XMRV Is Different In Prostate Cancer

I was surprised when I heard Dr. Peterson say that XMRV in prostate cancer is similar but not identical to XMRV in CFS. He says it early on in this video of his first presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=053fYeLblmo&feature=channel

I think this is very significant for us. I also had no idea there were many mouse retroviruses. How weird.

Dr. Peterson then goes on to say in the 2nd video that white blood cells from the XMRV positive patients were able to infect the cell line for prostate cancer and controls were not able to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-kmo0w-9Vs&feature=channel

What do you all think about this?

it is a little hard for me to interpret that first statement. I had thought that it was nearly if not exactly the same. My understanding now is that it's very very close to XMRV but not identical. I'm not sure what it means if its really close to XMRV but its not the same. I assume its just a different strain of the virus not a different virus. There doesn't seem to be any call for it being a different virus. I know that different strains of HIV are really quite different even though they belong to the same species.

I think the second point is very important for the virologists. They seem to be a bit taken aback by how far the WPI was able to go with this virus. Showing that it was able, on its own, to infect other cells in the laboratory is another strong causal link for the WPI. Apparently its not always easy to demonstrate that although I'm not sure why.

Yes, he is talking about different strains of *the same virus*. XMRV was found in prostate cancer. XMRV was found in CFS. Same virus, just different strains.

We know this because Dr Coffin talks later on about all strains of XMRV being highly similar compared to say HIV which will show more variation in one patient who has been infected for just a week than all known XMRV strains (across different people, diseases and from different parts of the country).

The implications of this are that a vaccine should be relatively straight-forward to come up with. But anti-retroviral treatment (which relies on active replication) may prove a bit more tricky.

Does a vaccine mean existing ME CFS patients infected with XMRV could be 'fixed' and then still have romantic relations and create children?

(One apparent tragedy, is now we cannot have children as we'll pass the virus on it appears).

Once this test is out, maybe we'll have to have XMRV dating, just like their are HIV dating sites also.

Or would a vaccine cancel this out, and we'd be safe to date people?

Thanks for the Comments.

Garcia, that makes sense now. Thank you.

I hope we get answers to our questions. I think we all have some of the same questions that you asked, Cold.

I always thought this felt similar to how AIDS would be. I've had immune dysfunction ever since I got EBV when I was 20. I doubted I should have kids and then when the time came for me to possibly have them I did research and learned about the retrovirus DeFreitas's found in ME and I did further research and realized that it would be too risky to have them.

We didn't know this for sure before so I hope people don't blame themselves. I know I've been experiencing a lot of fear, regret and sorrow. I guess that's only natural.

The NIH and CDC should be held responsible for our ignorance on these issues especially when/if they prove that DeFreitas's retrovirus --possibly a mouse retrovirus-- that was found in 1991 is the same as XMRV.

Cold,
I am no scientist but I don't think vaccines can be used to cure viral infections, only to prevent them.
I guess our hope is that something like Ampligen can be made available and affordable, if indeed the XMRV turns out to be the root of our problem.
Marylib

Well no, if you already have it then the vaccine would do you no good. However, your partner could get the vaccine, so that you could have romantic relations without getting your partner sick. Children are a different issue though, if you are a woman then you might still pass the virus to the baby during birth.

So the virus apparently can infect already malignant (cancer) cells in a dish, does that mean it can infect non cancerous cells in a real human? That is the question.