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ABC Australia: McClure (ICL) "Virus linked to prostate cancer and CFS"

Dx Revision Watch

Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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3,061
Location
UK
(Also posted in Media)

Programme: The Health Report

ABC Australia
Monday April 12, 2010


Listen or download (5.3MB)

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/


Virus linked to prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome

"Professor Myra McClure from the Imperial College London talks about the remarkable and incredibly controversial finding of a virus linked to prostate cancer and a tantalising link to chronic fatigue syndrome."
 

Dx Revision Watch

Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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3,061
Location
UK
Note: There are transcripts available for previous radio reports in this series, so there may be a transcript available from the site in the next few days.

The segment on XMRV is 11.22 minutes long.
 

fred

The game is afoot
Messages
400
Some transcript snippets

When was this recorded? She says that 'the virus' has been identified in two different centres in the US and that no-one has yet been able to isolate it from blood samples. I think she is refering to just prostate XMRV at this point.

She states that, although the Irish, the Swedish and the Germans aren't finding XMRV in prostate cancer, that "we are actually finding it, I have to say". She says that it's not a lab contamination in either the US or the UK.

She goes on to say that XMRV is a simple virus, only having three genes, and that none of these are oncogenic (cancer causing). The theory could be, therefore, that the infection causes inflammation and it's the inflammatory response that leads to cancer.

The epidemiology is important because both the UK and Japan have found the virus in 1% and 1.7% of the population respectively.

And then they move on to CFS.... which she says they got into accidentally. They were approached by "people at Kings College London who have a cohort of chronic fatigue patients" and that "this is not a disease that we have any expertise in or that we work on". The 'people at Kings' asked if they'd test some samples and so sent blood from "people who had been very sick with chronic fatigue and we tested it with our assay which was highly sensitive...and we didn't find any evidence for the infection".

The interviewer says "and you published to some controversy" and "There is a bit of an industry here suggesting that retroviruses cause chronic fatigue syndrome".

McClure replies: "For us it was just a couple of weeks work. It was not our mainstream interest.... but the reason that we rushed into print with this..... was that we had some evidence .... that people were being offered this test .... and much, much worse than that that patients were being offered antiretroviral therapy, the kind of therapy that you would give HIV patients......." and "....so we wanted to put a stop to that because we felt it wasn't ethical."

The interviewer then says it looks like there's no cause and effect. In fact, the virus isn't there at all.

McClure says "I can't say that because all we have done is to test 186 chronic fatigue patients. I mean, we could be in the same position as the Americans are with their prostate cancer - they're the only ones who can find an association so far, until we publish anything that we might find, so we can't say that - because, as the American group, Lombardi's group, has pointed out ad nauseum to people, we are not testing the same patients as they have so.... "


And did the announcer really say that XMRV has managed to 'weasel' its way into humans?
 

Dx Revision Watch

Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
Messages
3,061
Location
UK
Virus linked to prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome

12 April 2010

Mon 8.30am
repeated Tuesday 12.30am

Presenter Norman Swan
Producer Brigitte Seega


http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2010/2867629.htm

The transcript of this program will be available by midday on the day following broadcast.

(At the time of posting this comment it was around 12 Apr 2010 10:34:45pm on the website.)

There is a comment facility at this page:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2010/2867629.htm

Edit: I make that an ETA of around 3.00am UK time Tuesday for a transcript - if the Australian site is 9 hours ahead of UK time. Please correct me if this is wrong - I am hopeless with time diffs, I can't set a table upside down either, and have been forbidden from giving lost delivery drivers directions. So if anyone is around at that time, perhaps they'd grab the transcript as I shall be tucked up with teddy.
 

fred

The game is afoot
Messages
400
Quick precis

Kings got ICL into it. ICL didn't know what they were walking into. ICL were fed duff info by Kings which encouraged them to publish quickly. Lombardi et al fought back. ICL know they cocked up but don't like hearing it (over and over) and are attempting to adopt the moral high ground (over 'unethical' tests and antiretroviral treatment) to defend themselves. And they're not taking the risk of saying XMRV is absolutely not in 'chronic fatigue' because that could get them in the poo yet again.

Nice one. Thanks to Suzy.
 

natasa778

Senior Member
Messages
1,774
Kings got ICL into it. ICL didn't know what they were walking into. ICL were fed duff info by Kings which encouraged them to publish quickly. Lombardi et al fought back. ICL know they cocked up but don't like hearing it (over and over) and are attempting to adopt the moral high ground (over 'unethical' tests and antiretroviral treatment) to defend themselves. And they're not taking the risk of saying XMRV is absolutely not in 'chronic fatigue' because that could get them in the poo yet again.

Bingo!

There goes IP's defence that they "only supplied samples when asked to do so" (or something to that effect).
 

natasa778

Senior Member
Messages
1,774
This one sticks out as well:

The 'people at Kings' asked if they'd test some samples and so sent blood from "people who had been very sick with chronic fatigue

I wonder if she is here defending herself against claims of bad cohort selection? Or she was simply fed crap by wessley&co...
 
K

Knackered

Guest
At the very end of the clip she admits they were testing different patients.

Oxford criteria vs Canadian.
 
Messages
13,774
If XMRV really does pan out, it would almost be worth having had the negative Wessely study come out for the comedy value of it. It might have held up other research a bit - but it would be the icing on the cake in terms of highlighting the man's quackery.
 

Bob

Senior Member
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16,455
Location
England (south coast)
So Wessely sent her DNA samples, not blood samples... did we know this?
Which tissue was this DNA taken from? Was it from white blood cells and immune cells, or some other random tissue?

It's interesting that she isn't now saying that there is no link between ME and XMRV... because, she says, she has "only tested 186 patients" and she is "not testing the same patients" as WPI... This is a very different tune to what she originally announced on the BBC news website.

But I find the dismissive attitude towards the ME community very irritating:
Why does she quote the Japanese study at 1.7% (XMRV in the normal population) but she doesn't quote the WPI study at 4%?
Why is she apparently so keen to disprove the link between XMRV and ME so that people should not be treated with anti-retrovirals?
Why didn't she clearly explain to the listener that she has not proved that XMRV doesn't exist in ME patients, even though she now accepts this?
If she accepts that 1% (her figure) of the normal population carries XMRV then why doesn't she explain why she didn't find this in the normal control samples in her study on ME patients?

At least she accepts that XMRV is real, and not a lab contaminant, and she has now found it present in prostate cancer patients (even if she failed to find XMRV in the normal control samples in her ME study).

I didn't know that XMRV is such a 'simple' virus with only 'three genes'.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
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5,431
Location
UK
The aim of the UK testing is not to prove an association between ME and XMRV, but to convince the scientific world that XMRV is there and flourishing. Looks like Dr McClure has more than fulfilled that objective.
 

bullybeef

Senior Member
Messages
488
Location
North West, England, UK
It sounds like Wessely took advantage of McClure's group lack of expertise in regards to ME. He sent duff cohorts, knowing the chances of them finding XMRV within any of them was slim. But McClure can claim plausible denial if XMRV/ME prevalence is eventually proven here in the UK. She obviously won’t want her reputation sullied by Wessely’s ME antics.

Or, Wessely found out first hand that his CFS cohort don't have biological ME in the first place. How would he know for sure that they wouldn't have XMRV?

Ultimately, there are more reasons why she didn't locate XMRV in Wessely's patients, than reasons why she should have.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Kings got ICL into it. ICL didn't know what they were walking into. ICL were fed duff info by Kings which encouraged them to publish quickly. Lombardi et al fought back. ICL know they cocked up but don't like hearing it (over and over) and are attempting to adopt the moral high ground (over 'unethical' tests and antiretroviral treatment) to defend themselves. And they're not taking the risk of saying XMRV is absolutely not in 'chronic fatigue' because that could get them in the poo yet again.

Nice one. Thanks to Suzy.

I just read your earlier post Fred... Thanks for that Fred... you've answered most of my questions!
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Ultimately, there are more reasons why she didn't locate XMRV in Wessely's patients, than reasons why she should have.

You're right bullybeef... and she didn't even find XMRV in her normal control samples, but now she admits that it is in the normal population (she quotes the Japan study at 1.7%, even if she ignores the WPI research, probably due to professional ego)... it's a shame she can't admit that she got her ME study wrong.