Hi Rich,
Much of my experience is looking at people who know they are mold responders, but who (through avoidance) reduce their symptoms substantially.
Unfortunately, as you know, this does not make their CFS go away entirely.
Most of these manage to be able to get a normal VCS test. Many of them get a normal C4a, at least some of the time. TGF-beta usually remains a problem, as do things such as low NKC activity.
This would be consistent with what you're describing. Perhaps some of the people in your study were biotoxin responders, and were made sick by biotoxins, but have managed (even by chance) to get to a good location.
Based on my visit there, Springfield, MO, is not a place with terrible outdoor air for ME/CFS patients, so that would not keep them sick enough to be highly positive on those tests all by itself. I do not doubt that some people there might have, by chance, moved from a really bad building to a pretty good one. If that's the case, those folks eventually will have their contaminated belongings die down and start to make improvements.
This does not mean that they are well. Insofar as they have a hard time detoxing biotoxins, the ones they stored up from before will continue to have an effect on them. In addition, it could be that the inflamed toxic "terrain" of their bodies caused XMRV or some other pathogen to go active, and that this pathogen is very hard to get under control once it goes wild.
If that's the case, the previous mold exposure would still be a cause of the illness, by creating the circumstances that allowed the pathogen to get a foothold, even if the toxin was no longer an issue.
I don't know if everybody with CFS is a biotoxin responder, has a history of particular biotoxin exposure, or is unable to effectively detox biotoxins. But I don't think that from the results you cite, we can say that they are not.
Did you happen to do HLA DR tests for the people in your study?
Thanks much for your help.
Best, Lisa