Dr. Mikovits answers my mail: Something important

[omerbasket]

Because of the thread here yesterday, where I talked about the BWG study not using Trizol or any other preservatives, I asked Dr. Mikovits yesterday questions via email, and she responded. I think that her answer is very important.
This was my question:

On Facebook, "XMRV Global Advocacy" wrote, about the Blood Working Group study, that "The PMBCs were not preserved in Trizol or any other preserving agent. Any virus would be dead!". What I would like to ask you is: Do you think that using Trizol would have made a difference? And, on a broader spectrum, do you think that different collection and processing procedures should have been applied?

If any of the answers for these is "yes", would the Lipkin study make sure that validated collection and processing procedures would be used?

And this was her answer:

The blood working groups' goal was to develop assays to test the blood supply as it is..that means plasma and whole blood and buffy coats..The results do not say that HGRVs are not in the blood (it) simply (says that they are) at levels too low to detect in the samples as they are saved in blood banks world-wide. This was not a study to determine the association of XMRVs/HGRVs to disease..it was intended to determine if the blood supply is safe


The Lipkin study will use all the collection procedures exactly as we specified..and that study will determine the association.

So, what Dr. Mikovits says is the following:
1) The purpose of the BWG was to develope a test that would suite testing the blood supply. That means that you cannot use whatever procedures you think are the best, you can use only procedures that would suite testing blood donations for the blood supply.
2) As opposed to that, the Lipkin study is designed to test whether the association of HGRV to ME/CFS is correct, and there the WPI would be able to do erverything (I think) as they want to.

 

[Andrew]

Good to know. Thanks for posting.

 

[WillowJ]

thanks very much for the info :Retro smile:

 

[RustyJ]

Thanks Omer. As I read it, Mikovits appears to dodge the question. The BWG could have answered more questions including the association with ME/CFS. And that is how the anti-WPI camp including CAA is treating it. She provides a political response which indicates to me that she is still in the game.

 

[Enid]

Nice to know - thanks omerbasket.

 

[VillageLife]

Yes I agree but why are vipdx closing?

 

[Bob]

Because of the thread here yesterday, where I talked about the BWG study not using Trizol or any other preservatives, I asked Dr. Mikovits yesterday questions via email, and she responded. I think that her answer is very important.
This was my question:


And this was her answer:

The blood working groups' goal was to develop assays to test the blood supply as it is..that means plasma and whole blood and buffy coats..The results do not say that HGRVs are not in the blood (it) simply (says that they are) at levels too low to detect in the samples as they are saved in blood banks world-wide. This was not a study to determine the association of XMRVs/HGRVs to disease..it was intended to determine if the blood supply is safe.

The Lipkin study will use all the collection procedures exactly as we specified..and that study will determine the association.

So, what Dr. Mikovits says is the following:
1) The purpose of the BWG was to develope a test that would suite testing the blood supply. That means that you cannot use whatever procedures you think are the best, you can use only procedures that would suite testing blood donations for the blood supply.
2) As opposed to that, the Lipkin study is designed to test whether the association of HGRV to ME/CFS is correct, and there the WPI would be able to do erverything (I think) as they want to.

Thanks omer, that's very helpful.

I haven't looked closely at the procedures of the BWG (or if I have, I can't remember the details), but I always understood that they were looking for assays that would easily and efficiently detect XMRV for mass use on blood samples that had undergone only basic preparation. The blood banks can't afford (in terms of time) to carry out culturing for example, and need the procedures to be as quick as possible, using a simple test that can be used effectively on large supplies of blood. Their mission was never to investigate HGRVs and disease association.

The Lipkin study will use all the collection procedures exactly as we specified..and that study will determine the association.

I didn't know about this, so that is very reasuring to know.

So they will be using the WPI's methods without any accusations of contamination, because Lipkin is in charge of overseeing that sort of thing, and his team will test for contamination at every stage.

I would hope that Judy won't now be looking for VP62-related viruses, but will be using assays and methodology that will detect the other HGRV's that she talks about.

 

[Cort]

The blood working groups' goal was to develop assays to test the blood supply as it is..that means plasma and whole blood and buffy coats..The results do not say that HGRVs are not in the blood (it) simply (says that they are) at levels too low to detect in the samples as they are saved in blood banks world-wide.

She obviously thinks levels are too low to find XMRV at times (aka macquaqes) but the BWG study was also used to determine the validity of current tests for XMRV....and the WPI's tests obviously did not work out at all. Besides the fact that their PCR results did not agree with the antibody test results or with the culture result (except WPI didn't do culture I think - the test got contaminated). s the two labs using the same test didn't agree with each other..It looks like it failed on all levels.

Lets say the levels were too low for detection....if that was the only problem the WPI and Ruscetti would have missed some of the positives and but still would have been negative for healthy controls - that would have said something if that happened - but they found as much XMRV in the healthy controls as in the CFS patients. So even if their test wasn't strong enough to find XMRV they still have the problem of finding it when its not there.

 

[Cort]

Yes I agree but why are vipdx closing?

Are they actually closing or just not offering the XMRV tests. (They are under a different name now)

 

[eric_s]

This is an interesting answer, thanks. It seems to make sense to me that with the aim of this study they would test the blood after it has been treated/stored in the same way as it is done with blood donations. And if they don't add that kind of preservatives there, it would not make sense to add them now.

But as also has been pointed out the problems of the false positives, WPI and Ruscetti not being in agreement on the same samples, and getting different results for the same sample in the same labs remain.

As far as i'm concerned, i'm happy for the WPI, Ruscetti, etc. to prove everybody wrong, but i think they now have to prove they are right, before people will believe them.

 

[RustyJ]

Yes I agree but why are vipdx closing?

Welcome to VIP Dx As of June 6, 2011, VIP Dx will no longer be accepting samples for any clinical tests.

If you are interested in the specialty clinical testing once offered by VIP Dx, please visit the website of UNEVX at www.unevx.com.

If you currently have tests pending with VIP Dx, those tests will be completed and reported by VIP Dx according to the current testing and reporting schedule.

If you have any questions regarding tests that you have pending at VIP Dx, please contact customer service at 775-351-1890 or info@vipdx.com (info@vipdx.com).

New commercial structure and move to WPI, I think.

 

[ukxmrv]

Villagelife,

VIP dx was always going to close. The idea was to move VIP dx to the new facilities at Nevada University. VIP dx was talking about this a year ago.

What I don't know is if and when the new lab at UNEVX will offer testing for XMRV and other HGRV's

 

[ixchelkali]

Because of the thread here yesterday, where I talked about the BWG study not using Trizol or any other preservatives, I asked Dr. Mikovits yesterday questions via email, and she responded. I think that her answer is very important.
This was my question:


And this was her answer:


So, what Dr. Mikovits says is the following:
1) The purpose of the BWG was to develope a test that would suite testing the blood supply. That means that you cannot use whatever procedures you think are the best, you can use only procedures that would suite testing blood donations for the blood supply.
2) As opposed to that, the Lipkin study is designed to test whether the association of HGRV to ME/CFS is correct, and there the WPI would be able to do erverything (I think) as they want to.

Omer, good question and good answer. Thanks to you for asking and to Dr Mikovits for responding. I don't think it quite explains finding the negative controls (which they had certified as negative before blinding) positive.

This study does cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of the WPI's assays, which would affect the results of their 2009 study. But it was a small study and I don't think the verdict is in yet. I'm waiting for the results of Lipkin's study. If they don't successfully differentiate between positive and negative controls in that, then there's no reason to believe in the validity of the association between XMRV and ME/CFS. Then we keep looking for answers.

 

[Daffodil]

now that they know there are problems with the XMRV theory, and the lipkin study is already underway, will they be changing the study design midway? for example, will they now be looking for other HGRV's also?

 

[Bob]

now that they know there are problems with the XMRV theory, and the lipkin study is already underway, will they be changing the study design midway? for example, will they now be looking for other HGRV's also?

I think it's quite probable.

Judy has known a lot more than we know, for a long time, and I believe that Lipkin is willing to do whatever it takes to make the project work.

I get the impression that he's genuinely interested in the science, and not the politics.

So they would have had plenty of time to design the study, and make changes.

We have been told that Mikovits has recently said that she is 100% happy with the methodology.

 

[ukxmrv]

Dr Mikovits stopped talking about XMRV after the Lo paper. She started talking about XMRVs and HGRVs so she abandoned the idea that there was one virus a while back now. VIP dx changed their XMRV test to include

"Serology Assay: detects antibodies to Human Gamma Retroviruses that include XMRV and other
Human MLV-related viruses"

Over a year ago

I don't know though how the whole Silverman screwup is going to change the study now of course.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Er, what is this "screw up" regarding Silverman, but haven't seen the actuall item/issue itself? (must have missed it, but then again, have had pretty bad week or so)
anyone got a link, please?

 

[Bob]

Er, what is this "screw up" regarding Silverman, but haven't seen the actuall item/issue itself? (must have missed it, but then again, have had pretty bad week or so)
anyone got a link, please?

You've been away from the forums for a week Silverblade?
There's been a partial retraction of the Science paper.
They say that Silverman contaminated his samples, and that he only detected his positive control (which was a VP62 plasmid) in the patient samples, rather than an actual virus.
This doesn't affect the rest of the paper, so the other sequences that were detected are still valid.

The consequences of this are as follows:
VP62 XMRV was not detected in the Science paper, but other HGRV partial sequences were.
BTW, VP62 is an artificial contruct, cloned from partial sequences, so they now think that VP62 doesn't exist in nature.
This might possibly explain all of the negative studies because everybody has been searching for a virus that doesn't exist.

Judy stands by all of her work to date (or the bulk of it).

But it's very difficult to understand exactly what's going on right now.




Partial Retraction - letter:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/09/21/science.1212182.full.pdf

Partial Retraction - Supporting Online Material:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/s....DC1/1212182SilvermanPartialRetractionSOM.pdf

BWG study - published paper:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/09/21/science.1213841.full.pdf

Science Magazine - XMRV article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6050/1694.full.pdf


(free registration is needed)

 

[Sam Carter]

Er, what is this "screw up" regarding Silverman, but haven't seen the actuall item/issue itself? (must have missed it, but then again, have had pretty bad week or so)
anyone got a link, please?

Silverman detected contamination in the samples sent to him by the WPI -- he is clear that the contamination occurred outside his laboratory.

 

[Daffodil]

but isnt it weird that XMRV is a result of contamination but they are saying the ACTUAL viruses we have are so similar to that one?

maybe that doesnt make sense..i am all fogged up