Re: Campaign for a Fair Name Campaign article (Jill McLaughlin)

[Guest guest]

Wow. An excellent article from Jill McLaughlin, but I fear that even

that is shouted into the vacuum of the medical and pharmaceutical

companies. Before I am beaten up, I want to mention that I suffer from

FM, CFS , major depression and the rare and incurable Vasculitis. :-/

In my humble opinion, the name " change " is less important than the

medical community (and then secondarily the general public) considering

in majority--these related illnesses as " valid " and not merely a

psychosomatic whining festival. I would have to agree with Ms.

McLaughlin, that a " name change " is secondary, if that.

Even the term " Vasculitis " bothers me, since it is also defined in

simplest terms as an " inflammation of the blood vessels " . That almost

implies that patients are just whining about a little inflammation, and

doesn't address the consequences of that. Just as " chronic fatigue "

seems to imply to the public that people are simply whining about " being

tired " .) I don't think however that a name change for FM, CFS or ME

will happen until even more people are diagnosed with it, and there are

more pharmaceuticals that claim to directly treat illnesses like FM, ME

or CFS. Actually, I just want them all to go away, whatever they want

to call them.

As it becomes more commonplace (and profitable, sadly) in corporate

pharmacology to manufacture and market (of course) more medications

claiming to treat those types of illnesses more directly, the medical

community will then gain acceptance, as will the general public (by

bombardments of television and printed marketing). This is what

happened with " mental illness " and Prozac, much more accepted as it used

to be even 15 or 20 years ago. (Though even today--many people continue

to make insensitive and invalidating jokes about people taking Prozac,

or laughing it up by referencing " a Prozac moment " . That's largely

because they have never experienced mental illness themselves or in

their family, I imagine. I don't even take Prozac, but that burns me up

every time I hear it.)

Face it, we could get people to call it " purple monkey dishwasher " for

that matter, yet it would not therefore validate the subject in the eyes

of the vast majority of the medical community and public, until many

more people are diagnosed with related illnesses--making it impossible

to ignore. And, the three conditions mentioned before are not identical

anyway (as Ms. McLaughlin also stated). Perhaps it will also take the

diagnosis of more people of public " prominence " with these types of

illnesses as well--for others to give it the validation and respectful

compassion deserved.

But, I could be wrong.