month, and oversee the ME/CFS program activities within their respective
On Wednesday, September 23 the CDC held its ME/CFS Stakeholder Engagement and Communication (SEC) conference call and the #MEAction community showed up to make our voices heard! Here is our initial summary of what you need to know.
Mark your calendars! The CDC will hold its next ME/CFS Stakeholder Engagement and Communication (SEC) conference call on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 3 pm Eastern Time. Find information on how to call into the meeting here. The CDC program staff only hold SEC meetings a couple of times a year so now is your chance to participate! These
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has initiated various projects focused on myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), but there has been very little transparency or engagement with the patient community about the CDC’s overall plans, the approaches being used, or the status of the projects underway. Further, many of the
On June 3rd the CDC held its latest MECFS Stakeholder Engagement and Communication (SEC) Webinar/Conference Call with the ME community. The need for change in the CDC’s stakeholder engagement meetings has been a long time coming. However, this Monday, the majority of the call was a presentation comprised of simple lifestyle advice for ME, including
#MEAction has announced two CDC-related advocacy actions today and yesterday. We are asking you to contact your Senators to increase research funding for ME through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AND we have also published an open letter to the CDC calling them out for insufficient transparency and accountability in their regular
On August 27th, #MEAction published a petition calling for the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to immediately halt its plan to issue a sole-source contract – meaning there was no true competitive bidding process in place – to the Pacific Northwest Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) for conducting a literature review for myalgic
This past July, 2018, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched new webpages about myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) geared to practitioners. ME advocates, clinicians and researchers had provided feedback about updates to these pages but not all of their recommendations were taken on board. As a result, some sections of the site
PETITION UPDATE (Tuesday, September 11, 2018) The CDC has posted an updated, competitive bid solicitation for the development of federal treatment guidelines for ME. The community outcry, and over 8,000 petition signatures, protesting the previous rigged, sole-source contract got the CDC’s attention. Yet the solicitation is still only open through Thursday, September 13 meaning interested applicants
Update: #MEAction has incorporated your comments in its draft to the CDC! See what we’ve added from the comments below by clicking on the updated version of the article by clicking here: CDC website article text. Community-based changes to our recommendations are in red ink. In September 2016, I attended a meeting at the Centers for
