Shlomo Yehuda and David I. Mostofsky The Second Farber Center International Conference was held on December 19th, 1995 at Bar Han University. Israel. The topic of the conference was: "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. " The members of the Scientific Committee were: Prof. Yehuda. Prof. Mostofsky, Mr. Riesenberg, and Prof. Sredni. This conference was supported by the Farber Center for Alzheimer Research. the Ginsburg Chair for Re- search into Alzheimer Disease, and by the Gold Founda- tion. The present volume summarizes the controversial and interesting issues as well as the experimental and re- search results as discussed by the distingUished invited speakers. The term "chronic fatigue syndrome" was created to describe a group of symptoms that has often been popu- larly referred to as the "yuppie flu. " The unusual and puz- zling symptoms of CFS include severe fatigue, weakness, fever, depression. and sore throat and lymph nodes. Sev- eral other disorders seem to share many of the CFS's symptoms to various degrees and since no undisputed bio- logical etiology has been identified, it has often been re- garded with great suspicion as a legitimate and organic disorder.
Only in cases of infectious mononucleosis ("kiss- ing disease") was the Epstein-Barr herpes virus found. The controversy among physicians and other health care pro- fessionals concerns the very existence of CFS as a unique 5 6 Preface entity well differentiated from other terms such as fibromy- algia. neurasthenia. or special kinds of depression. (For examples. see: Goldenberg, 1990; Millenson.