On December 9, 2015, we met with two assistant section chiefs of the Ministry of Health’s Intractable Diseases Division (the new name of the Specific Diseases Division effective October 1, 2015), where we submitted our most recent letter to Minister of Health Yasuhisa Shiozaki.
We reported on recent international ME/CFS developments, including on research papers from Stanford University and Columbia University, the U.S. National Institute of Health’s October 2015 announcements, and ME researchers’ and patients’ push to challenge the conclusions of the 2011 Lancet paper on the PACE study. We informed the Ministry of JMEA’s outreach efforts with The Japan Society of Neurology, such as our hosting of an ME information booth at the Society’s 2015 annual conference. In light of NIH’s announcement that ME research will be under the direction of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), we requested that the health agency also advance ME research as a neurological disease in Japan.
Japan ME Association 