Thanks, Bob. Yes I clearly heard Dr. Lo say the following in the Q & A period after the presentation: (in your words from above but the exact ideas)
"Are Alter's viruses and Mikovits' viruses different variants of the same virus, or are they totally different viruses? Obviously there are differences, but the similarities seem to be more significant than the differences.
Alter says that these differences are exactly what he expects to see in a retrovirus, so these observed virus mutations support the type of human retrovirus infection that Mikovits' XMRV research indicated.
Alter says that the Hep C and HIV viruses exhibit the same pattern of variants as this new type of human retrovirus that Alter and Mikovits have found in ME/CFS patients.
Indications from Alter are that all these viruses might be referred to as variants of a single disease associated virus, just the same as the multiple Hep C virus variants are often referred to as the Hep C virus (singular)."
Yet, because this came after the paper's presentation and was underplayed, both the media and we as a group took off with the idea of there being different viruses, and that therefore this could not have been a valid replication in its findings. This was an expensive error in judgment, in my opinion. Let's focus on the different testing methods and above all, the different patient cohorts, to begin with, to find explanations for the different results among papers.