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CFSWG Accomplishments
- Through this newly reconstituted Trans-NIH Working Group for Research on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFSWG),
the ORWH spearheaded a program announcement (PA-02-34) based on recommendations made in the October 2000 State of the
Science Symposium. This PA encouraged innovative and interdisciplinary research that might explain how the various body
systems interact to produce symptoms associated with CFS.
- October 2002 marked the first council round of review in which applications acknowledging PA-02-34 were received. It should be noted that the number of CFS grants reviewed increased from 5 in January 2002 to (TH insert number) for the May 2005 review. The funding rate for these grants is about (TH to insert %).
- PA-02-34 was revised and re-issued as PA-05-030 on December 28, 2004.
- The ORWH sponsored for the CFSWG a scientific workshop for research on CFS in June 2003, Neuro-Immune Mechanisms and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Will understanding central-mechanisms enhance the search for the causes, consequences and treatment of CFS? The purpose of the workshop was two-fold:
- Increase interest the intramural scientific community in CFS research
- Form the basis for future ORWH-CFSWG activities. In Proceedings Publication (PDF)
- Issued an interdisciplinary RFA based on the recommendations from this workshop that illuminated the understanding of how the brain, as the mediator of the various body systems involved, fits into the schema for understanding CFS. This will be difficult and expensive to research but should enhance understanding, and thereby treatment, of CFS and other complex disorders.
- As a result of intramural interest generated at this workshop, the ORWH and a NINDS intramural scientist were instrumental in forming a new, multi-institute, intramural scientific interest group (SIG). As a founding sponsor, ORWH hosted the charter meeting of the SIG on Scientific Integrated Medicine (SIM)on April 13, 2004. The group has had two subsequent meetings and has appointed an Advisory Board to plan for future meetings and activities. Dr. David Goldstein has written a textbook and will teach a course on SIM at the NIH FAES beginning this fall.
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