Gearing Up for the Big Search for XMRV (virus linked to ME/CFS)

WSJ ^ | November 17, 2010 | Amy Dockser Marcus

[Seizethecarp]

Since a group of researchers published a paper in Science last year suggesting the retrovirus XMRV is linked to chronic fatigue syndrome, scientists have been debating the accuracy of that finding. Now a study designed to address that issue once and for all is moving forward.

Clinicians who treat CFS patients, scientists and others convened recently in New York, where virus hunter Ian Lipkin is based. Lipkin was asked by NIH and NIAID to head up the study.

At least three labs have agreed to test fresh blood samples for XMRV. Two labs, at FDA/NIH and the Whittemore-Peterson Institute, have previously found XMRV or related viruses in patients. The third lab, at the CDC, has not.

Clinicians who treat patients in different regions of the country, including Miami, Boston, Palo Alto, and Salt Lake City, will be collecting the blood from both healthy people and CFS patients.

Lipkin tells the Health Blog that the study focuses on whether XMRV or other viruses in the same family are found in higher frequency in patients with CFS.

[Seizethecarp]

CFS patients have been told not to give blood because the newly discovered human retrovirus called XMRV (only the third human retrovirus) may cause CFS and may be spread through transfusion.

See the following links for more information:

American Association of Blood Banks (AABB):

http://www.aabb.org/pressroom/Pages/cfsrecommendation.aspx

CFIDS XMRV page:

http://www.cfids.org/xmrv/default.asp

Phoenix Rising XMRV Buzz:

http://www.aboutmecfs.org/Rsrch/XMRVBuzz.aspx

[jazminerose]

I’ve been reading that it also causes fibromyalgia?

[Seizethecarp]

There is overlap between CFS and Fibromyalgia (FMS) and several folks who blog on the Phoenix Rising forums who have both CFS and FMS have reported getting positive XMRV lab tests from VIP Dx, the lab associated with the group who published the Science paper linking CFS to XMRV.

There is speculation that the XMRV interacts with the genome and immune system of different people in different ways and may express as CFS, FMS or both.