Esther12
Senior Member
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I posted a near identical poll in the XMRV section, but we were wondering if members who tended to visit that section might have different views to those who do not: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/show...s-are-the-cause-of-CFS-ME&p=208557#post208557
Please feel free to vote in both polls, or just one, but I'm interested to see how likely members here feel it is that the WPI's work is going to hold up. Comments and explanations are most welcome - we got a bit of a discussion going in the other thread, and it was interesting to learn about what others thought. It also managed to stay more civil and calm than I feared could be the case, as I know this is the sort of topic which can be difficult to stay emotionally detached about (or maybe everyone else here is just much more mature than I).
Personally, I think that the failure to distinguish between samples from previously positive patients and healthy controls under the blinded conditions of the BWG has knocked out the key reason for thinking that XMRV/HGRVs are important to CFS. If the WPI's testing isn't reliable, and it now seems they've decided to withdraw all their XMRV/HGRV testing from the market, then the case for association is back to square one. While I'm still interested in the ongoing work from Ruscetti/WPI, I now see it as a real long-shot. I think I'm probably in 0-1%, rather than 2-9%.
edit: It's really hard to get the wording for this question exactly right. Hopefully you get a good idea of what I mean, and the results were only ever going to be a rough guide to what people are thinking. At least the wording is marginally better than the last poll.
Please feel free to vote in both polls, or just one, but I'm interested to see how likely members here feel it is that the WPI's work is going to hold up. Comments and explanations are most welcome - we got a bit of a discussion going in the other thread, and it was interesting to learn about what others thought. It also managed to stay more civil and calm than I feared could be the case, as I know this is the sort of topic which can be difficult to stay emotionally detached about (or maybe everyone else here is just much more mature than I).
Personally, I think that the failure to distinguish between samples from previously positive patients and healthy controls under the blinded conditions of the BWG has knocked out the key reason for thinking that XMRV/HGRVs are important to CFS. If the WPI's testing isn't reliable, and it now seems they've decided to withdraw all their XMRV/HGRV testing from the market, then the case for association is back to square one. While I'm still interested in the ongoing work from Ruscetti/WPI, I now see it as a real long-shot. I think I'm probably in 0-1%, rather than 2-9%.
edit: It's really hard to get the wording for this question exactly right. Hopefully you get a good idea of what I mean, and the results were only ever going to be a rough guide to what people are thinking. At least the wording is marginally better than the last poll.