I'm really not sure, but if I understood the things that have been implied - Dr. Bell and Dr. Hanson did a study together which came out positive. But perhaps I'm wrong.
I'm very disappointed by Dr. Coffin's opinions regarding treatment with antiretrovirals for individuals who are very sick. He's underrating the importance of helping a single person. He said something like: "So, if a patient comes to a doctor and he prescribes him antiretrovirals off-label - and even if this patient improves on them - it has less than 0 contribution to the science". I would like to say about that: First, it doesn't have "less than 0 contribution to the science" - because that implies that he is saying that's bad for science. It might not be good - but it shouldn't be bad. On the other hand: I'm very angry about scientists who think they own the world. If a patient is very desperate and asks a doctor to prescribe him antiretrovirals - and the patient knows that they are dangerous and still decides that he would rather take the chance - I think it should be the patient's right to get this treatment. I'm angry that doctors think that they can choose for another person what he should do. There are things in life that are a matter of choice - that no human can say, before doing them, if it's a good idea to do it or it's a bad idea. It's just a matter of choice - which should be given to everyone when it is a choice that he makes about himself. On person would invest 50 dollars in the lottery - the other wouldn't. Is it inacceptible that they both made the choice for themselves? And Dr. Coffin, why didn't you mentioned and emphasised that if a doctor gives a patient antiretrovirals and that patient gets better - even if it doesn't contribute to the science - it's still a great thing? In the Jewish tradition we have a sentence that says: "every person who savees a single soul - it is like he saved the whole world". There might be a few reasons as to why this senctnce is being said - but I think it's clear that when a person dies he can no longer see the world - at least not threw his physical eyes that he had in this world. So for him - it's very possible that there is no world, at least as he used to know it. That is why changing a person's life is very important and very siginificant - even if it does not contribute to science, and such a thing shouldn't be underrated. Ofcourse science is very important - but helping a single person is important too.
Now, for other stuff: It is disappointing for me that the Swedish study didn't find the viruses. They said they would include some fibromyalgia patients, and therefore I hoped that this would make a stronger case about fibromyalgia being connected to HMRV too. However, I'm delighted that they didn't find any HMRV at all. That says to me that there is probably a defect in their testing methods. I'm thankful to mindy asking about "why should we expect that the CDC, who has been treating CFS like a pshycogenic disease all these years, would find now that it's related to a retrovirus?", and I'm very angry about the brutal way that that scinetist who lead the session shut her off. It might be okay not to answet this question - but he did it in a very rude and ugly way.
By the ay, at the end of the meeting I heard one person saying: "I'm now more confused than I was before I came here", and another person told him: "well, for me it's much clearer now" (I didn't recall hearing him talking about stuff that he knows and other don't - but that makes sense and since you all heared that, it must be right).