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Article: A Man From Whom Viruses Cant Hide - Chang Lee/The New York Times on Dr. Ia
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He was the first to find West Nile Virus in the US. He developed a new virus detection system called MassTagPCR.
Look at how precise his methods are. He looked at all the genetic sequences in some women and found that 14 out of 100,000 were different - that was the virus that killed them!
This technology is amazing!
Digging Deep for virus in autism and schizophrenia - viruses may cause schizophrenia! One of my best friends in high school came down with schizophrenia over the course of a month or so - he never recovered - it was like night and day.
Look at how precise his methods are. He looked at all the genetic sequences in some women and found that 14 out of 100,000 were different - that was the virus that killed them!
This technology is amazing!
Digging Deep for virus in autism and schizophrenia - viruses may cause schizophrenia! One of my best friends in high school came down with schizophrenia over the course of a month or so - he never recovered - it was like night and day.
isn't this great news Cort - understanding the real complications - first finding then "tracking" the pathologies inflicted. After a visit to my own local GP practice today for just regular hypothyroidism (what's regular) and met again with doubts I know it is the Virologists who will solve for us all and sadly those to come. Go .
Hopefully Doctor Lipkin will be able to find XMRV virus im confident he will, i really don't understand why the FDA or some other agency whether private or public or a major university isn't trying to come up with a version of the virochip like the one they used to identify XMRV virus...
http://cchealth.clevelandclinic.org/features/going-viral
http://cchealth.clevelandclinic.org/features/going-viral
Hey Cort do you have any details on how their gonna do this study will they be taking samples from the WPI or will they do their own study independently with out any help or any samples from the WPI this is probably not available information yet but it would be interesting to know, i wouldn't mind flying to New York to be a Guinea Pig for Dr. Lipkin.. i will be checking the "center for infection and immunity" website on a regular basis to try to find more info..
What a scary statement!
Lipkin is very good but he isn't God. If he can't find it, it means that HE can't find it with HIS current technology, not that it doesn't exisit! Fauci's ready to throw in the towel based on one researcher's luck??? No wonder CFS research languishes!
Dr Lipkin is a star and it's great to have him working on this. But Dr Fauci worries me.
That's the second person who's said something like that this week, and it really bothers me because it sounds like they're saying this is the make-or-break study. If Dr Lipkin doesn't find it, I would hope it would simply lead them to try to determine why some studies find it and others don't, but I'm afraid if it looks like if he doesn't find it they'll call off the hunt. Nail-biting stuff.
Dr. Lipkin has an impressive resume, but I'm concerned about whether his team doesn't already have too much on their plate ("139 different virus projects"). Will the XMRV study be given his full attention?
Cort:
I must respectfully disagree with you on Lipkin's interpretation of the measles research regarding children with autism and otherwise normally developing children with gastro-intestinal problems.
The measles virus should clear from the body relatively quickly after a vaccination. The fact that they persisted more than four years after vaccination in many children, like Michelle Cedillo, for example, is an indication that something has gone wrong in the body.
If you find the measles virus in autistic children with gastrointestinal problems, and normally developing children with gastro-intestinal problems, doesn't that indicate the measles might be a problem for children with gastro-intestinal problems? And many of the children with autism who were treated for a measles infection in their gastro-intestinal system had a lessening of symptoms and improvements in health and cognition. You don't even want to open the discussion of our children and their gastro-intestinal problems. (Lots of poop stories!)
I am hopeful for Lipkin's research, but I have heard two negative things about him. First, the interpretation he made of Wakefield's research could have gone either way and he chose to take the interpretation most supportive of the current medical system. Second, I've heard he likes to steal the work of other people and claim it as his own.
For the benefit of all our communities I hope these reports are in error, or that those researchers working with him have protected themselves.
All the best,
Kent Heckenlively
Contributing Editor, Age of Autism
Glad to see that I'm not the only one concerned by this statement and the potential innuendo that it could mean. I hope that this isn't a case of dragging things out then plop out the announcement that nothing was found. And go back to normal operating procedure of the past three decades.
Have to pick you up on this point Cort, post #4 in this thread...someone else commented already on the other thread about this but it's a very important area and extreme caution is required to avoid repeating disinformation...
Just about every sentence of the above is confusing to me...
"A decade ago, for example, a British physician, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, claimed that vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella were linked to autism."
I'm pretty sure that isn't true. Dr Wakefield reported his scientific findings, which the other researchers involved have not rescinded: the findings remain valid. The story was picked up by the press and caused a widespread panic that MMR and autism may be linked, but I'm not sure that Dr Wakefield ever even explicitly claimed that MMR "may be" linked to autism, and I certainly don't think he went as far as to say that it IS linked to autism. The closest he got to saying that, as I understand it, was when asked by a journalist if he would vaccinate his own child with MMR, he reluctantly said 'probably not'. Dr Wakefield simply reported his scientific findings, which suggested such a link, this was picked up by the press, and Dr Wakefield was blamed for "scaremongering". Others know the history of all this far better than I, so I may be inaccurate in detail here, but my impression is that the idea that Dr Wakefield actually made this claim directly is a myth.
"One possibility he raised was that the live measles in the vaccines created inflammation in the intestines, allowing toxins or even viruses to move to the brain. One piece of evidence Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues offered was the finding that autistic children with intestinal disorders had high levels of measles viruses in their intestines."
This is rather confusing, in that as far as I'm aware this was the whole point of Dr Wakefield's paper, and I'm not aware of any other pieces of evidence he presented. This was pretty much the whole thing, as I recall it.
"Dr. Lipkin decided to test the claim in a different way, by looking for the viruses themselves."
Even more confusing. I'm not at all sure how this is a "different way" to what Dr Wakefield himself did. How did he find evidence of the viruses without looking for them?
"...he found no difference in the levels of measles viruses in the intestines of autistic and normal children with gastrointestinal disorders."
So, getting now to the heart of the matter: so what?!
This in no way proves the conclusion you drew from this Cort, that "viruses in the intestines of autistic children are not causing autism". It doesn't even prove that measles viruses in the intestines of autistic children are not causing autism. Hell, it doesn't even suggest that measles viruses in the intestines of autistic children are not causing autism!
It might have been interesting if he had compared also the levels of measles viruses in the intestines of normal children without gastrointestinal disorders. That might have allowed me to make some guesses about what the research might mean. But a comparison with children with gastrointestinal disorders (themselves ideopathic, remember), and the finding that they had measles viruses in their intestines as well, neither proves nor disproves anything. To me, if we could assume that these levels were lower in healthy children, Lipkin's findings would suggest a link between measles virus and both gastrointestinal disorders and autism. But in the absence of that data, and without more detail about how the 'autistic' children were selected and what the 'gastrointestinal disorders' were, Lipkin's findings seem to me to yield no information whatsoever about anything. The findings appear to be quite irrelevant to the important questions.
In fact, what a terrible experimental design, and how worryingly consistent that is with the other MMR/autism "debunking" studies I've seen. I've checked out the abstracts of 3 of those other studies, cited on wikipedia as the main evidence against an MMR/autism link, and provided you think carefully enough, it's not hard to see that the findings of all those other studies - despite the claims made about them - do not in any way rule out the possibility of a vaccine-mediated viral/retroviral link to autism.
In fact, consider the equivalent scenario for us: if a study compared XMRV levels in ME/CFS patients, autistic patients and patients with OI, and found similar levels in all of them, would that prove that XMRV is irrelevant to all 3 conditions? Do we have a similar but subtler non-sequitor to look forward to in the BWG experimental design? Seems we won't know until the results are in...
So: regarding the not-unrelated questions of trust, paranoia, fear, negativity etc...
I'm with the people who have no trust left in the medical research world in general, and especially not in the state sector of that world, and I'm with the people who are getting worried about how this is all unfolding right now.
The news that Lipkin was involved in a study that's being used as evidence against an MMR/autism link even though it is no such thing, is just about the last thing to inspire me with confidence. Put that together with the failure to live up to the promises of transparency over BWG Phase II, and the fact that once again crucial information is being withheld and this whole investigation is taking place behind closed doors, and I can only draw one firm conclusion at the moment: If the aim of Lipkin and of the BWG is to resolve the controversies over XMRV, then they can now only do so by confirming the WPI findings. If these groups conclude that there is no link between XMRV and ME/CFS, then I will not believe them, because those groups have lost my trust in the past few weeks.
Dr Singh's patent application inspires huge confidence and I do remain fairly optimistic that the "right" kind of answers may arrive soon. But the withholding of information by the BWG and the veil of secrecy that continues to surround all this research has done a lot to undermine that confidence lately.
Can there be any clearer demonstration that the cause of paranoia, distrust and conspiracy theory is purely and simply the abundance of governmental secrecy and dishonesty and the withholding of information? Once you know that the bodies responsible for directing you towards the truth are lying to you, can you be blamed for trying to figure out the truth for yourself, based on the information you can access, and the guesses you are obliged to make about the information that is withheld?
At the moment, there is very little I can know for certain, but among the things I do know for sure is that information is being actively withheld from the public in this matter, as it has been throughout. And if people are not being open and honest with me, even after promising they would be, why on earth would I trust those same people about anything, ever?
Just about every sentence of the above is confusing to me...
"A decade ago, for example, a British physician, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, claimed that vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella were linked to autism."
I'm pretty sure that isn't true. Dr Wakefield reported his scientific findings, which the other researchers involved have not rescinded: the findings remain valid. The story was picked up by the press and caused a widespread panic that MMR and autism may be linked, but I'm not sure that Dr Wakefield ever even explicitly claimed that MMR "may be" linked to autism, and I certainly don't think he went as far as to say that it IS linked to autism. The closest he got to saying that, as I understand it, was when asked by a journalist if he would vaccinate his own child with MMR, he reluctantly said 'probably not'. Dr Wakefield simply reported his scientific findings, which suggested such a link, this was picked up by the press, and Dr Wakefield was blamed for "scaremongering". Others know the history of all this far better than I, so I may be inaccurate in detail here, but my impression is that the idea that Dr Wakefield actually made this claim directly is a myth.
"One possibility he raised was that the live measles in the vaccines created inflammation in the intestines, allowing toxins or even viruses to move to the brain. One piece of evidence Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues offered was the finding that autistic children with intestinal disorders had high levels of measles viruses in their intestines."
This is rather confusing, in that as far as I'm aware this was the whole point of Dr Wakefield's paper, and I'm not aware of any other pieces of evidence he presented. This was pretty much the whole thing, as I recall it.
"Dr. Lipkin decided to test the claim in a different way, by looking for the viruses themselves."
Even more confusing. I'm not at all sure how this is a "different way" to what Dr Wakefield himself did. How did he find evidence of the viruses without looking for them?
"...he found no difference in the levels of measles viruses in the intestines of autistic and normal children with gastrointestinal disorders."
So, getting now to the heart of the matter: so what?!
This in no way proves the conclusion you drew from this Cort, that "viruses in the intestines of autistic children are not causing autism". It doesn't even prove that measles viruses in the intestines of autistic children are not causing autism. Hell, it doesn't even suggest that measles viruses in the intestines of autistic children are not causing autism!
It might have been interesting if he had compared also the levels of measles viruses in the intestines of normal children without gastrointestinal disorders. That might have allowed me to make some guesses about what the research might mean. But a comparison with children with gastrointestinal disorders (themselves ideopathic, remember), and the finding that they had measles viruses in their intestines as well, neither proves nor disproves anything. To me, if we could assume that these levels were lower in healthy children, Lipkin's findings would suggest a link between measles virus and both gastrointestinal disorders and autism. But in the absence of that data, and without more detail about how the 'autistic' children were selected and what the 'gastrointestinal disorders' were, Lipkin's findings seem to me to yield no information whatsoever about anything. The findings appear to be quite irrelevant to the important questions.
In fact, what a terrible experimental design, and how worryingly consistent that is with the other MMR/autism "debunking" studies I've seen. I've checked out the abstracts of 3 of those other studies, cited on wikipedia as the main evidence against an MMR/autism link, and provided you think carefully enough, it's not hard to see that the findings of all those other studies - despite the claims made about them - do not in any way rule out the possibility of a vaccine-mediated viral/retroviral link to autism.
In fact, consider the equivalent scenario for us: if a study compared XMRV levels in ME/CFS patients, autistic patients and patients with OI, and found similar levels in all of them, would that prove that XMRV is irrelevant to all 3 conditions? Do we have a similar but subtler non-sequitor to look forward to in the BWG experimental design? Seems we won't know until the results are in...
So: regarding the not-unrelated questions of trust, paranoia, fear, negativity etc...
I'm with the people who have no trust left in the medical research world in general, and especially not in the state sector of that world, and I'm with the people who are getting worried about how this is all unfolding right now.
The news that Lipkin was involved in a study that's being used as evidence against an MMR/autism link even though it is no such thing, is just about the last thing to inspire me with confidence. Put that together with the failure to live up to the promises of transparency over BWG Phase II, and the fact that once again crucial information is being withheld and this whole investigation is taking place behind closed doors, and I can only draw one firm conclusion at the moment: If the aim of Lipkin and of the BWG is to resolve the controversies over XMRV, then they can now only do so by confirming the WPI findings. If these groups conclude that there is no link between XMRV and ME/CFS, then I will not believe them, because those groups have lost my trust in the past few weeks.
Dr Singh's patent application inspires huge confidence and I do remain fairly optimistic that the "right" kind of answers may arrive soon. But the withholding of information by the BWG and the veil of secrecy that continues to surround all this research has done a lot to undermine that confidence lately.
Can there be any clearer demonstration that the cause of paranoia, distrust and conspiracy theory is purely and simply the abundance of governmental secrecy and dishonesty and the withholding of information? Once you know that the bodies responsible for directing you towards the truth are lying to you, can you be blamed for trying to figure out the truth for yourself, based on the information you can access, and the guesses you are obliged to make about the information that is withheld?
At the moment, there is very little I can know for certain, but among the things I do know for sure is that information is being actively withheld from the public in this matter, as it has been throughout. And if people are not being open and honest with me, even after promising they would be, why on earth would I trust those same people about anything, ever?
Yes it is nail-biting stuff but we do have the Blood Working Group and Singh and Glaxo Smith Kline and surely other studies coming out long before the Lipkin study will wind up. Hopefully they will find XMRV and they will inform Dr. Lipkin's study (how could they not?) and everything will work out.
one of the best science writers
Carl Zimmer, the journalist who wrote the article, is one of the best science writers in the field. Hopefully he will continue to track Dr. Lipkin's work as well as the work of others such as Ila Singh. Chang Lee is the photographer who made Dr. Lipkin's portrait.
Carl Zimmer, the journalist who wrote the article, is one of the best science writers in the field. Hopefully he will continue to track Dr. Lipkin's work as well as the work of others such as Ila Singh. Chang Lee is the photographer who made Dr. Lipkin's portrait.
Oh, now look what you've gone and done. Just when we'd gotten the boys all calmed down from their last bout of Ila Singh worship ...now they've gone all starry-eyed and goofy again.
Ha. I wasn't aware of the Singh worship. Was just a mild feminist statement on my part.