Examine, a free weekly newsletter covering science with a sceptical, evidence-based eye, is sent every Tuesday. Below is an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.
We failed the many thousands of Australians with chronic fatigue syndrome. We did not invest enough in research. We did not build an effective care system. We did not believe them.
Now we are beset with a disease that bears striking similarities: long COVID. And chronic fatigue advocates say we are in danger of repeating the same mistakes.
Payton Jacobs at NSW’s first long COVID clinic at St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst.Credit:Louise Kennerley
“Frustration, is a gentle way of putting it,” says Anne Wilson, CEO of Emerge Australia, the peak body for chronic fatigue syndrome.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue (ME/CFS, it’s now called) is often characterised by overwhelming fatigue and post-exertion exhaustion. Years of underfunding of research has left us without a biomarker to help identify the disease. That has allowed many to go on believing that ME/CFS is not real – that it’s psychosomatic, imagined by someone who, for reasons unclear, wishes to ruin their life.
Long COVID – which overlaps significantly with ME/CFS – blows that scepticism out of the water. As many thousands of Australians have been struck down with long COVID during the pandemic, it has become increasingly difficult to deny that post-viral illnesses are real, debilitating and need to be taken seriously.
If we had properly funded ME/CFS research we’d already be a long way to understanding long COVID. Instead, we’re playing catch-up. There’s nothing we can do about past failings – but we must ensure we do better when it comes to long COVID.
Josh Van Dijk and Ricky Buchanan in Buchanan’s Balaclava home. Ricky is bedridden (she has chronic fatigue syndrome) and must stay in a hospital bed all day.Credit:Eddie Jim
We failed Australians with chronic fatigue. Will we do the same with long COVID?
Examine, a free weekly newsletter covering science with a sceptical, evidence-based eye, is sent every Tuesday. Below is an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.
We failed the many thousands of Australians with chronic fatigue syndrome. We did not invest enough in research. We did not build an effective care system. We did not believe them.
Now we are beset with a disease that bears striking similarities: long COVID. And chronic fatigue........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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