Lumper or Splitter: Dr. Natelson to Lecture on CFS

For those in the New England area, Dr. Benjamin Natelson will be speaking about his "splitter" approach to research on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on Sat. April 28 in a lecture co-sponsored by the Massachusetts CFIDS/ME and FM Association. If you're not close by, I will be covering the event for Mass CFIDS and will post my article on their website. I'll be sure to post a link to the article on my blog as well. Let me know if you'll be attending so we can meet face-to-face!

Here is the information from the Mass CFIDS e-newsletter:

  Massachusetts CFIDS/ME & FM Association

Education, Support and Advocacy since 1985

  EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR PATIENTS AND HEALTHCARE PRACTITIONERS Saturday April 28, 2012

 Registration - 12:30 P.M. - 1:00 P.M

Conference - 1:00 P.M. - 3:30 P M.

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Keynote speaker: Benjamin H. Natelson, MD

Director, Pain & Fatigue Study Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, NY

Professor of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY

"CFS Diagnosis: Lumper or Splitter"

Dr. Natelson is a neurologist, with a long history of research expertise in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. He is specifically looking at the brain as one of the causes of these illnesses and will challenge the practice of frequently "lumping" these patients into one illness category due to psychological factors. He will present over a decade of research proving that CFS and FM are likely separate and discrete illnesses. In contrast to the "lumpers," he takes the "splitters" approach to identify patient subgroups each with its own discrete cause. Based on studies of the brain, he is working to identify a subgroup of CFS patients with brain dysfunction as the cause of their illness.
Dr. Natelson has recently won a federally funded grant from NIH to move this work ahead. Come hear Dr. Natelson speak about these findings and future plans for collaborative research on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. There will be an expanded Q & A session.

This lecture will NOT be videotaped.

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Lecture co-sponsored by the Massachusetts CFIDS/ME & FM Association and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health 

Register now at www.masscfids.org
Become a member! Members enter free! 
$10 donation for non-members requested 

Location: Massachusetts Department of Public Health
U. Mass. Hinton State Laboratory Institute Auditorium
305 South Street, Jamaica Plain/Boston, MA 02130 

Free parking/accessible by MBTA.
For directions visit www.mass.gov 
Please have a government issued picture ID for entrance to the building.

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Related articles

• News Burst [CFIDS] - Issue of Variability in CFS Research Highlighted (doylestown-fms-cfs.org)
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Biopsychosocial Intervention Strategies (eitheory.com)
• Study Linking Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to Virus Now Retracted (livescience.com)
• Science retracts controversial Chronic Fatigue Syndrome study without the consent of its authors [Science Scandal] (io9.com)