4generations commented on yesterday’s post on Dr. Ila Singh's XMRV-negative ME/CFS study:
Singh's primate study found that XMRV left the blood of the infected primates after a few weeks (6, I believe). Isn't that finding plus the finding of XMRV in prostate cancer patient tissue good enough evidence to justify a study looking for XMRV/MLV in the tissues of patients with ME/CFS?
4generations, the primate study at Emory University wasn’t Singh’s. But your point is well taken, as XMRV quickly left the blood and settled in the tissues in the macaques. In addition, in the CDC’s new XMRV study on prostate cancer this week, the three patients who tested PCR positive to XMRV in tissue had no virus in plasma by PCR or Western blot.
If that can occur in prostate cancer, perhaps that can occur in ME/CFS as well. Moreover, as some readers have pointed out, Dr. Kenny de Meirleir in Belgium is taking tissue samples in the gut of ME/CFS patients and finding them positive for XMRV.
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Thank you for your excellent work, Mindy.
ReplyDelete"If that can occur in prostate cancer, perhaps that can occur in ME/CFS as well." This is true, and real scientists who wanted to know the truth would be researching this question: Do people with M.E. have HGRV/XMRV in their tissues? I cannot help wondering why no one is researching this.
Patricia Carter
"in the CDC’s new XMRV study on prostate cancer this week, the three patients who tested PCR positive to XMRV in tissue had no virus in plasma by PCR or Western blot." This is really important. How could Dr. Singh not have thought about that? She knew that XMRV quickly left the blood and settled in the tissues in the macaques.
ReplyDeleteCMM
The lack of scientific curiosity among scientists is stunning.
ReplyDeleteYes, but the WPI, Lo/Alter and the other teams that have found XMRV/MRV reported finding it in the blood. So in over 100 samples it should be possible to find some, if your assay is good enough and the positive studies are correct.
ReplyDeleteOf course they should look at tissues nevertheless.
"Where there's a will, there's a way".
ReplyDeleteIf these researchers wanted to test tissue samples for XMRV, they could...... and there would be a long queue of patients offering themselves to undergo the biopsies.
Was the Emory Study enough to fulfill the requirements for Koch's Postulate? Or did they not let the monkeys infect each other?
ReplyDeleteI'm really curious on this point
If XMRV can't be found in blood but only in tissue, how did the WPI find it in so many patients' blood? Didn't the WPI also find XMRV in the blood with first-round PCR, suggesting a relatively high amount of virus? Also, in regards to the criticism that Ila Singh couldn't find XMRV with the techniques she used in her recent XMRV/CFS study, she actually did find XMRV that was contaminating the robot used to extract DNA from previous samples, which is one reason stated in the paper why they felt even more confident in the techniques utilized therein.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Dr. DeMeirleir often talks of finding this or that and promises a forthcoming study, but the publication doesn't often materialize, so I would be hesitant to accept that as fact.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the potential financial conflict of interest that Dr. Singh may have? Was that disclosed in her paper?
My XMRV test results just came in - PCR was negative, and yet I was positive for antibodies. You can't have antibodies to a laboratory contaminant. Wondering what percentage of CFS patients were positive for antibodies but negative via PCR versus the reverse...
ReplyDeleteIla Singh changed her assay and did not use the one she used for her prostate study. So the assay was part of the problem, especially since the virus is hard to find in blood. XMRV was found and then not found at various times in the blood in both the monkey and mice studies. But was always found in the tissues.
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested in the XMRV autopsy studies that Singh has been working on.
ReplyDelete@ Wolfdreams: the same goes for me. PCR and culture negative (via De Meirleir - Redlabs), but antibody positive via VipDx.
ReplyDeleteI think there are a lot of us out there with similar results.
Els
but hasnt this been the point all along - that the model showed reservoirs of xmrv in all of the major organs? everyone who discredits does so by testing blood, even though the blood was clear in most tests in the model after a few months? has this bus left the terminal without me or are all these scientific professionals that stupid? okay, never mind - the cdc and nih have both been leading them all down a path only the most obtuse would not see is ridiculous. so many millions of people around the world gradually fade from the world because of some malaise...this is a ridiculous amount of ass-covering in the major league
ReplyDeleteof medicine.
Why do the scientists who come up with negative results keep saying that it would be "unethical" to take tissue samples without first finding XMRV in the blood? Shouldn't that be up to us to decide? I am sure the majority of us would be willing to give a tissue sample. Unethical would be leaving us ill and the XMRV issue unsolved.
ReplyDeleteHalf a century ago, when they were attributing polio to IAIYH, they couldn't find the virus in the blood, either. Until -- because parents were overreacting during an epidemic -- a child was brought to the hospital in the very earliest stages of the disease, and they realized that the virus was only present for a couple days, and by the time the symptoms showed up, all there was, was antibodies showing a past infection.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! I hadn't picked up that Switzer found XMRV in PC tissue, but not blood. Thanks for highlighting that v. important fact.
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