So here's my thoughts:
- XMRV will be seen as a human pathogen
- XMRV will be associated with prostate cancer
This new sequence shows quite a bit of variation in my opinion, and I don't think the contamination theory will be able to explain this one away. However, I think XMRV will be seen as both a lab artifact and human infection. I think scientists will have a lot of trouble agreeing that a retrovirus created in a lab caused human disease (that's if they agree it causes prostate cancer), so I think we will see alternate theories as well that sound more natural (
Perhaps someone was bitten by a mouse in the woods of another country? ).
I think there will be continued skepticism on whether XMRV is associated with and has infected CFS because the contamination theories and because the WPI sequences look as if they could be contamination (VP62).
However, I think there might be more attention to XMRV/CFS when more positive XMRV/CFS papers are published (they are coming). Perhaps scientists will watch and wait for the BWG/Lipkin results before they jump on the bandwagon again.
I'm not sure what the results of the BWG/Lipkin studies will be. The WPI still displays a lot of confidence, so perhaps they are right. I would think they would have taken the extra time to make sure they can tell the difference between a patient and a control in a blinded fashion by now. Maybe not. I don't know. If they are right, I think most in the research community would be very surprised.
Then if CFS patients are infected and if they determine it plays a role in CFS, they would have to determine if it's the cause. It will be war all over again.
If there is a CFS/XMRV connection, there will still be a long road ahead (unless everyone fears the virus for some reason as with HIV). Perhaps scientists will rush to solve it out of fear of them being infected.
Just some random thoughts as I try to deal with insomnia. In the mean time, with the recent news that concludes XMRV definitely does not play a role in CFS, we will start to repeat history and go back to Ampligen trials (oh, right that's already being done).