Awareness Campaign on CFIDS in California

Your Health: Focus on CFS
By Alison apRoberts - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, October 22, 2006
Story appeared in SCENE section, Page L10

A spotlight is being focused on chronic fatigue syndrome in Sacramento this week.

"The Faces of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome," a photography exhibit, is scheduled to go up Monday at Sunrise Mall and will be on display through Thursday.

A public seminar about CFS and fibromyalgia will be held Saturday at KVIE, featuring presentations by Dr. Charles Lapp, a physician at the Hunter-Hopkins Center in Charlotte, N.C.; and Leonard Jason, a CFS researcher at DePaul University in Chicago.


The seminar is sponsored by the Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Association of America, a nonprofit group. The exhibit is sponsored by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the CFIDS Association.

There are treatments but there is no cure for CFS, which is diagnosed based on long-term, severe exhaustion that lasts at least six months, along with flu-like symptoms.

There is increasing evidence that CFS is a physical rather than a psychological ailment, according to the CFIDS Association. Many Americans nonetheless persist in believing the illness is a form of depression or hypochondria. This skepticism may contribute to the low rate of diagnosis of CFS; less than 20 percent of those with CFS have been diagnosed, according to the CDC, which estimates more than 1 million Americans have the disease.