#MECFS is a “medical” and a “social catastrophe.”
— Jörg Heydecke, founder of Germany’s ME/CFS Research Foundation.
One patient waited 19 years for a diagnosis. Another said she was told her symptoms were psychological and that she needed to get on with it.
ME/CFS affects ~3.3 million Americans. 75% become too disabled to work or attend school.
Patients report among the lowest quality of life of any illness studied — yet NIH research funding amounts to roughly $4 per patient/year and there are 0 FDA-approved treatments.
This is a profound public health failure.
We urgently need:
• Major NIH funding increases proportional to disease burden (~500m/year)
@NIH@Surgeon_General@MEActNet
#mecfs #longCOVID