David Sheffield Bell is an American physician who has done extensive research on the clinical aspects of
chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. The causes and mechanisms of the disease are not fully understood. Distinguishing core symptoms are ...
(CFS). He has also conducted evaluations and research in pediatric CFS and written numerous articles about the condition.
Bell is retired
from a private practice in
general medicine in the town of
Lyndonville, New York
Lyndonville is a village in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 838 at the 2010 census. The name was selected because some of the early settlers were from Lyndon, Vermont. It is part of the Rochester Metropolitan Statistic ...
which he had started in 1979.
Bell also served as Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the
State University of New York at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
, in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
.
Training
Bell is a graduate of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, class of 1967, with an AB degree in English Literature. He graduated in 1971 from
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
with an
MD degree, and in 1976 completed post-doctoral training in
pediatrics
Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until th ...
including Pediatric Behavior and Developmental Disorders.
Work on chronic fatigue syndrome
Bell's interest in CFS began in 1985 when an apparent cluster outbreak of 216 persons occurred in his rural community in upstate New York. He has written extensively on the condition, including a thirteen-year follow-up study of the children who became ill during the original outbreak.
Bell was involved in identifying the outbreak in Lyndonville, New York, of what was known at the time as
chronic Epstein-Barr virus (now more commonly referred to as
chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. The causes and mechanisms of the disease are not fully understood. Distinguishing core symptoms are ...
or CFS).
When Bell was interviewed about the outbreak in a 1996
Prime Time Live
''Primetime'' was an American news magazine television program that debuted on ABC in 1989 with co-hosts Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer and originally had the title ''Primetime Live''. The program's final episode aired May 18, 2012.
History
E ...
episode, the reporter described Bell's appeal to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
(CDC) for help with the illness, but Bell says the CDC didn't mention a similar outbreak in
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a Fresh water, freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevad ...
, which he learned about later. He met with other CFS researchers at a 1987 conference, and joined an investigation with researchers Paul Cheney and Elaine DeFreitas involving a possible retrovirus association with chronic fatigue syndrome.
In 1990, the researchers presented evidence they found
DNA sequences very similar to a known human
retrovirus
A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a DNA copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. Once inside the host cell's cytoplasm, the virus uses its own reverse transcriptase ...
in some CFS patients, at a conference in
Kyoto, Japan
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the city ...
.
Their study was later published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...
.
A reporter on Prime Time Live stated the announcement made headlines all over the world. The CDC first ignored their findings,
then later conducted a study and published a paper that refuted the hypothesis.
Bell wrote ''The Doctor's Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'', which was published in 1995. The book, which also refers to CFS as "chronic fatigue/immune dysfunction syndrome," or CFIDS, describes Bell's CFIDS disability scale.
Various publications have used or proposed Bell's scale which is similar to the
Karnofsky scale, for the documentation of severity of symptoms in chronic fatigue syndrome.
In the 2000 CFS documentary,
I Remember Me
''I Remember Me'' (2000) is a biographical documentary about chronic fatigue syndrome, filmed in the United States by Kim A. Snyder. The film attempts to show just how devastating the illness can be to afflicted persons.
Snyder's travels are chr ...
, Bell appeared in an interview recounting his experiences during the Lyndonville outbreak.
In 2003,
Secretary of Health and Human Services
The United States secretary of health and human services is the head of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all health matters. The secretary is ...
Tommy Thompson
Tommy George Thompson (born November 19, 1941) is an American Republican politician who most recently served as interim president of the University of Wisconsin System from 2020 to 2022. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served ...
designated Bell chairperson of the
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee
The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee (CFSAC) was formed in response to the use of funds by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the study of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The CFSAC was charted under the ...
(CFSAC), a panel of 11 experts that provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services "on the development and implementation of programs to inform the public; health care professionals; and the biomedical, academic, and research communities about advances related to CFS."
Bell also served as a board member of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME (IACFS/ME),
a professional organization of about 300 members that advocates for the concerns of CFS researchers and clinicians around the world.
Bell has retired from private practice, but in 2011 was still doing research on the cause of the illness of CFS patients in Lyndonville NY.
Bell currently serves on the Open Medicine Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, which is committed to ending myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.
References
Further reading
* Be sure to distinguish CFS from depression, Clinical Psychiatry News, April 1, 2005, Volume: 33 Issue: 4 Page: 14(1)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, David Sheffield
American primary care physicians
Harvard College alumni
Boston University School of Medicine alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Chronic fatigue syndrome