Posted on 06/01/2011 10:52:29 AM PDT by Seizethecarp
In a blow to patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, two new studies published on Tuesday raised serious doubts about earlier reports that the disabling disease is linked to infection with XMRV, a poorly understood retrovirus.
The new papers were posted online in the journal Science, which in October 2009 published the initial research linking XMRV to chronic fatigue syndrome. In an “editorial expression of concern” accompanying the two new studies, Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of the journal, declared that the earlier finding “is now seriously in question” and was most likely due to laboratory contamination.
Dr. Vincent Racaniello, a microbiology professor at Columbia University, said in an interview that it now appeared unlikely that XMRV infection is a cause of chronic fatigue syndrome. But it also would be wrong to conclude that chronic fatigue syndrome is not an infectious disease, he added.
“These patients have a lot of signs of hyper-immune activation, with their immune systems firing almost constantly,” he said.
Dr. Jay Levy, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the senior author of one of the new studies, said he nonetheless believed that many or most people with chronic fatigue syndrome are suffering from a disease initiated by one or more viruses.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"Last week, the editors of Science asked the authors of the original research if they would retract their paper in view of the new findings about to be published. The senior author, Dr. Judy Mikovits, research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute, responded that such a step was 'premature' and that she knew of other investigators planning to publish research backing the original findings."
“These patients have a lot of signs of hyper-immune activation, with their immune systems firing almost constantly,” he said.
Immunological aspects of chronic fatigue syndrome.
New Data Spark Retraction Request for Chronic Fatigue Virus Study
>> “Dr. Judy Mikovits, research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute, responded that such a step was ‘premature’ and that she knew of other investigators planning to publish research backing the original findings” <<
.
There’s that river in Egypt again.
“Germ Theory” is such a complete misunderstanding of the interdependency of all of the systems of the body.
How can the same virus kill one, while being feckless against 1000 others?
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