[DanBC]

> There's robust evidence of biomedical anomalies in CFS patients -- far more than enough for CFS to be considered a legitimate medical syndrome and not a psychiatric/psychological/"somatic" syndrome.

You make many good points, but this billious bit of hateful bollocks discredits the cause. It's far too common to hear CFS activists claiming "my illness is real, it's not in my head". It's hateful, it's beyond fucking stupid, and it needs to stop.

You dismiss entirely the severity and biological causes of illnesses like psychosis or bipolar. You dismiss entirely the debilitating nature of psychological illness such as OCD.

In 2010 psychiatric, neurologic, and substance misuse disorders were the leading cause of YLDs, and were over 10% of DALYs. (And the MH component was over 56%.

[sp332]

I don't think that's a fair characterization. If someone says they suffer from bipolar illness, you wouldn't assume that their "real" problem was that they had a sprained ankle. Similarly someone complaining of CFT shouldn't be assumed to have a mental health problem instead. That doesn't diminish the severity of either kind of problem.

[cpncrunch]

Dan was just referring to the comment about mental/psychological illnesses being "not real". You bring up a different point (but that is still not an excuse for this attitude).