Letters to New York Times on Fibromyalgia Article

The printed letters in today’s edition of the New York Times address the piece on fibromyalgia on Monday.

For me personally, the letter from Benjamin Natelson, director of the Pain and Fatigue Study Center at UMDNJ was especially meaningful as that was where I was finally diagnosed on August 9, 2001 after 18 months of confusion and deteriorating health. And I stayed in New Jersey for 2 years to work with them to improve my health and ability to cope, participated in a study there, and I am still in touch with them. They are good, intelligent people working very hard, and I’m very grateful for their work too.

My favorite paragraph:

Would that it were true that fibromyalgia patients “obsess over aches that other people simply tolerate”; in truth, they suffer from pain other people can scarcely imagine. To imply, as the article does, that doctors who advocate on behalf of these patients are somehow “in the pocket” of the pharmaceutical industry is to betray a stunning degree of cynicism, and of callow disregard for the real lives and deep suffering of millions of human beings.

Read all of them here.

UPDATE: Karen Lee Richards wrote me and about the New York Times. See post here.