Surf champion Tyler Wright reveals struggle with chronic fatigue Australian pulls out of final event of season in Hawaii ‘My brain hurts,’ says two-time world champion https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...-wright-reveals-struggle-with-chronic-fatigue
I saw this and thought the use was probably fair enough. My interpretation was that she had a diagnosis of PVFS and the "chronic fatigue" was a reference to the symptom rather than the syndrome. I see no problem with that usage. I only object when category errors are made, or when people have no idea whether they are referring to symptoms, illnesses, syndromes or groups of syndromes. I may be out on a limb over this.
Still pretty common, sadly. In kind of a similar confusion, the star goalie of my hockey team has been underperforming and some months ago media reports came out saying his medical team had diagnosed him with chronic fatigue, which routinely gets morphed into chronic fatigue syndrome, in part because the original reporting confused it (and still does). I saw it again just a few weeks ago and it was confused by media in both languages and across Canada and the US. Some got it right: Kind of a hit and a miss considering the definition of aliment is "typically a minor disease". Others, corrected it later but some original reports still have it wrong: That was, of course, the whole point of creating chronic fatigue syndrome. Chronic fatigue is one of the most common symptoms in medicine. That language was simply used to erase ME as a distinct medical entity. The harm done by this simple act of sabotage will go down as one of the single most incompetent and malicious in the history of medicine. There was absolutely no basis for it, it was purely ideological. There was a thread in the hockey sub-reddit and I tried my best to educate. Went pretty alright, although I doubt anyone will have their opinion transformed by it. There was of course the obligatory medical professional butting in saying it's common for ME/CFS (what I used since it was laypeople) to be cured, but overall upvotes aplenty to my trying to bring awareness. Obligatory: Go Habs Go.
There appears to be an editorial/cultural change at The Guardian (roughly 2000) which I've pointed out on a number of occasions on various platforms. The Guardian archive is available online so others can verify this for themselves by reading reports either side of 2000. I believe it's important because, allied with the politics of the time, this has helped dictate policy towards ME subsequently. I've recently seen a video including David Tuller and he mentions a cultural element to the ascendency of the BPS crowd in the UK. It sometimes takes an outsider (albeit some of us in the UK also spotted this) to come along and point out 'the emperor's new clothes'.
The story seems to have been picked up by quite a few outlets. It looks as though it is based on an interview done by World Surf League: http://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/360127/tyler-wright-road-to-recovery Apart from the sloppiness around chronic fatigue/CFS naming, I think the coverage isn't bad. The post viral fatigue/CFS isn't trivialised; it's made clear that Tyler can't just push through it as she did with a knee injury previously. She says it's hard to treat and doesn't know when she will be well again. She also makes clear that the symptoms are a lot more than tiredness.
By the way - the World Surf League interview mentions Layne Beachley, 7 times women's surf world champion, also from australia, who also experienced a form of PVFS/ME/cfs. Layne Beachley has described her illness, in books and blogs (eg http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/laynesworld/2008/11/18/tiredofchroni.html) and some TV appearances.
