bakercape
Senior Member
- Messages
- 210
- Location
- Cape Cod. Mass
You may be right or you may be wrong
Considering that 4% of healthy normal control subjects have XMRV virus researchers have stated that it likely is only a trigger or coinfection in chronic fatigue syndrome. Why then do patients here think that some kind of retroviral therapy will cure chronic fatigue? Seems like a wild goose chase.
Instead, people should concentrate on finding and treating the culprits behind the lowered immunity rather than these opportunistic infections.
It's possible your correct of course but I believe it's equally as possible you are wrong. In any case I do not believe XMRV is a false hope because either it is a major cause or co-factor or it proves we have something very wrong with our immune systems. So I find that very hopeful either way.
Your first 2 links I wanted to point out are from February and April of 2010. I believe the Science paper only came out in, was it Oct? That's not very long to form an a scientific opinion on the role of XMRV or the other MLV's that Alter found after that which are 96.6% identical to XMRV but show a lot of diversity and mutation. This further makes them a suspect in CFS/ME.
The fact that XMRV is found in 4% of healthy controls in the Science paper does not prove it is not causal in CFS. In the early days of HIV testing and still to this day you did and will find people who carry HIV but are not symtomatic therefor would have been considered healthy controls. So I do not understand the logic you are using when pointing out 4% of controls carried the virus in the study. So what? Like HIV not everyone who has the virus will be ill.
It's still to early to know if XMRV/MLV's are the or a cause of our illness but I really don't see the logic in ruling it out based on some healthy people carrying the virus/ viruses.