The Massachusetts CFIDS/ME & FM Association Website Committee members have experienced CFIDS/ME and FM in their lives for an aggregate of about 125 patient-years. I think that vast patient knowledge, wisdom, and experience are reflected on this site. We have tried to construct the site to be very comprehensive, especially in the areas of Diagnosis, Treatment and Disability. We feel that the illnesses described by the 2003 Canadian Definition, the 1988 CDC Definition, and the London Criteria for ME established by Ramsay and Dowsett are all the same illness. We are using CFS/CFIDS/ME as the name of the illness to reflect that belief. We also think this is not the same as the illnesses described by the flawed CDC 1994 Definition of CFS or the even more deeply flawed Oxford Criteria for CFS. Anyone who wishes to evaluate the validity of the research carried out on CFS/CFIDS/ME needs to know the difference in the various definitions of the illness, their flaws, and which was used in a given study. So we have devoted a unique amount of space on our site to that topic.

In closing, I'd like to give special thanks to our Website Committee members and our professional website designer Karan Parkin of Parkin Design. Without their expertise, this website definitely wouldn't exist.

We have tried to design our site to have something for everyone. We hope you enjoy browsing here and that you come back often!

Lucy Dechéne
Website Committee Chairperson