Volgens McClure, Coffin en kollega's zijn veel monsters vervuild met DNA van muizen.

Het opsporen van genetisch materiaal van mitochondria van muizen met de PCR-techniek (zoals uitgevoerd door Alter, Lo en kollega's) volstaat niet volgens McClure en Coffin...

Volgens de auteurs is vaak gebleken dat het veronderstelde verband tussen

retrovirussen en ziekten achteraf het gevolg bleek van vervuiling van monsters.

Twaalf argumenten waarom die stellingname in dit geval niet lijkt op te gaan vindt U hier.

Andere studies met dezelfde strekking en een kommentaar vindt U hier, hier, hier en hier.

Voor een officiële reaktie van het Whittemore-Peterson Instituut, klik op onderstaand logo:

Whittemore en Mikovits geven hun weerwoord in een interview op Nevada Newsmakers.

Om het interview te kunnen bekijken, klik op het onderstaande logo:

Voor de transkriptie van dit interview, klik op de onderstaande afbeelding:

De slotkonklusie van dit interview biedt de hoop dat 2011 een beter jaar wordt....

Sam:

I guess bottom line from this entire discussion today is for people not to panic. Things are still moving forward. Nothing has changed – it’s just that there are simply different opinions.

Annette:

Absolutely.

Judy:

As one would expect (that there would be different opinions). And this is really a great time of HOPE. Because we’ve also determined in our research this year - and that will be coming out published very soon - we’re understanding WHY the (XMRV) virus hurts the immune system. We’re understanding what’s going wrong to make you sick, and that’s another step to making people well. So it’s a great time of excitement and research around the world. We expect treatments next year (2011).

Sam:

2011. Can’t wait!

Op Virology Blog een genuanceerde artikel van dr. Racaniello (XMRV and CFS - It’s not the end) waarin hij toegeeft dat zijn eerste indruk (in de Chicago Tribune) niet de juiste was.

Om het artikel te kunnen lezen, klik op onderstaand logo:

Berichtgeving in the media:

In een artikel van Amy Dockser Marcus (Wall Street Journal) worden de zaken genuanceerd weergegeven en komen voor- én tegenstanders van de contaminatietheorie aan het woord.

XMRV: Raising the Issue of Contamination.

December 20, 2010, 5:24 PM ET.

Amy Dockser Marcus

Greg J. Towers from University College London, a senior author of one of the papers, told the Health Blog that his group’s findings indicate that "XMRV is not a human pathogen."

....

But John M. Coffin, a retrovirologist and a co-author of another of today’s Retrovirology papers, told Health Blog ... none of today’s published papers "definitively show that any prior study is wrong."

Robert A. Smith, a research assistant professor at University of Washington in Seattle who wrote a commentary in Retrovirology summarizing the studies ... pointed out that some of the previous papers on prostate cancer found XMRV integrated into the patients’ DNA and "I can’t come up with a mechanism where there would be contamination there."

....

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/12/20/xmrv-raising-the-issue-of-contamination

Overige (minder genuanceerde) berichtgeving in the media:

Mouse DNA contamination in human tissue tested for XMRV.

Retrovirology 2010, 7:108. doi:10.1186/1742-4690-7-108.

Robinson MJ, Erlwein OW, Kaye S, Weber J, Cingoz O, Patel A, Walker MM, Kim W, Uiprasertkul M, Coffin JM, McClure MO.

Published: 20 December 2010

Abstract (provisional)

Background

We used a PCR-based approach

to study the prevalence of genetic sequences

related to a gammaretrovirus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, XMRV,

in human prostate cancer.

This virus has been identified in the US

in prostate cancer patients and in those with chronic fatigue syndrome.

However, with the exception of two patients in Germany,

XMRV has not been in prostate cancer tissue in Europe.

Most putative associations of new or old human retroviruses with diseases

have turned out to be due to contamination.

We have looked for XMRV sequences in DNA

extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin- embedded prostate tissues.

To control for contamination,

PCR assays to detect

either mouse mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) or

intracisternal A particle (IAP) long terminal repeat DNA

were run on all samples,

owing to their very high copy number in mouse cells.

Results

In general agreement with the US prevalence,

XMRV-like sequences were found in 4.8% of prostate cancers.

However,

these were also positive, as were 21.5% of XMRV-negative cases, for IAP sequences,

and many, but not all were positive for mtDNA sequences.

Conclusions

These results show that

contamination with mouse DNA is widespread and

detectable by the highly sensitive IAP assay,

but not always with less sensitive assays, such as murine mtDNA PCR.

This study highlights

the ubiquitous presence of mouse DNA

in laboratory specimens and

offers a means of

rigorous validation for future studies of murine retroviruses in human disease.

http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-7-108.pdf

Met dank aan Evelien, Erik, Rob, Rubia en anderen die mij op de informatie hebben gewezen.