Positive study: Hanson/Bell

[Jemal]

This is a presentation at the retrovirology conference that's taking place in Belgium. I thought it deserves its own thread, as it's basically another positive study (though not published in a journal yet):

A blinded study was undertaken to determine whether XMRV or MLV-like virus could be detected in peripheral blood from 40 adult subjects divided into three groups: severely ill with CFS, recovered from CFS, and a control group lacking a CFS diagnosis at any time. All patients in thesevere CFS group currently meet Fukuda criteria. Recovered CFS subjects had scores on the SF-36 survey instrument that were significantly lower than the healthy control group, according to Hotellings T2 test. Blood was collected in EDTA tubes and cDNA and DNA made from PBMCs. Plasma was incubated with LNCaP cells that were subsequently passaged. Nested PCR with USB Hot-Start IT FideliTaq was performed with gag primers. Any PCR products of expected sizes were sequenced. Samples were tested for mouse contamination with primers to IAP and/or mouse mitochondrial DNA. gag sequences were detected in both severe and recovered CFS subjects blood as well as in some healthy controls. gag sequences could be amplified from genomic DNA from LNCaP cells of some subjects after 4 or 6 subcultures following incubation with certain subjects plasma, indicating the presence of infectious virus in blood. All gag sequences detected in this cohort were more similar to the MLV-like sequences reported by Lo et al. (2010) than to the XMRV sequences reported by Lombardi et al. (2009). Detection of gag sequences in whole blood genomic DNAs that were negative for mouse IAP and mitochondrial DNA provides strong evidence for infection of humans with MLV-like viruses.

http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A234

 

[Sasha]

Very interesting. Any idea of percentages in the groups? If the groups are divided equally it would be roughly 13 people per group and it seems surprising that there'd be virus in several of the controls (given the 4% or so found in other positive studies). That said, the blinding makes this an important study, presumably.

 

[Enid]

Thanks for posting Jemal - it's a bit like a roller coaster with these viruses.

 

[Jemal]

Very interesting. Any idea of percentages in the groups? If the groups are divided equally it would be roughly 13 people per group and it seems surprising that there'd be virus in several of the controls (given the 4% or so found in other positive studies). That said, the blinding makes this an important study, presumably.

I don't think anything has been published about the percentages yet. I think they will post a more complete abstract after her presentation, hopefully it will contain some more data.

I wouldn't be surprised if MLV-like viruses would be found in more than 4% of the human population by the way.

 

[eric_s]

I think results were already made public at the 1st International XMRV Workshop last year. I can go back and look them up, but maybe someone else will be faster. Maybe they have changed a bit in the meantime, i don't know.

Either way, it makes you wonder how Science can call for a retraction of Lombardi et al. at this point. I'm not saying everything is proven, but still...

 

[RRM]

I think this study has already been reported on. Hanson presented about this study at the first XMRV workshop in September 2010 (see abstract 0_11 from this abstract book) and also at the Blood Products Advisory Committee meeting in December of 2010, see here (from page 197).

Jemal, according to this second (and most recent) presentation, Hanson found MLV-like sequences in 7/10 severe cases, 7/10 'recovered' cases and in 4/20 healthy controls (which seems like a bit much, but Hanson says the controls were from the same outbreak area as some of the patients, although they were not contact controls).

EDIT: Why am I alway late with this.... :-(

 

[eric_s]

You were not late, now we have the results ;-)

 

[Jemal]

Even if the research is older, it's good to have it out there, right? Does it contain any new information that you can see?

 

[RRM]

Well, new information is that she has now also tested for contamination with the IAP assay.

Also, I believe I have read somewhere (I don't have a link) that Hanson is not submitting these results for publication because of the small group of patients/controls, but will instead do a larger study with the same methodology.

 

[Jemal]

Well, new information is that she has now also tested for contamination with the IAP assay.

Also, I believe I have read somewhere (I don't have a link) that Hanson is not submitting these results for publication because of the small group of patients/controls, but will instead do a larger study with the same methodology.

Ah, ok. I was wondering why this wasn't published yet. Thanks.

 

[eric_s]

Also, I believe I have read somewhere (I don't have a link) that Hanson is not submitting these results for publication because of the small group of patients/controls, but will instead do a larger study with the same methodology.

This would be a very good development in my opinion. I've heard that IrsiCaixa, for example, is lacking funding to expand their study at the moment. And they have found XMRV and also abnormalities in the immune system.

 

[Daffodil]

it was very bad timing for Science to request the paper be retracted. they are going to end up looking like criminals, trying to hide the truth. after dr. beiger's study comes out, we should demand that Science apologize to us! independant science journals. my azz.