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 Founder's Corner
Campaign for a Fair Name
Most Find "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" Inaccurate and Trivializing - Name Must be Changed to Gain Credibility
Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo
Dear ,
Our last newsletter calling for changing the name "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" (read FATIGUE) met with extraordinary support from the patient and medical communities. Patients and doctors alike rallied to the cause, and wrote to us to express their discontent with the present name. Most indicated they have long felt that the name "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" trivializes the seriousness of the disease by calling it by the name of a symptom that is shared by almost everyone at some point in their life, and that a more appropriate name must be adopted in the United States.
Every single letter we received at ProHealth was critical of the name as being inaccurate and demeaning. Our busy message board resounded with a clear and unified voice: The time to change "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" has come.
Changing the name is an idea that has waxed and waned over the past decade. Patients have complained bitterly about it for years. Doctors and researchers have never been happy with the name, and have called for a change. Even the largest CFS patient organizations have formed committees to discuss the topic. But nothing has changed.
We feel it is imperative to take it upon ourselves to make this happen - for each other, for the countless patients who suffer in agony from the debilitating disease that bears such a trivializing name, and for our friends, doctors, and loved ones who sometimes bear the humility and embarrassment right along with us.
The reservoir of knowledge and the resolve of our readers, site visitors, and bulletin board participants is formidable, and working together we are unstoppable. This is exactly what we need in order to get the job done. ProHealth is calling on you - on all of us - to do our part to change "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" to something we can all agree on, and is today launching "Campaign for a Fair Name." That campaign begins here, today, and it will end - successfully - when the name is changed, once and for all.
You and other volunteers are needed. ProHealth will commit to providing much of the funding to get the job done. And if you want to help, e-mail us at CFSnamechange@prohealth.com. Please include your name and contact information. We'll get back to you with more information on next steps as the project gets underway.
Our cause is lost without your support. Without volunteers we will not succeed.
Rich Carson
CFS patient; ProHealth Founder
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