International M.E. Association site updates

[santi]

I will post here the updates on this website.

August 2011

• Criticism has its place in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) advocacy (3rd)
• New evidence: Human gamma retroviruses have too large a sequence diversity to be a lab contaminant (3rd)
• The JHK virus and its relationship to human gammaretroviruses (5th)
• In 1999 mouse contamination was widespread and known to infect human cells (7th)
• Response to the BBC article: 'Torrent of abuse' hindering ME research' (7th)
• Response to Katzourakis et al: Lo et al. has not been shown to be laboratory contamination (25th)

July 2011

• Letter to the editor of JVI regarding serious flaws in the methodology of Mendoza et al. (1st)
• A subset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is caused by HIV (4th)
• The difficulties of detecting XMRV by PCR and serology (6th)
• Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and seizures (6th)
• Clinical sensitivity has not been determined by the XMRV negative papers (6th)
• Response: Cingoz and Coffin (7th)
• Upcoming positive papers (9th)
• HGRV is not HIV (11th)
• Charles Shepherd gives an example of how not to be an advocate (11th)
• No study has attempted a replication or a validation of Lombardi et al. (12th)
• Can we have some real science? (14th)
• John Coffin constructs an unfair test for mouse contamination (14th)
• Light on ME/CFS I: Bad Reception: A Key to ME Uncovered? The Light Gene Expression Studies - International ME Association response to Phoenix Rising (16th)
• Herpes viruses cannot be the cause of ME/cfs (20th)
• IMEA meeting with the CDC: Update (21st)
• SPECT scans can identify HIV induced brain abnormalities: What is there relevance to HGRVs? (25th)
• HGRVs can evade immune system defences in humans (26th)
• Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and cognitive dysfunction (26th)
• Response to Rein: "Murine Leukemia Viruses: Biology and Replication" (28th)
• International ME Association response: ME International Consensus Criteria (28th)
• Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and vitamin D (28th)
• Response to Dr Miller regarding the frequent detection of XMLVs in human cultures (29th)
• Rediscovering a virus: Why did Miller claim to discover a virus already known to exist? (29th)
• Psychiatrists are in denial of the published biomedical literature on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (31st)

June 2011

• IMEA Statement: Response to Simon Wessely and the BMJ article. (22nd)
• IMEA requests that the editors of Science magazine retract the Gallo papers of 1984 (26th)
• New CDC XMRV sequences severely damage the contamination hypothesis. (29th)
• How the MLV type virus becomes undetectable by PCR and serology (30th)
• Search for the Goldilocks virus (AKA Catch-22) (30th)
• HHV-6 cannot be the cause of CCC ME/cfs (30th)

May 2011

• Statement from the CEO (1st)
• Integration sites of MLV viruses (1st)
• XMRV and 22Rv1 (2nd)
• Whittemore Peterson Institute (2nd)
• Validating an assay using clinically positive samples (2nd)
• Optimising a Western blot (9th)
• Response to Switzer et al (2011) (10th)
• IMEA Press Release: 10 May 2011 (10th)
• Response to Shin et al (15th)
• PCR and HGRVs: The challenges (29th)
• How PCR can go wrong (29th)

Unknown date (May - July 2011)

• Possible cause of ME-CFS outbreaks
• ICD-11 AND ICD-10CM
• Multiple primers needed to overcome the enormous diversity of HIV
• Critique of Paprotka et al.
• Letter to the editor of Science regarding serious flaws in the methodology of Paprotka et al.
• Scientific Comments on Sattersfield's Assay vs. Lombardi's

 

[lansbergen]

http://www.imeassoc.com/New[/url] evidence: Human gamma retroviruses have too large a sequence diversity to be a lab contaminant

XMRV is a colloquial name for a xenotropic polytopic gammaretrovirus. Polytropic and modified polytropic gammas have also been detected in over 90% of patients with ME, but as yet have no colloquial name.


A small group of retrovirologists, including John Coffin, Myra McClure and Greg Towers, are convinced that these viruses cannot infect humans. They have been attempting to prove their belief that this discovery represents nothing but laboratory contamination.


One of the gamma retroviruses discovered shows very little sequence variation in one of its genes in the three isolates sequenced thus far, but a thousand positive findings have not yet been fully sequenced. This has been used as evidence that the virus is the product of a lab experiment and perfectly harmless, despite its proven ability to induce an immune response in human subjects. However, it now emerges that the virus detected in some people is showing considerable sequence variation, which the contamination belief cannot account for.


The following sequence has now been entered into the Genbank.



Partial molecular cloning with novel consensus PCR primers of the murine JHK retrovirus of human origin, a variant of the Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV)


Xenotropic MuLV-related virus 5' LTR, partial sequence; and gag protein (gag) gene, partial cds

GenBank: HM119591.1
Halligan,B.D., Sun,H.-Y., Cashdollar,L.W., Kushnaryov,V.M. and Grossberg,S.E.



This new sequence, along with the new complete proviral genome, isolate S-162 from Lithuania, the recent addition of sequences from the Bill Switzer at the CDC, and the polytropic and modified polytriopic sequences from the WPI, greatly increases the diversity of these viruses.


John Coffins study, Recombinant Origin of the Retrovirus XMRV (Paprotka, 2011), cannot explain human gamma retrovirus sequences with variation of this magnitude. The conclusions in Paprotka et al. are clearly wrong.


The paper needs investigating as glaring flaws in methodology have already been revealed.


This easily explains why the people who set their assays to detect VP-62 were unable to detect wild-type virus.


International ME Association

3rd August 2011

 

[Desdinova]

Now, as I say, theres a whole page on our booklet on XMRV. I wont go into that detail now, but very briefly the most current situation in relation to XMRV is weve had now about 6. Theyre not replication studies, people trying to replicate the findings. But weve had about 6 validation studies which have failed to find XMRV in patients with ME, err ME/CFS from various parts of the world.

So they're called validation studies now. LOL at least he didn't go so far as to call them replication studies. At least we now know where he stands on this and ME/CFS in general.

 

[*GG*]

I'm not really familiar with this website: http://www.imeassoc.com/New Do you have a better link to what you are referring to?

GG

 

[eric_s]

I see you're from Spain, Santi. Are you a member of this association? I'm asking because i don't know how many members they have and from what countries. I know they have members from the UK and USA.

 

[santi]

I am not member of this organization, that appears to be international. For UK only there is another, http://www.meassociation.org.uk/

 

[Mya Symons]

Thank you, Santi, for this information. Regarding "In 1999 mouse contamination was widespread and known to infect human cells." This was just so very very sad. I can't believe a person (Mr. Coffin) could say what he has said about us and XMRV with such callous disregard and know the whole time that XMRV infecting humans was always a possibility. If you haven't read this, please do. I don't know what else to say.

 

[santi]

New update:
ICC Dx v. Denigration?
New test from Hemispherx
Petition: Mikovits!
Response - ICD Proposal