INCIDENCE:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a general term applied to a wide variation of complex forms of persistent and disabling fatigue in which persons, often previously very active and of good health, become physically challenged within a period of days. Diagnosis as CFS varies from country to country and year to year. As it does not fit the simplistic medical model of diagnosis, the patient is usually ignored, mistreated, and maltreated by those responsible for assisting them.

SYMPTOMS

1. Chronic inflammation and persistent pains
2. Increased susceptibility to viral, bacterial, fungal infections
3. Reduction and inconsistency of working ability
4. Physical depression that encourages emotional depression
5. Multiple organ weakness symptoms
6. Ineffectiveness of drug and herbal medications
7. Periods of disorientation, brain fog, vertigo
8. Prevalence of adrenal-thyroid exhaustion.
9. Disrupted hormonal balance in men and women
10. Confusion, memory lapses, heightened frustration
11. Avoidance by doctors, relatives, healthcare staff

STATUS
----- Current BC Medical support: NONE
----- Possible cost savings per 2007: $7 million
(lost income and savings to the ill; lost tax payments)
We cannot have a healthy society until it is equal in its treatment of the ill.

Before 1930, instances of chronic fatigue were seldom noted.
Since then, geographic groupings and individuals have acquired the virus-like illness with self-limiting contagion-like outbreaks.

Every year, the number of influenced persons increases exponentially and now includes hundreds of thousands of isolated, pacified, impoverished, abandoned persons across North America. The social and medical responses impose extreme stress upon such persons ensuring non-recovery for most.