VIP Dx MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT on Jun 1 !

I reckon (as Cort suggests) this move from VIPdx is linked to the CDC's upcoming meeting/annoucement.

Cynic as I am (from experience) it would be wise for VIPdx to announce the test prematurely, to counter the inevitable fall out from the ME CFS community finding out the CDC may well be planning on brushing XMRV aside and in doing so not protecting the blood supply. Worse still not bothering to do a Replication Study at all- due to political reasons. As has happened so far 8 months since the public annoucement of XMRV in CFS. Something which is inexcusable, and repeating the CDC's history of managing 'Gay Flu'.

Thus...............................................

Realistic Scenario Fantasy 1:

1) New Serology test from VIPdx, possibly 2 new? (Elisa & Western Blot).
2) Culture test licensed for Europe @ Redlabs (Probably too much to expect more than 1 test at the moment).

That would be pretty major as Europe hasn't got a test, and European population is 57% bigger than the USA.
(That's a vast amount of people who need to be tested).

Possible Scenario Fantasy 2: more than Belgium gets VIPdx/WPI XMRV technology, under license and multiple countries announced.
E.g. Canada, Australia, Germany etc. Once that happens, the amout of patients (and familes - e.g moms) finding out they are XMRV+ (CFS, Healthy, Autistic) will hit the roof - forcing the CDC to change policy around late 2011/2012 . This may come in time and is vital in the disinformation war.

Unrealistic Scenario Fantasy 3: VIPdx (to the irritation of the CDC) VIPdx announce CDC found XMRV in their fatigue critera CFS using WPI licensed blood tests and now publically tell CDC on their website they must now do a replication study as the public are at risk.

i know they got a new serology test in last week....so thats probably part of it...

wooohooo!!!!!

Thanks Parvo! I will be on the edge of my seat with fingers ready to type.

This could be very interesting!

All I can find:

"March 31, 2010
VIP Dx has received 581 specimens for XMRV testing. We continue to see 37% positivity."

and

"Dec 2009 – Mar 2010
VIP Dx tested a group of 30 patients from the UK for XMRV. Of this group, 33% were positive."


I assume that's old news, I havn't kept up with Vip Dx recently.

EDIT: And there's a scrolling flash thing that says "As of May 7th, 2010, 701 XMRV specimens were received." I assume that's old news, too!

37%? 33%? thats kind of low, isnt it?

Well, what do you make of this on FB put up a few hours ago?

Addendum
Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of
patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

Judy A. Mikovits, Vincent C. Lombardi, Max A. Pfost, Kathryn S. Hagen
and Francis W. Ruscetti

Volume 1, Issue 5 Landes Bioscience Journals: Virulence
September/October 2010

[xga: Please note that a PDF is not available yet. Hopefully it will be epublished before the Sept publishing date]

In October 2009, we reported the first direct isolation of infectious
xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV). In that study,
we used a combination of biological amplification and molecular
enhancement techniques to detect XMRV in more than 75% of 101 patients
with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Since our report, controversy
arose after the publication of several studies that failed to detect
XMRV infection in their CFS patient populations. In this addenda, we
further detail the multiple detection methods we used in order to
observe XMRV infection in our CFS cohort. Our results indicate that
PCR from DNA of unstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells is the
least sensitive method for detection of XMRV in subjects' blood. We
advocate the use of more than one type of assay in order to determine
the frequency of XMRV infection in patient cohorts in future studies
of the relevance of XMRV to human disease.



Authors
Judy A. Mikovits
Whittemore Peterson Institute; Reno, Nevada USA
Vincent C. Lombardi
Whittemore Peterson Institute; Reno, Nevada USA
Max A. Pfost
Whittemore Peterson Institute; Reno, Nevada USA
Kathryn S. Hagen
Whittemore Peterson Institute; Reno, Nevada USA
Francis W. Ruscetti
Laboratory of Experimental Immunology, Cancer and Inflammation
Program; National Cancer Institute-Frederick; Frederick, MD USA

http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/40/article/12486/

A PDF is not available for this article
Updated 5 hours ago Comment Like Report Note

Not really. These patients aren't carefully screened like in the Science paper. Also, the testing at VIPDX is producing a lot of false negatives.

It does seem low at first glance, but it's actually a very promising number. Remember also that it's about 4% in the general population.

Hmmmm.....it sounds like there's no single test worked out yet.

Where's Fred....there seems to be a game afoot!!

I guess VIPdx is sold to a big player...

What makes you think that?

I can only suppose it's to announce a new test.

Why would the WPI need to make this statement NOW unless they were about to be refuted by another study using the "least sensitive" method? This doesn't look good to me AT ALL! I can't think of any other reason they would need to restate this point AGAIN, in a public scientific forum. Can anyone think of a positive reason for this statement? Please? And what's with the date? September/October 2010???

What statement? No one knows what they're going to announce yet, it's pointless getting yourself worked up before you even know what's going on.

They have removed almost all information on their website. Only information left is the Lyme Brochure.

Its more likely that its a company announcement and not a product announcement coming up.

Just a guess...

The rest of the website's there: http://vipdx.com/sitemap/

Serology + licencing agreement to a major player

Dys, I loved your breakdown of scenarios. And JT, honest I'm not holding out. This is all I know!

My guess however, is that a "Major Announcement" would be along the lines of:

• The availability of the serology test (altho we've been expecting that)
• A major licencing agreement by VIPDx of their new test to a major player
• or... as was mentioned, they've been bought out by a giant - GSK? Abbott?

OK, it's Jun 1... where's zat announcement! Oh right, normal mortals are asleep.

Parvo:Retro smile:

WPI Facebook new entry

saying just

is good enough? :Retro smile::worried:

hopefully this has, in some way, something to do with the CDC results that are upcoming.
Best scenario would be, CDC found xmrv in at least healty people and don't want panic under the USA population, so they bring this news after the good news, that there is now a valid test on the market.
Since Vipdx is the only commercial lab around to have, at this moment, the knowledge to to perform such a test, they would be the first to start with it...

Sounds plausible in some way . but this is maybe a very very bit too much wishful thinking.....hehehe

someone on chat came with this scenario, cant remember his name though (damn brainfog/memory

But we will know within 12 hours I guess...so we don't have to speculate again for 200+ times :Retro smile:

The four tests used by the WPI in their research studies are as follows:

1. Serology (anti-body)
2. Western blot of viral proteins (gag, env)
3. Proviral DNA (infected cell) detected by PCR (DNA), RT-PCR (virion RNA)
4. Isolation of virus in cell culture

The WPI says that no.3 is the least reliable but this is the one that other researchers are using.

VIP offers no.4 which is more reliable than no.3 but still produces false negatives.

The WPI says that no.1 (serum anti-body) is the most reliable but it has not been available commercially to date. VIP may announce the availability of the test this week.

In the Spanish presentation, De Meirleir said that a reliable test will be available in Europe within days (although this was qualified as 3-4 weeks by someone else). He did not clarify if this was anti-body or another type of test.

There have been rumours of Abbott Diagnostics getting to close to launching an anti-body test but I do not know whether this is related to VIP, DeMeirleir or both or neither.

Further rumours have suggested that certain 'replication' researchers are waiting for the anti-body test to come available because they are finding it very hard to isolate XMRV using PCR. If this is the case, we may see a growing number of positive replication studies once the anti-body test becomes available.

Thanks Fred for the digest of recent events re testing procedures. I never remember more than 2 tests at any one time.

I propose we should call you King of the Rumour Mill! :innocent1:

I love the way you feed us these tid bits of intrigue.