What the Heck are They Talking About: Neurological CFS: Let's get accurate: CFS/ME is a discrete neurological disorder not a symptom

Paul Tash/Columnist: Poynter Online sezs:

Bob Haiman, president emeritus of The Poynter Institute, once posted a memo — more like a manifesto — of in the newsroom. I still keep a copy in my desk drawer. It says, in part:

An editor has a right to expect a number of things from a professional reporter. No one of them is more important than the right to expect that the reporter's copy will be absolutely, unquestionably, unexceptionally accurate.”

Accuracy is accuracy is accuracy whether you are a scientist, a physician, or a professional journalist and as Mr. Haiman said, there is no room for compromise.

I'm from the fourth estate and as a professional journalist, not to mention a thinking human being, nothing drives me crazier than people who tart up words that are at best nodding acquaintances and present them as joined at the hip.

I personally don’t care how many young men on the Montel Williams Show say it; “ho” is not interchangeable with “woman.” Nor is chronic fatigue slang for the distinct organic, neurological disorder, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME).

In both cases, they are not synonymous. Never have been, never will be.

Remember when your second-grade teacher explained that even though the words “see” and “sea” sound the same, they are not the same thing at all. Fess up; the concept was refreshingly hilarious at the ripe old age of seven. But, I’m not laughing now, are you?

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, no matter how ridiculous and sophomoric the name sounds, is the biological medical term du jour for a devastating, chronic neurological disorder that has a well-vetted, distinctive clinical pattern of a number of biological signs and symptoms. Period.

The field of psychology is has a place in this disorder, as it does in other neurological disorders such as MS, however, there nothing causative about it.

Whether the “reality" of the disease can be “objectively” proven based on current medical knowledge is in one sense utterly irrelevant. After all, just because people in the Middle Ages thought disease was caused by “bad air” doesn’t suspend or negate the underlying principles of germs and pathogens just because they weren't part of the medical parlance of the day.

One of my favorite Biblical passages begins with the words, “We know in part…”

Taken separately, some of the biological symptoms can be made to sound almost benign, but this is one of those cases where the magnitude of the whole far exceeds the individual components.

I believe Laura Hillenbrand, PWC and author of “Seabiscuit,” phrased it very well.

"This illness is to fatigue what a nuclear bomb is to a match - it's an absurd mischaracterization,"

Well, that certainly puts it in perspective doesn’t it? The loosely defined phrase “chronic fatigue” sounds positively dusty and frivolous in contrast to the distinct organic, neurological disorder Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME), not to mention just a tad inappropriate to say the least since psychiatrists use the phrase chronic fatigue interchangeably with neurasthenia.

When it comes to illness, all illnesses big or small, dire or minor; chronic fatigue is a lone symptom meaning six months or more (that’s the technical definition of the “chronic” part) of the inexact, non-medical term fatigue. Solitary symptoms are rarely diagnostic of complex disorders and this is no exception.

I guess I have a tendency to see the societal, all consuming passion for nicknames and abbreviations to be a quirky American obsession, but I suspect it is true of all cultures.

And “short for” is a powerful tool for conveying love or affection, not to mention the exclusivity of the “in” crowd, no matter what language you speak.

My sixth grader is less than tolerant when her mother and aunt slip up, publicly calling her “pumpkin pie” and “pickle freak,” nicknames whose origins are rooted in her food preferences, not the sum of her proudly owned individual “uniqueness.”

And she has a valid point. Sometimes parts is just parts rather irrelevant to the big picture.

So…get a clue doctors, researchers, journalists and everybody else in the world: no matter how often it is tossed around, no matter how many UK psychiatrists use the term "chronic fatigue" as synonymous with the archaic notion of 1880s neurasthenia, chronic fatigue and undifferentiated psychiatric cfs are not the same thing as the organic neurological disorder of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. (CFS/ME).

Never have been, never will be.

vet
1. vt to subject somebody or something to a careful examination or scrutiny, especially when this involves determining suitability for something

ar·cha·ic adj

1. belonging or relating to a much earlier period
2. used to describe a word or phrase that is no longer in general use but is still encountered in older literature and still sometimes used for special effect
3. no longer useful or efficient

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

What the Heck are They Talking About: Neurological CFS

Let's get accurate: CFS/ME is a discrete neurological disorder not a symptom

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