Patient association: Doctors are underinterpreting new chronic-pain study

Søren Harboe, chair of Denmark’s Fibromyalgia and Pain Association, takes issue with a group of doctors who warned against overinterpreting new genetic findings on fibromyalgia.

In a Berlingske article published on Aug. 29, Per Fink, Lise Gormsen and four other doctors argued that the findings should not be used to claim fibromyalgia is a physical-biological disease rather than a “functional disorder.”

Harboe says the doctors use the genetic study to support the opposite conclusion: that fibromyalgia should remain within the broader category of “functional disorders.”

The disagreement goes beyond terminology, he argues. The way a disease is classified affects the direction of research, the treatment patients receive and, not least, how patients are met by the healthcare system.