Posted on 12/22/2010 8:37:48 PM PST by neverdem
U.K. Study Overturns Previous Research Citing Virus as Cause of CFS
Reviewed by Rob Hicks, MD
Chronic fatigue syndrome is not caused by the virus XMRV, according to new research.
A team from University College London, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and University of Oxford, all in England, says previous research linking the virus to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) was flawed because of contamination of mouse cell DNA samples in the laboratory.
CFS is a disorder characterized by chronic fatigue lasting six months or longer, with several additional symptoms that may include impaired memory, unrefreshing sleep, muscle pain, sore throat, and headache.
XMRV is a recently discovered virus that is closely related to a group of retroviruses called murine leukema viruses (MLVs), which are known to cause cancer in certain mice.
XMRV Virus Link? XMRV was first linked to CFS in a study published in October 2009, where blood samples from chronic fatigue syndrome patients were found to have traces of the virus.
The new study, published in Retrovirology, identifies the source of XMRV in CFS samples as being cells or mouse DNA rather than infection by XMRV.
The researchers say this does not rule out a virus as cause of the condition, but XMRV is not the cause.
In a statement, professor Greg Towers, a Wellcome Trust senior research fellow at University College London, says: “Our conclusion is quite simple: XMRV is not the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome.
“All our evidence shows that the sequences from the virus genome in cell culture have contaminated human chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer samples.”
However, he stresses: “It is vital to understand that we are not saying chronic fatigue syndrome does not have a virus cause -- we cannot answer that yet -- but we know it is not this virus causing it.”
http://www.virology.ws/2010/12/21/is-xmrv-a-laboratory-contaminant/ That URL was sent to me, but I got a message that the window couldn't open and abort.
American Red Cross Statement on XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
WASHINGTON, Friday, December 03, 2010 — At present, there are no specific federal recommendations regarding deferral of individuals with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or other diseases that have been associated with Murine Leukemia Virus-related virus (XMRV) infection. Nevertheless, in the interest of patient and donor safety, the American Red Cross will defer indefinitely any donor who reveals during the donor interview that they have been diagnosed with CFS.That's an excerpt.
micro ping
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I haven't had a night of peace and quiet for years.
Soooooo... once again British “Scientist’s” and I use the term loosely are making up sh## and trying to promote it as truth....now can somebody tell me where we have heard this junk British Science before...... Bueller?? Anyone?
There is another thread posted somewhere from WSJ + WPI (?) that says this is b.s.
Sorry, I am computer ignorant so I cannot link but it is here on FR and starts with “XMRV” about two days old.
CFS/ME is no joke.
They want everything to be a “disease.”
CFS is a symptom, and can have numerous causes.
Drop the white flour, sugar and skim milk, and see if your “CFS” evaporates in a week or so.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2645885/posts
Here is the latest rebuttal from a prominent virologist:
“XMRV and CFS – It’s not the end”
22 December 2010
By Vincent Racaniello
http://www.virology.ws/2010/12/22/xmrv-and-cfs-its-not-the-end/
(excerpt)
Upon re-reading three of the four Retrovirology papers it became clear to me that they show that identification of XMRV can be fraught with contamination problems, but they do not imply that previously published studies are compromised by these findings. Clearly any new studies done on XMRV should keep in mind the potential for contamination from PCR kits and murine nucleic acids.
I was initially more troubled by the fourth paper by Hue and colleagues. There are four major findings in this paper (gag PCR primers are not specific for XMRV; the virus is present in 5 human tumor cell lines; two XMRV isolates are nearly identical to a virus from the human prostate cell line and also contain an insertion from the murine retrovirus MoMLV; and there is more nucleotide diversity in viral sequences from 22Rv1 cells than in all the patient XMRV sequences). The fact that two XMRV isolates seem to be laboratory contaminants – judged by the presence of MoMLV sequences – was initially unsettling until it became clear that other XMRV isolates do not have this insertion. That leaves the fourth finding – that XMRV from 22Rv1 cells appears ancestral to, and more diverse than, all the human XMRV sequences. I decided that this result was less troublesome than I had originally believed, in part because it is not clear that the differences among the 22Rv1 viruses did not arise during PCR amplification.
My conclusion is that these four papers point out how identification of XMRV from human specimens can be complicated by contamination, but they do not mean that previous studies were compromised. They serve as an important reminder that future experiments to identify XMRV need to be appropriately controlled to ensure that the results are not compromised by contamination.
In other words, these four papers are NOT the beginning of the end of XMRV and CFS. Rather, research on the role of this virus in human disease must proceed, with large, case-controlled epidemiological studies, as suggested by others.
> “CFS/ME is no joke.”
.
The article didn’t say it was a joke. - Only that the virus association was invalid.
Human suffering is caused mostly by eating things that bring inflammation, which can kill. It can cause heart attacks, liver failure, kidney failure, diabetes, both type I and type II, arthritis, general nuropathy, hearing loss, vision loss, and hair loss.
None of those are a joke.
These pesky Brits keep trying to kill XMRV as a link to CFS to save their NHS from paying for expensive anti-retrovirals for millions of CFS patients, IMO.
http://wpinstitute.org/news/docs/WPIResponseToRetrovirology122010.pdf
Dr. Mikovits Responds:
The Lombardi et al. and Lo et al. studies were done using four different methods of detection. They were not simply PCR experiments, as were the studies by McClure et al. and others who have recently reported their difficulties with contamination. Experienced researchers such as Mikovits, Lombardi, Lo and their collaborators understand the limitations of PCR technology, especially the possibility of sample contamination. As a result, we and Lo et al. conducted rigorous studies to prevent and rule out any possibility that the results reported were from contamination. In addition to the use of PCR methodology, the Lombardi team used two other scientific techniques to determine whether, in fact, we had found new retroviruses in human blood samples. We identified a human antibody response to a gamma retroviral infection and we demonstrated that live gamma retrovirus isolated from human blood could infect human cells in culture. These scientific findings cannot be explained by contamination with mouse cells, mouse DNA or XMRV-related virus-contaminated human tumor cells. No mouse cell lines and none of the human cell lines reported today by Hue et al. to contain XMRV were ever cultured in the WPI lab where our PCR experiments were performed. Humans cannot make antibodies to viruses related to murine leukemia viruses unless they have been exposed to virus proteins. Therefore, recent publications regarding PCR contamination do not change the conclusions of the Lombardi et al. and Lo et al. studies that concluded that patients with ME/CFS are infected with human gammaretroviruses. We have never claimed that CFS was caused by XMRV, only that CFS patients possess antibodies to XMRV related proteins and harbor infectious XMRV, which integrates into human chromosomes and thus is a human infection of as yet unknown pathogenic potential.
"The coauthors stand by the conclusions of Lombardi et al. Nothing that has been published to date refutes our data."
Judy A. Mikovits
I will say a prayer that you or a close family member can get this “ailment”. That way you can fix yourself or loved ones with your well thought out cure Dr. Nitwit.
Someone did a study of CFS sufferers not long after that and found that about half were deficient in certain electrolytes--specifically sodium.
That may not have accounted for everyone, but it sure may indicate that simple dietary deficiencies can play a factor.
Ping... (Thanks, neverdem!)
Ping... (Thanks, neverdem!)
Sorry about the double ping, the first gave me a 502 proxy error.
Not to dispute you, but if it was really that simple the condition would have certainly been eliminated I would think. A family member has suffered for years with this condition. Been thru all sorts of "vitamin" therapies and "allergy" tests. Yet still suffers. Is there a reason you are saying dropping these foods would help?
Well, now that your food has been basically mandated to be GMO per Monsanto and the recent alledged “Food Safety Act , what are YOU going to feed YOUR family?
My family eats only non GMO, totally organic food.
Did not stop us from being ill.
You do realize that gmo’s are virus manipulated diseases designed to make food “safe” by supposedly keeping crops insect resisitant don’t you?
You do realize that most people in a regular old grocery store have no clue what they are buying...don’t you?
Thx.
> “Did not stop us from being ill.”
.
Then you must still be consuming wheat, soy, sugar, skim milk, canola, saffola, corn oil and pasta.
.
Because, for at least 90% of chronic fatigue sufferers, those are the cause.
But there are also other things that should be consumed such as gray sea salt, eggs, butter, deep water fish (non-farmed), grass fed lamb or beef (IOW, the foods that the death culture opposes).
You didn’t describe the source of your “vitamins,” but if it was pressed pills in white plastic bottles, you didn’t get the stuff you thought you did.
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