A Big Splash From an Upstart Medical Center

A Big Splash From an Upstart Medical Center
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/giving/12SICK.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

"TO many people who suffer from the poorly understood illness called chronic fatigue syndrome, a recent study linking the disorder to a virus was a victory for the little guys.  For one thing, the study pointed to a physical cause for an illness that the medical establishment had often snidely dismissed as psychosomatic. The research could not be ignored: it was published last month in Science, one of the world's pickiest and most prestigious journals. The discovery came, in a sense, from within the patients' own ranks: several of the scientists, including the lead author of the report, worked for the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease, a nonprofit in Reno, Nev., founded recently by the parents of a young woman who has the syndrome."