[mstroeck]

The issue here is that you did some "brief googling" (your words) on a complicated, confusing, cutting-edge area of clinical research, and now feel competent to state your completely uninformed "null-hypothesis"...

Here's some basic information:

https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/index.html

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-announces-...

http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2015/ME-CFS/MEC...

[mstroeck]

jessriedel, the consensus is that this is a physiological disease with an unknown mechanism. That's why it's an area of active research.

I don't know where you get the idea that the null hypothesis for the cause of any set of symptoms not explained by known biomarkers needs to be "psychosomatic disorder". That's not even wrong - it makes no sense.

[jessriedel]

> the consensus is that this is a physiological disease with an unknown mechanism

Can you point me towards a statement of that consensus?

> I don't know where you get the idea that the null hypothesis for the cause of any set of symptoms not explained by known biomarkers needs to be "psychosomatic disorder".

I didn't say that, and in particular never used the words you put in quotes and attributed to me. However, I'm pretty comfortable with what I did say: absent evidence to the contrary, a collection of self-reported subjective symptoms with no apparent physiological counterparts is significantly more likely to have a psychological origin. Can you say more about why it doesn't make sense to you? Or point me towards the evidence specific to CFS/ME that makes you think it doesn't fit that description?

[jessriedel]

I've seen those links. Is there some particular evidence you're pointing to? Or a position statement by experts concerning a convincing physiological mechanism?

[mindgonehaywire]

You've seen those links? Have you read them? The third one is a link to the most extensive literature review ever undertaken, and their conclusions were strong enough for them to state flatly in the abstract that this is not psychological or psychiatric.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25695122

I'm left wondering exactly what it will take for people to back off this stuff about this being a psych illness. What evidence exactly is required? The volume of studies indicating objectively measurable biological abnormalities is massive. Many are unreplicated due to longstanding funding issues. But while I think most reasonable people would agree that psych issues and/or stress are capable of causing a number of physical issues, I can't imagine we'll ever see anything that suggests that psych issues could possibly come close to affecting the body in the severe ways that Myalgic Encephalomyelitis does.

https://app.box.com/s/9s4coexxtys5bnz33i6gvqqygu67ex5o