For decades, people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome have struggled to convince doctors, employers, friends and even family members that they were not imagining their debilitating symptoms. Skeptics called the illness “yuppie flu” and “shirker syndrome.”

But the syndrome is now finally gaining some official respect. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which in 1999 acknowledged that it had diverted millions of dollars allocated by Congress for chronic fatigue syndrome research to other programs, has released studies that linked the condition to genetic mutations and abnormalities in gene expression involved in key physiological processes.

The agency has also sponsored a $6 million public awareness campaign about the illness. And last year, it released survey data suggesting that the prevalence of the syndrome is far higher than previously thought, although these findings have stirred controversy among patients and scientists.

Some scientists and many patients remain highly critical of the C.D.C.’s record on chronic fatigue syndrome. But nearly everyone now agrees that the syndrome is real.

“People with C.F.S. are as sick and as functionally impaired as someone with AIDS, with breast cancer, with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” said Dr. William Reeves, the lead expert on the illness at the disease control agency, who helped expose its misuse of chronic fatigue financing.

Chronic fatigue syndrome was first identified as a distinct entity in the 1980s. (A virtually identical illness had been identified in Britain three decades earlier and called myalgic encephalomyelitis.) The illness, which afflicts more women than men, causes overwhelming fatigue, sleep disorders and other severe symptoms. No consistent biomarkers have been identified and no treatments have been approved for addressing the underlying causes, although some medications provide symptomatic relief.

Read whole story on NY Times health