ME/CFS Featured on Dr. Oz
On 3/05/2015 an episode of the Dr. Oz Show contained the segment, "It’s Not Chronic Fatigue: The New Disease Causing Your Exhaustion"
I applaud Dr. Oz for taking on this topic. This disease definitely needs more awareness, but there were several things that bothered me about the way in which he did so.
My first beef with this is the misleading title which makes it sound like a brand new disease was discovered, rather than focusing on the fact that ME/CFS has been plaguing people for decades and simply that a new name has been suggested and the criteria for diagnosing was refined to make diagnosis easier.
Second- He presented it as a women's issue. Yes, women seem to be more susceptible to ME/CFS, but do you think that viewers not familiar with ME/CFS will be aware that men get this illness too?
Third- do you think that the severity of the illness was well represented? Being an invisible illness, the woman who was an ME/CFS sufferer looked normal and healthy. She may well have gone home and collapsed for a week after the show, but do you think viewers got that impression? It seems like it may have been beneficial to show the gamut of the illness with clips of those who were bed bound as well.
Fourth- the "experts" did not really offer anything constructive. In fact Dr. Jennifer Caudle did not even get the new proposed name right, calling Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, a disorder instead of a disease.
Dr. Oz, we appreciate you taking the time on your show to cover this illness, but in my opinion, this may have hurt more than it helped.
How do you feel about the way Dr. Oz handled the subject of ME/CFS or SEID?
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