HHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHH H H HHHHHH H H HHHHHH H H H HH H H H H H H HHHHH HHHHHH HHHHH H H H HHHH H H H HHHHHH H H H H HHH H H H H H HHHHHH H HHHHHH H HH HHHHHH HHHHH HHHHHH Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Electronic Newsletter --------------------------------------------------------------------- No. 1 August 22, 1992 Washington DC --------------------------------------------------------------------- CFS-NEWS PREMIERE ISSUE CONTENTS >>>1. Purpose of newsletter >>>2. News update -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>>1. Purpose of newsletter CFS-NEWS aspires to be a source of brief and quickly distributed news about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which is also known as chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS), and outside of the USA it is called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The newsletter will emphasize updates on current medical research and will also report on activities of various national support groups. CFS-NEWS will not cover CFS issues as extensively as do the newsletters and magazines issued by the many CFS support groups, which CFS patients are urged to join. CFS-NEWS does have a goal, however, of being a quick source of brief news about very recent events that are important to the CFS community. CFS-NEWS is transmitted both to the Internet and to the CFS "echo" (or conference) on Fidonet. The "Internet" is the name for the communications network which uses electronic mail and other services to link mainframe computers throughout the world which belong to universities, research organizations and government offices. Several large commercial services have e-mail links to the Internet, including CompuServe, America OnLine and MCI-MAIL, and plans have been announced to connect GENIE and Prodigy. Fidonet is a network of over 12,000 PC-based Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) around the world. This network is run by volunteers who convey conference messages, known as echomail, between these BBSs. The CFS conference on Fidonet, to which CFS-NEWS is posted, currently reaches over 45 BBSs from Connecticut to California and from Ontario to New South Wales, and it is expanding every month. The Fidonet CFS conference is the most accessible way for the public to read this newsletter. CFS-NEWS is put together solely by volunteer work. It will become more useful as it grows in experience and with increased participation from its readers. The editor, Roger Burns, is a CFS patient located in Washington DC. The newsletter will have, or hopefully will grow into having, an international perspective. The newsletter editor, Roger Burns, is employed as an economist for the U.S. government where he helps to measure price inflation. His job has no relation to his participation in CFS-NEWS. He had been quite active in local neighborhood affairs until his recent bout with CFS, and he has some experience in publishing newsletters. Mr. Burns can be contacted by sending e-mail to the Internet address CFS-NEWS@LIST.NIH.GOV or by placing a message addressed to Roger Burns on the Fidonet CFS conference, or by sending Fido NetMail to Roger Burns at 1:109/432 . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>>2. News updates CFS-NEWS Issue # 3 will feature the first general summary of CFS medical news. Only 2 items appear in this issue. A. The Nightingale Research Foundation will be publishing a CFS/ME medical encyclopedia in early September. More about this in a future issue of CFS-NEWS. B. The next issue of CFS-NEWS, to be issued tomorrow, will be devoted to summarizing the scheduled program of the international CFS/ME clinical and research conferences to be held October 2, 3 and 4 in Albany, New York, USA (about 130 miles / 210 km north of New York City). ===================================================================== CFS-NEWS is an independent newsletter edited by Roger Burns in Wash ington D.C. and is distributed on Internet and Fidonet. Suggestions and contributions of news may be sent via Internet to CFS-NEWS @LIST.NIH.GOV, or via Fidonet to Roger Burns at 1:109/432, or post a message to the CFS echo. Copyright (c) 1992 by Roger Burns. Permission is granted to excerpt this document if the source (CFS-NEWS) is cited. Permission is also granted to reproduce the entirety of this document unaltered. Note that Fido and Fidonet are registered marks of Tom Jennings and Fido Software. ===================================================================== INTERNET users are encouraged to obtain the RESOURCE file and other CFS files at the NIH file server. To obtain the resource file send Internet e-mail to the address SERVER@CU.NIH.GOV with the subject line GET FTP CFS.RESOURCE (the message text is ignored). Or log in via anonymous ftp to cu.nih.gov or 128.134.64.7 with password=guest, directory=CFS, filename=RESOURCE. Distribution of CFS-NEWS on the Internet is sponsored by the NIH Computing Utility; however, this independent newsletter does not represent the views of the National Institutes of Health. To subscribe, send the command SUB CFS-NEWS to the address LISTSERV@NIHLIST.BITNET or @LIST.NIH.GOV CFS-NEWS is also posted to the CFS echo on Fidonet. =====================================================================