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Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.
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And I still have my positive lab to the "CFS Novel Retrovirus" in 1991. Sick since 1986. And a patient at the NIH under Fauci and seen by Straus.
What gives????
This synthetic virus that I made used parts from standard murine leukemia viruses and in that sense is not very special. It has been widely used as a positive control virus in tests to detect potential replication-competent retroviruses in retrovirus vector preparations, especially those intended for human gene therapy use. To elaborate, retroviral vectors used for gene therapy are supposed to be incapable of replicating, but in the early days there were some examples of replicating viruses arising during vector production. To make sure gene therapy recipients did not get these replicating viruses, the vector preparations are tested for replicating virus. The synthetic virus I made has the properties expected of the viruses that might arise, so it was used as a positive control to make sure the assay employed was capable of detecting potential replication-competent virus contaminants.
The other report you found about spread of this recombinant retrovirus in cultured cells in a lab can occur with improper cell culture technique. Lab workers take precautions when manipulating retroviruses that can infect human cells, such as the one I made, but can be exposed by accident. However, these viruses, like XMRV, are adapted to grow in mice and should not do well in humans because of natural human antiviral defenses. Likewise, house cats are known to be infected with retroviruses that cause leukemia in cats, and although some can grow in human cells, these viruses have never been found to transmit to or cause disease in humans.
Eco
"A man can endure the worst pain ..... of others."
I want ta know something, if ya have a peepee test and it comes back positive in line with the people who come back positive for the culture test, can you pee a contaminate???? I mean that would be a trick wouldn't it?
I think we might want to ask Dr. Klein this very important question since he is working on what looks to be a successful peepee test. (first reported at the 1at annual XMRV conference in Sept 2010)
The people on here that have been sick for 20 or more years couldn't have up and got infected 10 years or more after the became sick. The 1996 - 1999 theory is impossible in my eyes or virutually impossible.
What if Alex theory is correct. What if the virus has gone undetected in the human population for so long, that in fact humans have passed the virus back into the labs.
How do they know that the xenograft wasn't contaminated by a lab worker. I'm not buying this contamination thing completely. The virus is there and if it is proven to be infectious, does it matter where it came from? I don't care just get it out of me!!! (at least make it behave)
Drop the entire world a note....what a great line.....Go Judy Go!!!!!! I cannot wait for that note to be dropped : )
thanks DB....My outrage matches yours. I sent a scathing Note to that "AIDS" woman and stoye...it was very cathartic.
If this is indeed was from Judy, hopefully there was permission to post.
However the WPI reported that all the gag and env sequences in their CFS patients were very alike - which suggests that the variability is not very high.
Its true that once its created the virus has the potential to do anything. Once its created it has the potential of leaving the laboratory and moving out into the population (and then possibly coming back into the laboratory).
So far as I can tell the crux of the matter is the genetic diversity of the patient samples. If the XMRV samples from prostate cancer and CFS patients were more diverse genetically than found in the virus produced in the lab then then you would think - aha! they came from humans and then got into the lab. (Population sources are almost always the most genetically variable).
However, at least at this point, they actually seem less diverse than XMRV produced in the lab - even though the samples come from humans from all the over the US and Europe - that suggests they came from the lab virus and did not infect humans - where they would have mutated - but simply got into lab cultures and reagants and ultimately (somehow - nobody has shown how yet) into the WPI and Silverman samples.
There are only two complete sequences of XMRV from CFS patients - so it is conceivable that they are missing some of the variability found in the CFS population. However the WPI reported that all the gag and env sequences in their CFS patients were very alike - which suggests that the variability is not very high. Still we don't know until we know.
The other big problem facing XMRV is that even if it is a 'contaminant' most labs are still not finding it... in autism or FM or in previously positive CFS patients or in HIV patients or anywhere. Except for the Alter/Lo and Hansen findings - which are for MLV's - we still don't have an independent lab that has actually found XMRV I don't think in CFS patients.
I am a bit late in the conversation, but what bothered me on top of being worried about lab worker is at that same Q&A period this lady from the audience commented on the similarity of HIV deniers and ME/ CFS XMRV + Patients on ART. Basically she said we were all fruitcakes.
all they want to say is ME/ CFS is not an inFectious disease but what Lombardi et al. Saw was contamination. However their lab workers may be infected with a very virulent retrovirus. Do you see the dismissall all lover again?
HERE's MY NOTE TO BERGMAN:
I have been ill with CFS for 33 years. I have lost 3 decades of my life to this hideous, and FYI very debilitating neuro immune disease. And I am not alone. CFS affects btwn 1-4 million Americans, and approx 17 million people worldwide. According to Dr Nancy Klimas, who splits her practice between HIV and CFS, her HIV patients are "hale and hearty" compared to her CFS patients, who are often desperately ill and completely unable to participate in life.
Your comment at the recent conference on XMRV, which reduced the CFS patient community to a bunch of anti HIV believers and conspiratorial nut jobs, was really quite reprehensible. The suffering of very sick people is not a joke. Shame on you for making it into one.