Article Index

 Updates and progress reports from federal health agencies

After opening remarks, roll call and housekeeping functions, representatives from various federal health agencies submitted updates on topics of interest and areas needing more attention, such as the need for appropriate assessment of ME/CFS by primary care providers, better training and uniform guidelines, and looking at models currently used for other chronic illnesses which could be beneficial if applied to ME/CFS. A representative from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that effective early 2011, all CFS drug applications are now assigned to a single division of the Office of New Drugs (OND). Prior to this change, these had been scattered over six different divisions. The new arrangement should promote more effective review of these drugs and create a single point of contact for CFS-related applications.

[Editor's note: These updates and work-in-progress reports seemed to skim over many topics, without much detail, other than the change reported by the FDA. Therefore, the coverage we give of these reports is minimal.]