Petition to Adopt the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS
To: The President and Congress of the United States of America, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC):
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the United States adopt the international (Canadian) “Consensus Document" for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease therein named Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or “ME/CFS” (Journal of CFS, 2003). A Overview pamphlet of the Consensus Document is available on the web at: http://www.mefmaction.net/Patients/Overviews/tabid/122/Default.aspx.
In the 20 years since the U.S. CDC adopted the name "chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)" for the disease called "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis" for fifty years abroad, very little has changed for patients diagnosed with this disease. The CDC continues to insist “there are no tests and there are no treatments.” Written by a committee of clinicians and researchers who as a group have treated over 20,000 ME/CFS patients, the Consensus Document offers practical diagnostic criteria, objective testing, and treatments.
It is time for the United States to directly address the needs of one million Americans suffering from a poorly understood, debilitating illness. The best way to begin would be by adopting the existing Canadian Consensus Document for diagnosing and treating ME/CFS.
Go to http://www.cfids-me.org/petitiondrive.html for links to documents that can help explain the difference between the information on the CDC's "toolkit", and the information available in the Canadian Consensus Document.
Mail completed petitions to:
Adopt the Canadian Consensus Document
P.O. Box 189
Elk Mills, MD 21920Contact email: intlconsensus@comcast.net
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