WSJ - The Puzzle Of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

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The Puzzle of Chronic Fatigue

For 20 years, a doctor in upstate New York has been trying to prove that an

outbreak of the strange syndrome in his community was caused by a virus. Now new

evidence is reopening the case.

 

One snowy afternoon in October 1985, eight children from the tiny farming

community of Lyndonville, N.Y., went sledding together. Within a few weeks, they

all got sick.

Bell, the local doctor who treated the children, recalls that their

symptoms were similar to the flu: sore throats, fevers, muscle aches and severe

fatigue. After three days, they hadn't recovered. Then a week. A month. Ninety

days.

 

Nearly 25 years after the " Lyndonville outbreak " of chronic fatigue syndrome, a

controversy is brewing among scientists over what causes the disease. A

small-town doctor hopes his patients will help provide the answer. WSJ's

Bellini reports.

Six months after their sledding trip, the children still couldn't go back to the

lone school in town. They had trouble getting out of bed. Light gave them a

headache. Four of the eight were so sick that they were essentially disabled,

Dr. Bell recalls. Tests ruled out mono and other infections. " We had no idea at

all what it was, " he says.

Over the next two years, the mysterious illness spread throughout this rural

village of 862 people halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. It eventually

affected 214 people within a 30-mile radius, 46 of them children....