XMRV NJCFSA 2010

Op de website van Wellpshere is een gestructureerd verslag terug te vinden van

de lezing van Mikovits tijdens de najaarskonferentie van de New Jersey CFS Association.

Hoewel het een persoonlijke opvatting betreft, is vooral het politieke gedeelte verontrustend.

Andere (informele) verslagen van deze lezing van Mikovits kunt u hier en hier vinden.

NJ CFS Conference - Update on XMRV by Dr. Mikovitz

Posted Oct 20 2010 9:24am

http://www.wellsphere.com/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-article/nj-cfs-conference-update-on-xmrv-by-dr-mikovitz/1256966

Why is XMRV so hard to find and why are so many CFS/XMRV studies coming back negative?

...
Patient selection criteria differs in different studies.
Methods used in different studies so far differ GREATLY.
WPI/Mikovits first looked in B and T cells and found only partial sequences of XMRV and not very frequently. It is standard procedure to look for retroviruses by looking for their DNA in cells; however, they have found that XMRV is not always detectable this way.
Next, WPI tried looking in plasma and they found more that way - not all studies have used plasma.
How the samples are handled after they're drawn and before they're tested is critically important - it's easy to kill XMRV in the samples if they're improperly stored and handled. Storage and handling have different greatly in different studies.
...
...

UK XMRV Study

WPI started a study in March 2010 to look for HMRV (Human MLV Related Viruses - both X and P) in UK ME/CFS patients.
The study included 50 patients with ME who met the Canadian Consensus Criteria, 50% male and 50% female, along with 50 controls. It was a blind study.
The 100 samples were tested blindly by two labs who had never worked with MRV or mice (to ensure there was no possibility of contamination).
The labs first tested plasma and 48% of the ME plasma samples were positive for XMRV (all were also tested for mouse DNA and were negative). Other samples were detectable only after culturing (some sort of special sample preparation). In some samples, only the virus was detectable; on others, only the antibodies were detectable. Multiple testing methods were necessary in order to find all of the XMRV positive samples.
In all, 80% of the ME patients in the study were positive for XMRV.
4% of the controls were also positive for XMRV (in line with the original WPI study).
Dr. Mikovits emphasized that the XMRV was very difficult to find. They have learned that subtle differences in storage, handling, and testing make a big difference and that multiple methods must be used to find it all.

Politics?

(This part is really disturbing to me. I like to believe that people are generally good and do what they believe to be right. I know that's not always the case.)

Are you wondering why we haven't heard about the amazing studies conducted by WPI in the UK and with families from Dr. Cheney's clinic? Dr. Mikovits says no one will publish them. She said they keep submitting papers to various publications and they keep getting turned down.
Dr. Mikovits said what's happening with XMRV and CFS reminds her very much of the early days of HIV research. She said that just like back then, she has a drawer full of scientific studies no one will publish, but she will just keep on conducting studies and putting them in the drawer until things change.
Dr. Mikovits also said that some of the people who've been suggesting contamination are people who were involved with the original studies and who saw all of the original data, including those which proved contamination was impossible.
Other speakers also mentioned that politics are involved. The prevailing theory seems to be this: if the CDC confirms that XMRV, a new, dangerous, and transmissible retrovirus, is present in people with CFS (and the CDC has estimated the number of adults in the US with CFS to be 4 million), then they have a huge public health crisis on their hands.
Dr. Mikovits says that the evidence of XMRV in CFS is actually stronger than the evidence of XMRV in prostate cancer because of the more extensive testing methods used to date.
Rumor is that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has been told by someone high up in the government to pursue whether XMRV is involved in prostate cancer but should distance themselves from CFS. Though I hate to believe something like this could actually happen, the speaker from NCI at CFSAC last week was the one who suggested that contamination might be responsible for the positive XMRV results in CFS. Dr. Mikovits said that person was on the original team that found XMRV and has seen all of the data proving contamination is impossible.

Met dank aan Erik die me op deze verslagen opmerkzaam maakte.