Jason, Leonard A, Sunnquist, Madison, Brown, Abigail et al. · Polskie Archiwum Medycyny Wewnetrznej · 2015 · DOI
The Institute of Medicine proposed renaming chronic fatigue syndrome to 'systemic exertion intolerance disease' (SEID) and created new diagnostic criteria. This editorial critiques that change, noting that most patients rejected the new name and the new criteria were not tested on actual patient populations before being recommended. The new criteria may incorrectly identify more people as having the disease while missing key features that define it.
How ME/CFS is defined and named directly affects which patients receive diagnosis, what research is conducted, and how medical institutions allocate resources. This editorial highlights that major diagnostic changes should be validated scientifically and involve patient input—issues central to ensuring accurate diagnosis and appropriate research funding for the ME/CFS community.
This is an editorial review rather than an empirical study with novel data collection. It does not present new experimental evidence or prospective data validation; instead, it critiques prior recommendations and references existing literature. It does not establish definitive prevalence rates under the new criteria, only suggests they would be higher.
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
Jason, Leonard A, Sunnquist, Madison, Brown, Abigail, McManimen, Stephanie, & Furst, Jacob (2015). Reflections on the Institute of Medicine's systemic exertion intolerance disease.. Polskie Archiwum Medycyny Wewnetrznej. https://doi.org/10.20452/pamw.2973
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-jason-2015-reflections-institute,
author = {Jason, Leonard A and Sunnquist, Madison and Brown, Abigail and McManimen, Stephanie and Furst, Jacob},
title = {Reflections on the Institute of Medicine's systemic exertion intolerance disease.},
journal = {Polskie Archiwum Medycyny Wewnetrznej},
year = {2015},
doi = {10.20452/pamw.2973},
note = {PubMed: 26176405},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2015-reflections-institute},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2015-reflections-institute
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