Christopher
Senior Member
- Messages
- 576
- Location
- Pennsylvania
The short of it:
Dr. Lipkin is seeing constant immune activation in CFS/ME patients which is causing our disability, but does not have the resources from the NIH and CDC to find out what is causing it.
There are sympathetic figures at the NIH and CDC that are willing to look for the cause of this immune activation if they are given money to do so.
He also makes a direct comparison to the early days of HIV and AIDS. It is obvious to me from these hints and innuendos that he strongly suspects we are infected with a pathogen that our immune system cannot clear on its own, and he is telling us to push the federal government to give the CDC and NIH more money specifically to study this, while people like Tom Frieden and Tony Fauci are in position to direct the funding appropriately.
http://www.mecfsforums.com/wiki/Lipkin_presentation,_CDC_Conference_Call_9/10/2013
Dr. Lipkin is seeing constant immune activation in CFS/ME patients which is causing our disability, but does not have the resources from the NIH and CDC to find out what is causing it.
There are sympathetic figures at the NIH and CDC that are willing to look for the cause of this immune activation if they are given money to do so.
He also makes a direct comparison to the early days of HIV and AIDS. It is obvious to me from these hints and innuendos that he strongly suspects we are infected with a pathogen that our immune system cannot clear on its own, and he is telling us to push the federal government to give the CDC and NIH more money specifically to study this, while people like Tom Frieden and Tony Fauci are in position to direct the funding appropriately.
Now, with respect to polyclonal B cell reactivity, as I mentioned in the very beginning, in work that we published in the 1990’s that is Birgitte Evengård, and I published together, we found evidence of polyclonal B cell reactivity and at that point, we described in the final paragraph of the paper we wrote, and we describe specifically as to whether borna virus could be implicated in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, we said, in fact, that we were unable to find any evidence of that, genetic or antibody based; but at that point, as many of you will recall, there was a very strong sentiment in some portions of the scientific and clinical communities, not all of it, but in some portions of the community, that this is a psychological illness. And what I said was that, based on our findings, we had very strong evidence that people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were ill. It was a real, physical illness, and they deserved a deep dive to find out why they were ill. This was back… you know, we wrote this paper in 1997, a long time ago, and I am now pleased to see that people are paying much more attention to this disorder and what we can do about it.
That said, our evidence suggests, based on the cytokines that I’ve described to you, that there is, in fact, ongoing stimulus to the immune system which results in activation and may well account for many of the symptoms associated with the disease.
The challenge, as I’ve said, is that we have no resources to go after identifying what it is that is stimulating these responses. So, again, I think it is critical that you apply pressure on your congressmen and your senators to generate more research funding for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome research, and if you have the means yourself to do something about this, that you become invested in it because we are partners in this thing. We cannot do this work without your support. We do not have the resources to do what is required. I remember in the very early days of HIV/AIDS when I was still a trainee at the CSF in fact, it was very early days. And in those days there was very little support for HIV/AIDS. It really took advocacy to force that.
Now you’ve got a number of people who are very receptive to this. Tom Frieden is receptive to it. Tony Fauci is receptive to it. But their hands are tied right now because of sequestration. So it is important to that you do something to propose additional resources be allocated to the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, so that this work can proceed, and so that we can get the answer that we need.
http://www.mecfsforums.com/wiki/Lipkin_presentation,_CDC_Conference_Call_9/10/2013
Last edited: