From what I can gather from the research workers in the ME field I have talked to we do not have reliable evidence of immunodeficiency on laboratory tests...
So I would like to put out an invitation:
If any researcher anywhere in the world can tell me how I can measure an immunodeficiency in ME patients that would mean we should not go ahead I would like to know... I would want to be sure that if I sent 20 ME samples and 20 healthy samples on a blinded label basis there would be a clear difference between the two - say 80% of ME below a line and 80% of normals above. Does anyone think such tests exist?
So I would like to put out an invitation:
If any researcher anywhere in the world can tell me how I can measure an immunodeficiency in ME patients that would mean we should not go ahead I would like to know... I would want to be sure that if I sent 20 ME samples and 20 healthy samples on a blinded label basis there would be a clear difference between the two - say 80% of ME below a line and 80% of normals above. Does anyone think such tests exist?
If we're talking about there being a number of different ME's, wouldn't that mean that there could be immunodeficiencies specific to particular forms of ME?
In such circumstances, is it reasonable expect at least 80% of all ME cases to exhibit the same immune abnormalities?
FWIW, I suspect that the disparity of immune test results among ME patients might prove a useful tool in trying to identify sub-groups / different ME's.
For example, some published studies have reported low CD8 numbers; others have reported high CD8 numbers. Mightn't this point to there being some ME patients with consistently elevated CD8 and some with consistently suppressed CD8; and to these sub-groups exhibiting different pathologies?