TY - JOUR T1 - Workers’ Compensation, Fibromyalgia, and Kafka JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 216 LP - 218 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.121448 VL - 40 IS - 3 AU - NORTIN M. HADLER Y1 - 2013/03/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/40/3/216.abstract N2 - In this issue of The Journal Mary-Ann Fitzcharles and colleagues present statistics describing the appeals process for patients with “fibromyalgia” (FM) whose indemnity claim for workers’ compensation had been denied by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario, Canada1. No doubt these descriptive statistics will be of interest to and even have use for those involved in this process in Ontario. They may even be relevant to actuaries and policy-makers in other jurisdictions. But are they of interest to anyone else? In particular, are they of interest to rheumatologists who are not involved in the workers’ compensation indemnity scheme of Ontario?I will argue the affirmative; this process is a window on the social construction of illness and on the role of the physician in determination of disability. I have a personal bias in that this fascination has captured a great deal of my scholarly efforts for many decades. A recent monograph bears witness and hopefully can imbue the reader with a similar level of interest2.Workers’ compensation indemnity schemes made landfall in North America almost exactly a century ago. However, unlike the Prussian precedent that swept Europe country by country, this species of social legislation was met with a politic that resulted in distinctive programs in each Canadian province and American state. All these schemes were designed to serve a particular ethic: any worker who is injured in the course of working should not fear for loss of wages while recovering from the injury or after recovery.The initial notion of “injury” was straightforward, the damage that resulted from a violent event. Injury of this nature still accounts for the vast majority of … Address correspondence to Dr. N.M. Hadler, UNC 3330 Thurston Building, CB 7280, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7280, USA. E-mail: nmh{at}med.unc.edu ER -