What鈥檚 in a name? Chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that debilitates as many as 2.5 million people in the US with exhaustion, should be renamed systemic exertion intolerance disease, according to the .
As well as the name-change, the IOM has this week proposed . Because the cause of the condition, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME, remains unknown, identifying the condition can be difficult.
鈥淥ur goal was to facilitate diagnosis,鈥� says Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and chair of the panel that drafted the report. 鈥淲e hope these evidence-based diagnostic criteria provide a new foundation for future research regarding cause and treatment.鈥�
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Simon Wessely at King鈥檚 College London welcomes the criteria, but is less convinced by the name-change. 鈥淚鈥檓 concerned it may add to, not reduce, confusion around this condition,鈥� he says.
This article will appear in print under the headline 鈥淔atigue checklist鈥�
