June 08, 2011 05:00 PM Eastern
Daylight Time
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new Web-based television
program aims to shine a light on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, sometimes referred
to by patients as “the living death” disease. The disease also is known by its
old name – and the one favored by many patients – myalgic encephalomyelitis.
“In more than 50 years of reporting,
I've never experienced so many people so misunderstood and abandoned by society
and many doctors. I've worked on three continents and reported from around the
world, but never have I had a response like the one I've had from writing about
M.E./CFS”
The program
was conceived by Llewellyn King, a Washington columnist and executive producer
and host of “White House Chronicle” and Deborah Waroff, a New York writer and
security analyst, who has suffered from the disease for 22 years.
“This is a
terrible, debilitating and essentially lifelong disease which, like AIDS,
suppresses the immune system. Our program has three objectives: to comfort the
suffering; to change attitudes among physicians and medical institutions, and
to implore the government to provide critically needed research funds,” Waroff
said.
An estimated
1 million Americans are so severely impacted by the disease that for months and
years they are house-bound. Worldwide some 17 million have lost the ability to
lead normal lives and work.
Often those
who have suffered total physical collapse are ostracized because of bigotry and
ignorance. Institutions, like Britain's National Health Service, treat M.E./CFS
as a psychiatric disease, even though patients are in great physical pain.
The disease
knows no economic, geographic or social boundaries. Author Laura Hillenbrand is
the best-known American victim.
“In more
than 50 years of reporting, I've never experienced so many people so misunderstood
and abandoned by society and many doctors. I've worked on three continents and
reported from around the world, but never have I had a response like the one
I've had from writing about M.E./CFS,” King said.
The first program is an interview with pioneering M.E./CFS doctor Derek Enlander.
Contacts
White House Media LLC
Llewellyn King, 202-662-9731
lking@kingpublishing.com