Altho Dr. Coffin seems really kind of 'stuck' on the need for quantitative assays to measure viral load before even small clinical trials (can't you just measure functioning? How about activity levels?)
Yeah good point - considering that our existing (UK-accepted) research is based on questionnaires about our mental state, it's a bit rich, innit? They don't seem afraid to risk our lives on a GET treadmill based on flimsy methods...
One thing I wondered is: why not measure the existing candidate biomarkers, in patients that display those abnormalities? Other viral infections, T-cell counts etc...if you found those metrics were affected, you'd also have some evidence as to how all that part works...and evidence that reducing HRMV load was actualy helpful. If you just stuck purely to measuring HMRV levels, then at the end of that people would say: OK, so antiretrovirals reduce HMRV viral load - so what? Still doesn't prove that's relevant to anything...
...he certainly is an impressive thinker - the most impressive one I thought. I felt he worked hard to keep the door open when people with negative interpretations chimed in.
Absolutely, he thinks and talks so fast yet it all goes in, for me at least - and he really knows his stuff; his verdicts on everything are based on real experience and understanding. And as you say, so balanced and diplomatic: a great man! I'd have liked to see him chairing things actually, guess they thought it might cramp his style, or maybe he's seen as being on the WPI side of the fence, but I think he's well suited to that role.
It was interesting to hear him say...I think we're doing pretty well even though we're in this 'zone of chaos' or however he put it...we're right on track !!!! (I wonder what off-track is like ).
That's what I meant by saying earlier that the more intense and energetic the discussions, the better! We're in a zone of chaos, and that's exactly where we want to be! So long as it's kept productive and they all keep talking, they are raising all the right questions. How this works is all so complicated that it's going to keep raising more and more questions and open up loads of areas - the zone of chaos is good!