CFS Central

Susan Douglas, the British producer of the upcoming feature documentary What About ME?, told CFS Central that the filmmakers are seeking one- to two-minute clips from ME/CFS patients—“not prettied up, but as they are.” Douglas wants to form a video community of patients to garner sources for the film and to get patients communicating with each other.

Annette Whittemore co-founded the Whittemore Peterson Institute and funded research into the retrovirus XMRV to help her daughter Andrea, who has lived with ME/CFS for 20 years. Douglas’s film chronicles their story. “It’s the story of what love can do,” explains Douglas, “woven through the world of suffering with ME/CFS.”

XMRV is the spine of the film. The documentary will also examine the attitudes of governments, the medical profession and sufferers in Great Britain and the U.S. “As it is a documentary, there will be elements of the story still unknown to us, as they unfold in front of our eyes, but I do promise you a very human drama, that is based on total truth, and an eye opener for the planet,” Douglas says.

Directed by British filmmaker Geoffrey Smith, best known for his award-winning documentary The English Surgeon, the film will be released in 2011. A DVD is also planned, as are sales to television and cable channels, as well as online virals. For more information on submitting clips and donating to the film, click here. To read an earlier CFS Central article on What About ME?, click here.

The Dream Cast

Ixchelkali's comment about awaiting the ME/CFS mini series back on the June 20th post got me thinking: Who should play the key roles in the ME/CFS saga from the 1984 outbreak in Incline Village, Nevada, to the present? What's the dream cast?

Sometimes the physical similarities to the actual person drew me to a particular actor. The energy of other actors dovetailed with that of the real-life people they would portray. Some of these actors are so versatile—Peter Sarsgaard, Edward Norton, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Patricia Clarkson, Laura Linney, Sissy Spacek, James Cromwell, I could go on—that they're well suited to more than one role. Zeligs that they are, Sean Penn, Tom Wilkinson and Chris Cooper could play any of the male roles.

As long as we're dreaming, the mini series would be written by Eric Roth and Michael Mann (The Insider) or Matthew Weiner (Mad Men) or Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs), produced by Tom Hanks and directed by any of the following: Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Michael Mann (The Insider), Doug Liman (the Bourne films), Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Professional), Martin Scorsese (The Departed; Goodfellas), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others), Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), Christopher Nolan (Inception; The Dark Knight), or Roger Spottiswoode (And the Band Played On).

Besides being a science writer, I've served as a TV editor and film critic, so this assignment was especially fun and a break from the usual. After this news-heavy week, a casual Friday seemed long overdue. Please submit your casting suggestions as well.

Dr. Elaine DeFreitas (a former researcher at the Wistar Institute who discovered evidence of a retrovirus in ME/CFS patients in 1991)
Edie Falco

Illeana Douglas
Cher (if she were 20 years younger)

Dr. Paul Cheney (who, along with Dr. Daniel Peterson, reported an outbreak of ME/CFS in Incline Village, NV, to the CDC in 1984)
Edward Norton
Ralph Fiennes

Dr. Daniel Peterson (co-founder of the Whittemore Peterson Institute and co-author of the Science paper linking XMRV to ME/CFS)
Colin Firth
Peter Krause
Campbell Scott
Peter Sarsgaard

Viggo Mortensen
Liev Schreiber

Josh Brolin

Dr. David Bell (ME/CFS physician who reported an ME/CFS outbreak in Lyndonville, NY, to the CDC in 1985)
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Richard Dreyfuss

Dr. Stephen Straus (head of CFS research at the NIH until his death)

Dr. William Reeves (chief of CFS research at the CDC for 20 years)
Jeremy Irons
Stanley Tucci

James Cromwell
Robert Duvall
Frank Langella
Kevin Spacey
Chris Cooper

Gary Oldman

Zeljko Ivanek
Denis O’Hare
Arliss Howard

Hillary Johnson (author of Osler's Web)

Laura Linney

Claire Danes
Chloe Sevigny

Ren é e Zellweger

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Hope Davis

Marc Iverson (founder of the CFIDS Association)

Matt Ross

Kim Kenney McCleary (CEO of the CFIDS Association)

Patricia Clarkson

Dr. Anthony Fauci (director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease)

William H. Macy

Martin Scorsese

Dr. Nancy Klimas (HIV and ME/CFS physician)

Mariah Carey

Angelica Huston

Dr. Anthony Komaroff (Harvard ME/CFS physician and co-author of the FDA/NIH/Harvard MLV paper)

Tommy Lee Jones

Ciaran Hinds

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (who spearheaded the 1996 congressional investigation into the CDC misappropriation of CFS-allocated funds)

Oliver Platt

James Gandolfini

Dr. Simon Wessely (a well-known British psychiatrist who has long held that ME/CFS is a psychiatric illness)
Ben Kingsley

Anthony Hopkins

Hugh Laurie

Brian Cox
Christopher Plummer
Michael Caine

John Hurt

Dr. William Carter (inventor of the experimental HIV and ME/CFS drug, Ampligen)

David Strathairn

Nancy Kaiser (Patient 00, the first person to take Ampligen for ME/CFS)

Kathy Bates

Judith Ivey

Dr. Kenny de Meirleir (Belgium ME/CFS scientist)

Patrick Bauchau

Dr. Lucinda Bateman (ME/CFS physician)
Allison Janney

Dr. Myra McClure (retrovirologist on the first British XMRV study)
Tilda Swinton

Andrea Whittemore (ME/CFS patient and daughter of Annette Whittemore)
Amanda Seyfried
Keri Russell
Michelle Williams
Evan Rachel Wood
Sarah Polley
Deborah Ann Woll
Dakota Fanning (the early years)

Sofia Vassilieva (the early years)

Annette Whittemore (co-founder of the Whittemore Peterson Institute and mother of Andrea Whittemore)
Vera Farmiga
Susan Sarandon

Mary Steenburgen

Virginia Madsen

Julianna Margulies
Jeanne Tripplehorn
Sigourney Weaver
Rita Wilson
Kathy Baker

Sela Ward

Robin Wright Penn

Sally Field

Dr. Judy Mikovits (retrovirologist and principal investigator of the first XMRV study in ME/CFS patients)
Frances McDormand

Jessica Lange
Debra Winger
Melissa Leo
Joanna Cassidy

Arlene Fowler
Glenn Close

Sissy Spacek