15_11.pdf
Chronic Fatigue Initiative website- http://cfinitiative.org/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Contact: Courtney Woo (Edelman), 212-704-8265 courtney.woo@edelman.com
NEW INITIATIVE FUELS FIGHT AGAINST CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME
Partnership among leading researchers seeks to improve understanding
of controversial disease
New York, NY =96 The newly formed Chronic Fatigue Initiative, Inc., a
nonprofit organization, today announced a novel collaboration that
brings together medical experts from the world's leading research
institutions, including Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and Duke
Universities, to identify the causes and treatment of Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome (CFS), a debilitating illness that affects more than one
million people in the United States. The initiative=92s comprehensive
strategy includes funding for an epidemiology study, already underway;
a well-characterized cohort recruitment; a pathogen discovery and
pathogenesis study; and a Mechanism of Illness grant program that will
fund additional research.
The exact cause of CFS =96 which afflicts patients with overwhelming
fatigue and cognitive difficulty =96 has eluded researchers since it was
first identified in 1985. Chronic Fatigue Initiative, headquartered in
New York City and funded by the Hutchins Family Foundation, seeks to
jumpstart and to sustain critical research by providing investigators
and academic institutions with access to funds and a mechanism to ease
collaborative study, enabling the best minds to drive new solutions.
The Chronic Fatigue Initiative-funded Epidemiology Project, led by the
Harvard School of Public Health, aims to identify a large sample of
men and women with CFS and to study their environmental exposures as
well as their blood samples from before and after the time they became
ill. The study will draw on epidemiologic data from three separate
HSPH studies, including more than 20 years of longitudinal bio-samples
from nurses and other health professionals, providing invaluable clues
to environmental as well as biological risk factors for CFS.
"The Nurses and Health Professionals cohorts provide a unique setting
for the investigation of CFS, because the participants in these
investigations have provided detailed information on their lifestyle
and medical history longitudinally for over two or three decades,=94
said Alberto Ascherio, M.D., professor of epidemiology and nutrition
at HSPH and leader of the Chronic Fatigue Initiative-sponsored
epidemiology study. =93A large proportion of these participants have
provided blood samples, in some cases before the onset of CFS. We
expect that this investigation will provide new insights on possible
risk factors for this potentially debilitating condition."
Chronic Fatigue Initiative will also recruit a well-characterized
cohort of CFS patients =96 200 subjects who truly have the disease plus
200 healthy controls nationwide =96 from whom biologic samples and
clinical data will be collected, ultimately enabling the discovery of
pathogenic pathways. The biologic samples, collected by clinicians
from selected sites around the country, will be stored in a central
bio-bank located at Duke University. The bio-bank will be accessible
to researchers around the world for future study.
=93A database administered at Harvard Medical School will link clinical
data from the cohort to the biologic samples in the bio-bank.
Together, these resources will form a unique foundation for the
discovery of pathogens and pathogenic mechanisms in CFS and the
identification of patients who will most likely respond to specific
treatments,=94 said Nancy Klimas, M.D., professor of medicine,
psychology, microbiology and immunology at the University of Miami
School of Medicine and the principal investigator for cohort
recruitment.
Following cohort recruitment, creation of the bio-bank and population
of the database, W. Ian Lipkin, M.D., a prominent virologist and
director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia
University, and Mady Hornig, M.D., principal investigator for pathogen
discovery and pathogenesis at the Center for Infection and Immunity,
will lead a pathogenesis study that seeks to uncover novel viruses
implicated in the disease. The team will use new techniques that allow
up to 20 pathogens to be searched simultaneously.
"We are eager to join Chronic Fatigue Initiative in bringing the full
measure of our resources to bear on the challenges of this
debilitating syndrome that robs individuals in the prime of their
productive years," said Dr. Lipkin.
Chronic Fatigue Initiative will also offer grants, housed under the
Mechanism of Illness program, to fund new research guided by five or
six general hypotheses formed by a scientific advisory board of
leading scientists and clinicians.
The first of many grants to be funded by the Mechanism of Illness
program is the Hutchins Family Fellow for Infectious Disease. This
year=92s inaugural recipient, Claire Gordon, M.D., will work under the
direction of Scott M. Hammer, M.D., professor of epidemiology and
chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the
NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. The pair will
collaborate closely with Drs. Lipkin and Hornig on the pathogen
discovery and pathogenesis study.
=93The gift establishing the Hutchins Family Fellow in Infectious
Diseases as part of the Chronic Fatigue Initiative is visionary,=94 said
Dr. Hammer. =93Training dedicated, talented young physicians in pathogen
discovery and state-of-the-art care and treatment of related patient
populations will produce advances that will ultimately lead to
defining and defeating chronic fatigue syndrome and the morbidity it
causes.=94
=93As more policy makers and industry experts grasp the full scale of
CFS, we believe they will more likely respond in kind and increase
efforts to promote research surrounding the disease,=94 says Scott A.
Carlson, Chronic Fatigue Initiative executive director. =93By
simultaneously seeking to understand the causes of the illness and the
breadth of our population affected, Chronic Fatigue Initiative aims to
build awareness and reduce social stigma connected to CFS, ultimately
improving patient lives in a comprehensive way.=94
For more information, please visit www.CFInitiative.org or contact
info@CFInitiative.org.
About Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a debilitating disease characterized by
overwhelming fatigue often aggravated by physical or mental exertion.
It does not improve with rest. The exact causes of CFS have yet to be
identified and diagnostic tests do not exist. According to the CDC,
symptoms for diagnosis must include severe fatigue along with at least
four additional symptoms ranging from cognitive difficulty to sore
throat and muscle pain. A patient is diagnosed only once all other
treatable conditions are ruled out and symptoms have persisted for
more than six consecutive months. In many cases, these symptoms
persist for years or decades.
CFS affects more than one million people in the United States =96 more
than multiple sclerosis, lupus, or lung cancer, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About the Chronic Fatigue Initiative
Chronic Fatigue Initiative is a science-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization fostering and supporting collaboration among the world=92s
leading medical research, treatment and public health organizations in
understanding the causes, therapies and epidemiology of Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome.
Through a unique private funding strategy, Chronic Fatigue Initiative
brings together a variety of scientific and academic partners to
ensure that the best minds can collaborate and drive new solutions. By
simultaneously seeking the causes and treatment of CFS and leading
research to understand the breadth of the affected population, Chronic
Fatigue Initiative aims to build awareness, reduce social stigma
connected to the disease, and improve patient lives in a comprehensive
way.
Participating institutions include the Center for Infection and
Immunity at Columbia University, Harvard School of Public Health,
Stanford Medical School, Harvard Medical School, Duke University,
Brigham & Women=92s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, University
of Miami and University of Utah.
About the Hutchins Family Foundation
Chronic Fatigue Initiative is funded by the Hutchins Family
Foundation, a private family foundation that has grant programs to
expand research and community initiatives in public policy, education
and public health throughout the United States.
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