Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Renamed

While the symptoms associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (“CFS”) are well documented, disability claims based upon it are denied at a high rate, due in large part to the stigma of its being an imaginary illness. The Social Security Administration even promulgated a specific ruling to evaluate CFS after concerns that the condition was not being taken seriously. 

Yesterday, the Institute of Medicine, which guides the federal government on important medical issues, emphasized that CFS is real, needs to be taken seriously, and recommended that this disorder be renamed Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (“SEID”). Renaming CFS to SEID is intended to prevent dismissing the complaints of people with the disease, and hoped to lead to a greater effort about its causes and possible. 

The Institute of Medicine stated that there is no reason for skepticism about the serious nature of CFS, in particular, “the misconception that it is a psychogenic illness or even a figment of the patient’s imagination.”