What The National CFIDS Foundation, Inc. (NCF) considers the most important research into CFIDS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) is in need of your help!  Researchers hoping to identify what could be the cause of this disease will find their work made much easier with samples from patients who have been diagnosed with CFIDS/ME.  If you have a medical procedure that is upcoming, please consider helping research progress with a donation of:

     1. A sample from a bone marrow biopsy
     2. A sample of spinal tap fluid
     3. Tissue samples affixed to a slide with paraffin

However, under no circumstances does the NCF recommend that you have any procedure for this cause!  We are asking for your help if a surgical procedure is already considered necessary by your own medical physician.  If you have one that you know is upcoming, we have a release form that will protect your own rights as a patient for you to sign.  We also have an addendum that will exclude the hospital and physician from any liability due to providing the samples and should be given to the hospital.  During any surgical procedure, samples are routinely taken from the patient which does not harm them.  These are very small and incur no additional surgery.  Please ask us to provide you with these forms if you have surgery in your future in order to benefit the research we are currently funding.

Once you have read and signed the release forms, the samples can be sent from the pathology laboratory directly to the National CFIDS Foundation, Inc., 103 Aletha Rd., Needham, MA 02492-3931 so that the samples may be forwarded to the appropriate researchers. The pathology department at your hospital sends out samples for pathology reports so sending additional samples directly to researchers is easy for them to do. The patient does not handle these samples as the hospital/clinic pathology laboratory does and is responsible for sending these samples out. This donation of a sample from your surgical procedure may prove to be the most valuable gift anyone has the ability to give.