But there's now also the issue of Dr C's claim that XMRV orginated as a lab event between 1992 and 1996, which would presumably rule out XMRV as the sole cause of ME/CFS (too many of us got sick in the 80s). I'd have liked to have heard Dr M's critique on that - it was all happening too fast for me to remember but I don't recall her tackling him on that claim (I remember her being fully occupied defending her own study!).
Thinking about it further, I think that Coffin's attitude towards XMRV rests on a number of research studies, and I can understand where he is coming from, but I think he is premature, and is not considering all of the evidence.
Coffin believes that XMRV was created in the prostate cancer cell line, as a recombination event, and that it was therefore
highly unlikely to be created separately elsewhere (i.e. in animals or humans).
Coffin is assuming that XMRV has never jumped from the cell line into the human population.
This assumption is partly based on research which considered the lack of variability of the XMRV genome.
Because he believes that XMRV was created in the cell line, and that it has never jumped to the human population (both beliefs are based on research studies) then he also believes that the positive XMRV studies are due to contamination from cell lines.
I think that this seems like a
reasonable attitude to have. But, based solely on these beliefs, he does seem to be trying to close down the XMRV research prematurely, in my opinion, especially because he is not fully informed (see below), he is not fully aware of all the possibilities (see below), and he has not considered Judy's continuing unpublished research (see below).
Coffin's beliefs about XMRV ignores a few important and significant things that give serious doubt to his stance...
The first is that XMRV could be spreading in the human population, not as a person to person contagion, but by some other method, such as direct or indirect exposure to the cell lines. (
See Gkikas Magiorkinis' article in The Lancet.) This mode of transmission would account for the lack of genetic variability found in XMRV so far (but see the next point for more about this).
The second is that Judy Mikovits says that she now has a wider variety of XMRV genetic data, which the research, that Coffin is basing his beliefs on, did not have access to. This wider variety of XMRV genetic data is significant, as it might demonstrate evolution of XMRV in the human population.
So Coffin's opinions are based on the limited data of the XMRV genome to date.
The third is Judy's continuing (unpublished) research in areas of infection response.
The fourth is Judy's solid and
repeated XMRV research that still hasn't been disproven.
ETA. I forgot that the 22rv1 cell line has never been near Judy's lab, and she has also had samples tested at other labs. Judy has also tested every stage of her research methodology for contamination, and has never found any: XMRV has only ever shown up in the samples.
