Buchwald, D, Garrity, D, Pascualy, R et al. · Toxicology and industrial health · 1992
This is a review article that examines what was known about chronic fatigue syndrome in the early 1990s. The authors looked at existing research to summarize the characteristics, possible causes, and impacts of this condition. This paper helped establish an early framework for understanding ME/CFS as a medical condition worthy of scientific investigation.
This early review article is historically important because it helped legitimize ME/CFS as a subject of serious medical and toxicological research during a period when the condition was not widely accepted. By publishing in a toxicology journal, the authors drew attention to possible environmental and occupational factors in disease causation, expanding the scope of ME/CFS investigation beyond purely psychiatric frameworks.
As a review article rather than original research, this study does not present new experimental data or prove causation for any suspected factors in ME/CFS. The conclusions are limited by the quality and quantity of studies available in 1992, and subsequent research has expanded and sometimes contradicted findings available at that time. This paper reflects early hypotheses that may not have held up to later scientific scrutiny.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Buchwald, D, Garrity, D, Pascualy, R, Kith, P, Ashley, R L, Wener, M H, et al. (1992). Chronic fatigue syndrome.. Toxicology and industrial health. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1412483/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-buchwald-1992-chronic-fatigue,
author = {Buchwald, D and Garrity, D and Pascualy, R and Kith, P and Ashley, R L and Wener, M H and Kidd, P G and Katon, W J and Russo, J E},
title = {Chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Toxicology and industrial health},
year = {1992},
note = {PubMed: 1412483},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/buchwald-1992-chronic-fatigue},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/buchwald-1992-chronic-fatigue
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