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In this Issue

• Lobby Day report
• San Francisco Chronicle Magazine
• Advocates respond!
• Alternative Therapies
• Education and Empowerment Seminar Series
• Help Us Raise $250,000 to Fight CFIDS
• CFSAC meeting cancelled
• Nevada Center
• Bulletin Board page

Lobby Day report
On May 12, 2005, 58 advocates headed to Capitol Hill to inform members of Congress and their staffs about CFIDS and to ask for their support. The event marked the CFIDS Association's 13th Lobby Day and took place on International CFIDS Awareness Day. Complete coverage of this event is available at http://www.cfids.org/cfidslink/2005/ld-june05.asp. 

San Francisco Chronicle Magazine
Author Dorothy Wall has published a superb retrospective on the battle for scientific and social credibility for CFS. Her article, featured in the Sunday, June 5, 2005 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, is titled, "From Skepticism to Science: After 20 years, chronic fatigue syndrome may finally be getting some respect and cutting-edge science". The article includes interviews with clinicians and researchers whose experience with CFS, taken together, spans two decades, providing the reader with a view of early theories about what causes CFS and an update on more recent research by the Centers for Disease Control and other investigators. Read the article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/05/CMG3NCLBC81.DTL.

Wall's book, "Encounters with the Invisible: Unseen Illness, Controversy, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome", is due out from Southern Methodist University Press in September. The Association applauds her fine contributions to improving public awareness about CFIDS and was pleased to assist her with contacts and background information.

Advocates respond!
The Association's Grassroots Action Center helped advocates send 6,000 targeted messages to lawmakers and media in the month of May. Read all about it at http://www.cfids.org/cfidslink/2005/virtual-ld05.asp.

Alternative Therapies
Qigong (pronounced chee-gung) can be an effective therapy for PWCs ready to explore complementary exercise and need to keep it in low gear. The winter 2005 CFIDS Chronicle featured a two-page article on qigong and guidelines for finding the right qigong instructor. Visit http://www.cfids.org/archives/2005-chron-rr/gigong.pdf.

The spring 2005 Chronicle just mailed to Association members and includes articles about Lyme disease and its possible connections to CFIDS, living with severe CFIDS, how to win ERISA claims and much more. To join the Association and begin receiving the CFIDS Chronicle (and the CFS Research Review), visit http://www.cfids.org/ecommerce/membership.asp.

KNOW MORE
The CFIDS Association of America is pleased to announce the kick-off of its new education program, the Education and Empowerment Seminar Series, on Saturday, June 25 in Reston, Virginia. Working with the Northern Virginia CFS/FM Support Group, the Association will host a half-day program featuring speakers Lucinda Bateman, MD, a CFIDS physician from Salt Lake City, Utah and Staci Stevens, MS, an exercise physiologist from Ripon, California. Visit http://www.cfids.org/community/know-more.asp to learn more about this new Seminar Series.

Help Us Raise $250,000 to Fight CFIDS
If meaningful progress in CFIDS research is important to you; if raising public awareness of this devastating illness is a priority, then please make a special donation to the CFIDS Association of America this month.

Your gift will open the doors of scientific opportunity and advance CFIDS research. It will help the Association effectively convey to the general public, media and federal government the seriousness of the illness and the toll it takes on those who suffer from it.

We hope to raise $250,000 by month's end. And we will, with your help. A gift of $12 or more from everyone receiving the June CFIDSLink will allow us reach this goal and speed progress toward better health to all those who suffer from CFIDS.

Research and education are vital to ending the pain, disability and heartache CFIDS causes. Please give now.

Donate now online on our secure Web site at http://www.cfids.org/ecommerce/donations.asp  
or call: 704-365-2343

Learn more by visiting http://www.cfids.org/support/default.asp  

CFSAC meeting cancelled
The Department of Health and Human Services CFS Advisory Committee will not meet in June as had been proposed at the April 4 meeting (and was reported in the spring 2005 issue of the CFIDS Chronicle). Although the committee intends to meet this summer, a new date has not yet been set. Once announced, we’ll post the date of the next meeting on our website and in the CFIDSLink.

Nevada Center
Nevada CFIDS advocates, led by Annette and Harvey Whittemore, have been working with the University of Nevada-Reno and the state legislature to create and fund a world-class center for the study and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome and cancer. Read more about the project at http://www.cfids.org/cfidslink/2005/nevada-reno.asp.

Bulletin board page
Visit http://www.cfids.org/community/bulletin-board.asp for up-to-date news and happenings within the CFIDS community.