Jeffery, Diana D, Bulathsinhala, Lakmini, Kroc, Michelle et al. · Military medicine · 2014 · DOI
This study looked at how many military service members had fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome between 2006 and 2010. Fibromyalgia diagnoses increased significantly during this period, while chronic fatigue syndrome diagnoses stayed about the same. The cost of treating fibromyalgia cases rose dramatically, especially after new fibromyalgia medications became available.
This study provides important epidemiological context for CFS by showing that CFS prevalence remained stable even as other medically recognized conditions increased during the same period, suggesting different disease trajectories. Understanding how clinical recognition, diagnostic approval, and pharmaceutical marketing influence reported prevalence helps ME/CFS patients and researchers interpret disease burden statistics and recognize potential biases in how conditions are tracked and reported.
This study cannot establish causation—it only documents that FMS prevalence increased at the same time as FDA drug approvals and marketing campaigns. The observation does not prove that drugs caused increased diagnoses; increased recognition, improved diagnostic criteria, or genuine increases in disease incidence could also explain the trend. The stable CFS prevalence does not reflect the true disease burden, as diagnostic barriers and underrecognition may mask actual prevalence.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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