Fred Gill

From MEpedia, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia of ME and CFS science and history
Source:NIH

Fred Gill, MD, FACP, FIDSA, is a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, Chief of the Internal Medicine Consultation Service for the Clinical Center and an Attending Physician for the Undiagnosed Disease Program, National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH Office of Rare Diseases Research.

Dr. Gill is one of the Associate Investigators assigned to the NIH Post-Infectious ME/CFS Study.[1]

Notable studies[edit | edit source]

Talks and interviews[edit | edit source]

Controversy[edit | edit source]

In 2011, Dr. Fred Gill presented a lecture on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as part of an educational series organized by the NIH.[2] His slides from that presentation included controversial statements, such as "a syndrome very similar to CFS was named neurasthenia (or nervous exhaustion)...", and "no difference in orthostatic instability in healthy controls vs CFS patients."

He also recommended very limited and basic screening, with "other tests only when clinically indicated," specifying that there should be "no routine serologies for EBV, CMV, Lyme disease or vasculitis" and "no routine neuroimaging or orthostatic studies." He also warned that "any positive test is likely to be a false positive result, which is misleading and often causes unnecessary anxiety."

He then recommended Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Graded exercise therapy (GET) as the only therapies which "appear to produce meaningful benefit." Doctors and therapists were also advised to "avoid debate over the psychogenic versus organic origins of symptoms." His slides finished up with an uncritical report of the effectiveness and safety of CBT and GET, based on the interpretations of the PACE trial investigators.

Online presence[edit | edit source]

Learn more[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

NIH Post-Infectious ME/CFS Study

References[edit | edit source]