They are all good questions, Suzy.
I have another one: what about the postviral aspect of the disease, i.e. the herpes virus connection (rather than XMRV)? Is that why Lerner and others are not among the authors? I feel that without this aspect, the criteria are incomplete.
Regards,
Guido
herpesvirus was indeed mentioned in the paper. However, neither Lerner nor Montoya was cited. They cited Kerr, Nicholson, Chapenko, and Ablashi.
The relevant paragraph:
(They go on to discuss immune alterations.)Most patients have an acute infectious onset with flu-like and/or respiratory symptoms.
A wide range of infectious agents have been reported in subsets of patients including Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) [82] and other murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related viruses [83], enterovirus [84-86], Epstein Barr virus [87], human herpes virus 6 and 7 [88-90], Chlamydia [91], cytomegalovirus [92], parvovirus B19 [93] and Coxiella burnetti [87].
Chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach and altered levels of D Lactic acid producing bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract have been investigated [85, 94].
Possibly the initial infection damages part of the CNS and immune system causing profound deregulation and abnormal responses to infections [4].