The failure of journalism in the CFS community
It's a shame that, as far as we know, the only serious independent journalist at the NIH conference who does not carry water for the CDC and the NIH was Hillary Johnson. When she stood up to make a few points about the underfunding of CFS, she did something nobody dared do at the rest of the conference: she asserted the painfully obvious fact that CFS is transmissible. It is so obvious that any journalist (or scientist) who has any question about its transmissibility is basically a CFS denier and should find another line of work.The most electrifying moment at the conference was the presentation by Bhupesh Prusty about the role of HHV-6 in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. What he said belongs on the front page of every newspaper. Maybe in the coming days or weeks we will see a serious piece somewhere about his brilliant breakthrough. Maybe there was another dependable journalist in the room. But we're not holding our breath. What we expect to see is a round of authoritarian suck-up journalism that treats Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a great big mystery that is caused by everything except the kitchen sink.