Osler's Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue ... (ISBN 0140263470)

A must-read if you have ME:
This book really gives you an understanding of how and why ME has been stigmatized, ridiculed and ignored as much as it has. It makes it very clear that it was not a mistake or an oversight at all but that it was in fact utterly deliberate. The pure stupidity and lack of basic human compassion involved is astounding. It's important to know how we've ended up in this mess so we can see how we might get ourselves out I think. It's also important that we not underestimate how low these people will go - its lower than you could even imagine. A must read if you are well enough to tackle such a long non-fiction book, it'll just blow your mind and really fire you up about how badly we have all been treated historically and the...well you'd have to call them evil, people behind it all. A fantastic book to fire up your activism urges.

The Definitive Work on Chronic Fatigue:
This is the most informative book I've read on Chronic Fatigue. The reading is dry at times, but very informative. This book is about the Center for Disease Control (CDC) involvement in investigating CFS up to the date when the CDC was found quilty of misappropriation of funding for CFS research. Anyone new to the illness should have this book in their library, even if it is just used for references.

Excellant book on the politics and more...:
I read this book when it first came out. I would highly recommend it to any health care professional, any sufferer, or any relative of any sufferer. Society has come a long way over the years. Around 1990 I took a copy of one Dr. Jay Goldstein's books on chronic fatigue to a lecture on another subject. One of the other attendees picked it up, read the title, and disdainfully tossed in back on the table declaring, "Chronic fatigue? There is no such thing. It's only depression." On the other hand, myths are still all too common. Back to this book. It leaves me dumbfounded how many of the issues clearly dealt with in this book are still reported incorrectly. Example: Epstein-Barr virus. It has widely been reported that since EB virus does not appear in clusters/epidemics, and that antibodies are present in a very high percent of the population, attributing chronic-fatigue to and EBV outbreak is, well, wrong. And that the doctor(s) should have known that. However, in the book is it made clear that the doctors at Incline Village where an outbreak occured did know that. So when one of the doctors started seeing many of his patient's showing up with positive blood tests for EBV, he sent some samples to a researcher. The researcher found an antibody pattern that was not indicative of new infections, but rather of a recurrence or reactivation of a prior infection. This was a pattern the researcher had never seen before, and implied another cause, possible a weakening of the immune system. But not an epidemic of new EBV cases. By the way, that also argues against the assertion some have made that EBV is a possible cause, although it should be ruled out clinically. The book is replete with many stories and issues, that differ remarkably from what is commonly reported about this issue. One final chilling note. In the book dozens sufferers are introduced, some in depth, some obliquely. In an annex at the end of the book, the is a short follow up on many of the sufferers. What is chilling is how many have died.

Fascinating!:
Hillary Johnson's fascinating book, first touched upon in her article in Rolling Stone is a compelling read. The poor response by the CDC and the NIH to an epidemic that has now affected more lives than both AIDS and Lung Cancer is tragic. Ms. Johnson's beautifully woven story (though at times technical) would make for a very moving film in the tradition of And the Band Played On.

My Favorite Book of All Time!:
This is by far my favorite book of all time! Thank you, Hillary Johnson, for taking on the monumental task of documenting the egregious crimes against us CFIDS sufferers by Stephen Strauss and others at NIH and CDC. I was on the edge of my seat even on my fourth reading of this true crime thriller! Your heart will be pumping with adrenaline and outrage as you race through yet another "Oh My God!" moment where another damning piece of evidence is laid bare. As a trial lawyer myself, I've never seen such a riveting and clear case made out of such complicated facts. Alot of progress has been made since the book came out- basically CDC and others finally admitting much of what Johnson said in the book. I still wonder about some of the things for which Johnson made a great case, but have essentially been forgotten. For example, it seems clear to me that the human retrovirus discovered by Dr. Elaine Defritas is a cause of CFIDS, but it hasn't been discussed in the literature in more than a decade. Ampligen is finally nearing approval; I wonder if it is the wonder drug portrayed in the book. And I continue to see reports in the media of more CFIDS patients dying of previously extraordinarily rare cancers such as Burkitt's Lymphoma, but this continues to be ignored by the scientific journals. All people with CFIDS and their families would benefit enormously from reading Osler's Web. Osler's Web made me feel the catharsis that a disbelieved rape victim must feel when a skilled prosecuter, in open court, makes it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendant did in fact rape her; that she is not a liar, but instead a victim of a terrible crime.