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This article is from the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) FAQ, by cfs-news@cais.com (Roger Burns) with numerous contributions by others.

2.12 Is CFS related to AIDS?

Enough is known about the mechanisms of both diseases to say that they
are not the same. The fact that they both seem to involve the immune
system, and that some not-fully-researched viruses might have some
effect in both, have caused a few people (notably Neenyah Ostrom, a
writer for the New York Native) to speculate that there is a common
mechanism. The facts that CFS has no correlation to HIV nor shows any
AIDS-like breakdown of the immune system shows that these illnesses
are not the same. It is nonetheless true that the broad family of
immune-related illnesses are becoming increasingly important in these
times.

 

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• prev: 2.11 Is CFS related to depression?
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• next: 2.13 Does CFS increase the likelihood of cancer? There have been no formal studies about this question to date. Clinicians dealing with the illness have not noticed any higher incidence of cancer among their CFS patients. The issue is raised, however, because some research shows that CFS patients have impaired natural killer (NK) cell activity, and it is the NK cells which primarily protect against cancer. So this is an issue that bears watching.

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