By Jeff Vanderbilt

From Winter 2015-2016 Forum

A well deserved retirement is coming to one of the NCF's most avid patient supporters, Edward Jordan M.D. Dr. Jordan, who had practiced in Olean, New York, was board certified in internal medicine and oncology. He attended New York Medical College, did his residency at Nassau County Medical Center and had a fellowship at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

I had the very good fortune to become one of his patients after I had been ill with CFIDS for six months. By then, I had already been seen by seven other physicians. With Dr. Jordan however, things were different. I found him to be very thorough and I certainly have had my share of medical tests over the last twenty-five years. All of this was very telling and as a clinician, he had a keen interest in the CFIDS disease process. Particularly noteworthy was the simple fact that he had taken the time and interest to introduce me to the field of cell biology. Because of my background in engineering, he firmly believed that this was where my medical interest should be developed. How very right he was!

Over many years, Dr. Jordan had dozens of patients with CFIDS. He couldn't get over how disabled all of these people were, especially in relation to his cancer patients. He could see where the two overlapped and how they differed. Like other physicians, he was frustrated by both the lack of appropriate therapies for such a disabling disease as well as the lack of relevant medical research. Jordan himself had even attended a CFIDS patient conference back in the day. The information that he garnered paled by comparison to the yearly ASCO oncology conferences that he attended.

Because of my involvement with the NCF dating back to 1997, Dr. Jordan would take on his own role in the interest of patients. He had been involved in numerous NCF patient studies over the years. Actually, when I stop to think about it, he really was continually active. I had always considered him to be the consummate life long learner with a keen interest in medical research. I believe that his interest evolved from his time at Roswell Park.

His NCF involvement included many studies. Just to mention a few, he was involved in research studies related to hypercoagulation, HHV-6 A/B and other viruses, ciguatera toxin, radiation and cancer testing etc. The actual list could go on and on.

In closing, thank you, Dr. Jordan, for your many kindnesses and commitment shown to your own CFIDS patients and to the CFIDS community at large. Your genuine interest in the medical research activity here at the NCF cannot be understated. We here all sincerely wish you a terrific retirement.