There is one thing bothering me in this frenzy. It is the fact that we are talking about possible treatments (Pete, you are mentioning 5 to 10 years). The problem is that for all of us who are severely sick and house/bedbound, this moment will not come soon enough, but worse, it might not come at all. What if it turns out that XMRV is not the cause of CFS? What if our hopes were all up and then we have to go back to our previous expectations ? This will be devastating for many of us who were seeing ourselves at the dawn of a new life. This is going to hurt, big times! I'm worried.If this happens, how many of us won't be able to go on after this?...
If it turned out that XMRV was not a causative factor, it is *still* a big deal, because life with a retrovirus is no fun! PWME/CFS"s systems are already pounded with multiple infectious agents, including herpes family viruses (EBV, HHV, VZV, CMV) which also never go away. In people with healthy immune systems these things can lie dormant with little to no effect. For us, causative or not, a retrovirus would be a major player in why our immune systems cannot keep up with the things healthy people live with asymptomatically.
Once all the science gets on the bus and admits this retrovirus is in the population in a major way, and we can start treating it, it is, in my opinion, highly likely that we will all feel MUCH BETTER whether it was the cause of our illness, or just a passenger. Even if a bad road trip was riddled with bad weather, flat tires, road construction, an overheated radiator and static on the radio, getting rid of the passenger who farts continuously, thinks it's funny to cover your eyes while you're driving, and won't stop whingeing, definitely improves the quality of the journey, I'd say.
Your point about the long wait for treatment, on the other hand--the best we can do is recognise that technology and science are moving ever faster these days, and I remain hopeful that what used to take 10 years in medical science, may easily take 3-5 now (still, I know, a scary hell for those of us on the couch with no income.)
We really need the politics to calm down so we can streamline the process of R&D. I cannot accept that we have to live with this forever. The best thing about XMRV is the attention now being paid. Attention must be paid!