In order to leave a serious impact of the disease by its name, on Thursday, a federal advisory committee reached on a unanimous decision to alter the name of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to CFS-ME.

The legitimacy of the changed name was not suspected by even one member of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee that is an advisory agency to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As per the panel, ME could either depict myalgic encephalomyelitis or myalgic encephalopathy.

Though, the combination of CFS and the ME can be contentious, as ME describes a grave condition, but on the suggestions of patients the name was changed to CFS-ME.

The name chronic fatigue syndrome didn’t show the seriousness of the disease and fatigue was just one of the symptoms, as stated to by Dr. Susan Levine, panelist, a physician and researcher who treats CFS patients.

She said, "If it has a more scientific name, we might receive more funding than if it has a name that sounds just like you need to take a nap".

Another recommendation that included developing a national CFS-ME network of treatment centers was also approved by the panel, so that there would be more expanded care equipped with educational skills and facilitating the sharing of data among researchers.