News from Austria and Switzerland

[Chandelier]

Neue ME/CFS-Ambulanz für Klinik Oberwart

LH Doskozil: Eigene Ambulanz und Therapieprogramm für ME/CFS-Betroffene starten im Oktober 2026

www.burgenland.at

A new „ME/CFS“ clinic in Austria, sigh.
This sounds like straight out of a horror movie:

---

One of the requirements, for example, is that patients must be able to move around independently.​

​

Each treatment cycle lasts six weeks.​

The programme focuses on a multidisciplinary and holistic approach.​

A team of doctors, psychologists and physiotherapists addresses the individual needs of those affected.​

​

The individually tailored treatment plan includes, among other things, orthomolecular supplementation therapies (including antioxidants), talking therapies, physiotherapy and cold applications.​

​

“Particularly important is involving and educating family members,” says Dr Veronika Matzi.​

The plan is therefore to integrate relatives into the treatment programme.​

​

…​

​

A considerable number of people affected withdraw completely from social life.​

​

“We want to help these people gradually return to normal life — that is our mission.​

The new outpatient clinic and inpatient treatment programme are important first steps towards achieving this,” Dr Veronika Matzi concludes.​

​

---

Spoiler: Full Article

New ME/CFS Outpatient Clinic at Oberwart Hospital​

Registration is now open.
“ME/CFS is no longer a marginal issue, but a serious healthcare challenge.
People affected by the condition need reliable care that takes their illness seriously and addresses their specific needs.
As promised, we have created the structures necessary to ensure that this care is provided on a long-term basis,” emphasises Hans Peter Doskozil, Governor of Burgenland and member of the Burgenland Provincial Government responsible for health.

As announced by Governor Hans Peter Doskozil, a dedicated ME/CFS outpatient clinic will be established for people affected by the condition.
It is scheduled to begin operating at Oberwart Hospital in early October under the direction of Dr Engelbert Jeindl.
At the same time, a multi-week inpatient treatment programme for people with ME/CFS will be launched at the Reduce Health Resort in Bad Tatzmannsdorf.
An initial internal pilot group has already successfully completed the programme.

Further details about the new services will be presented by Governor Hans Peter Doskozil and his deputy, Anja Haider-Wallner, during the government retreat on 5–6 October.

Andreas Leitner, Managing Director of the Reduce Health Resort, explains: “As part of our Long/Post-COVID regeneration programme, we have gained very positive experience.
We have now developed a specialised treatment programme specifically tailored to the symptoms and needs of people with ME/CFS, in cooperation with Oberwart Hospital.
The programme was initially tested with an internal pilot group, which provided numerous positive responses.”

“We are pursuing a new approach in which orthomolecular supplementation therapy, combined with individualised exercise therapy, plays a key role.
The experience we have gained with this approach is very promising,” emphasises Dr Veronika Matzi, Medical Director of Oberwart Hospital.

The Path to the Treatment Programme​

From October onwards, a dedicated ME/CFS outpatient clinic will operate at Oberwart Hospital. It will be open once a week, every Tuesday afternoon from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., by telephone appointment only.

People affected by ME/CFS can arrange an appointment immediately by calling 05 7979 37170 or by email at kontakt.mecfs(at)gesundheit-burgenland.at.

The treating physicians will also determine which patients are suitable for participation in the treatment programme in Bad Tatzmannsdorf.
One of the requirements, for example, is that patients must be able to move around independently.

Each treatment cycle lasts six weeks.
The programme focuses on a multidisciplinary and holistic approach.
A team of doctors, psychologists and physiotherapists addresses the individual needs of those affected.

The individually tailored treatment plan includes, among other things, orthomolecular supplementation therapies (including antioxidants), talking therapies, physiotherapy and cold applications.

“Particularly important is involving and educating family members,” says Dr Veronika Matzi.
The plan is therefore to integrate relatives into the treatment programme.

Around 80,000 People Affected in Austria​

According to estimates, around 80,000 people in Austria suffer from ME/CFS.
The actual number is likely to be considerably higher.

ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) were first described several decades ago.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the condition has increasingly come into the focus of public attention.

ME/CFS can be triggered by severe viral infections, although not exclusively by the coronavirus.
It is a clinical diagnosis based on the characteristic constellation of symptoms and made after other conditions have been ruled out.
To date, there is no single laboratory value or biomarker that can reliably confirm the diagnosis.

Symptoms range from severe, persistent fatigue and significantly reduced physical and cognitive capacity to muscle pain, dizziness and shortness of breath.
A considerable number of people affected withdraw completely from social life.

“We want to help these people gradually return to normal life — that is our mission. The new outpatient clinic and inpatient treatment programme are important first steps towards achieving this,” Dr Veronika Matzi concludes.

 

[Dude]

This sounds like straight out of a horror movie.

Totally agree.
Tell me you've never heard of MECFS without actually telling me you've never heard of MECFS. It's so frustrating. They just take a standard rehabilitation program and adapt it slightly. What idiots.

Meanwhile, they even have a reference center in Vienna that specifically offers training on how to properly deal with and treat people with MECFS.
I dont get it.

 

[Chandelier]

They just take a standard rehabilitation program and adapt it slightly. What idiots.

What particularly scares me is the „educating family members“ part.
Looks like the doctors took a 101 in „How to poison the relationship between the patient and the people closest to them in 5 easy sentences“.

Spoiler: Trigger Warning: Death

I remember watching a documentary about an anorectic young woman.
The doctors told the family that the only thing that could save her would be a separation from the family.
After all, the family dynamics might hinder her from learning to eat again.
The family agreed and the patient was moved far away into a rehab in Spain or Portugal where she would eventually die alone without any of her family around.
The parents didn’t seem upset about having received that advice.
In their view, everyone tried the best they could.

 

[PageofME]

Meanwhile, they even have a reference center in Vienna that specifically offers training on how to properly deal with and treat people with MECFS.
I dont get it.

The average health professional has average skill and intelligence, and they are simply not taught to assess complex questions independently or come to their own judgments. They don't know how to train themselves on research progress, so they rely on institutional hierarchies or their peer group to tell them what to think and do. Yet, if something about vitamin D pops up on Youtube or a fringe immune theory gets featured on a Die Zeit podcast, they find that interesting too.

 

[Chandelier]

A new „ME/CFS“ clinic in Austria, sigh.
This sounds like straight out of a horror movie:

---

The individually tailored treatment plan includes, among other things, orthomolecular supplementation therapies (including antioxidants), talking therapies, physiotherapy and cold applications.“Particularly important is involving and educating family members,” says Dr Veronika Matzi.The plan is therefore to integrate relatives into the treatment programme.

This story gets better and better, like old pudding after a day out under the savanna sun.
I had no clue about the story behind orthomolecular medicine.
From Bluesky, machine translation:

Hans H. Diebner
September 5, 2026

The work, thought, and life of Linus Pauling surely belong among the top ten most bizarre biographies. His outstanding scientific talent earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. At the same time, he was a tireless peace activist, which brought him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963 as well.

After that, however, he went down the rabbit hole of an obstinate, doctrinaire scientific ideology that later came to be known as “orthomolecular medicine” and that still reaches harmful levels of influence in esoteric circles today. Pauling, who was also called the “vitamin pope” because of his high-dose vitamin doctrine, believed that taking daily doses of vitamins many times higher than the recommended amounts could control almost every disease, including schizophrenia and cancer. The spectrum thus ranged from all manner of somatic diseases to psychiatric syndromes.

Ironically, he himself died of cancer, and to what extent this esoteric medicine was merely an attempt to fulfill his “forever young” wish and practice self-therapy is an open question for biographical researchers. In any case, during the 1970s pharmacies were, for a time, completely cleaned out of their vitamin supplies, and numerous people suffered from hypervitaminosis. Pauling was by no means a marginal figure: he was widely embraced by the general public.

If, today, more than 50 years after these obstinate ideas first emerged, an ME/CFS clinic lists orthomolecular supplementation therapy, along with talk therapy and cold therapies, among its most important therapeutic approaches, then all the alarm bells really ought to go off. This certainly does not mean that particular dietary supplements, taken at reasonable doses, cannot have symptom-relieving effects. As I understand it, that still falls under the heading of disease management. But anyone who turns this into its opposite by dressing it up as orthomolecular medicine—as has already been done with pacing by recasting it as exercise therapy—makes themselves look suspiciously like a quack.

Finally, it should be noted that even back then, Pauling’s audacious idea did not produce the slightest evidence in its favor. In my view, orthomolecular supplementation therapy operates on roughly the same level as homeopathy.

For the sake of completeness, I should also add that in his later years Pauling rigorously rejected the existence of quasicrystals, which went on to virtually revolutionize materials science. He coined the now-famous mocking phrase: “There are no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.” But, as we know, when you point one finger at someone else, four fingers point back at yourself.