I think the first thing you're gonna hear are different centers reporting on what they've found in the next round of research. So, the CDC, and all the CFS sites, and retrovirologists, and whoever is kind of putting their resources together to study and measure XMRV in a group of patients.
What's problematic is - we don't even know if everybody will choose their patients the same way. So, it's gonna take some time and I predict what you're going to hear are widely varying numbers. From none, you know in the Reno study it's like all the patients have XMRV, I believe there will be reports where no XMRV is found in CFS patients and then you're going to find everything in between.
And it's still going to have to do with the very problems we've always had - is we don't know how to define our patient group (and we're not going to redefine it by the test, later) and the other thing is it will probably relate to the assays and the kind of the quality of the tests that are being done and whether they're accurate or not.
And it may take some time to sort out the differences. But...I know it's frustrating, but that's science. Ya know, if four different groups come out with four different results, they've got to put their heads together and find out why they're not all getting the same results and that will lead us to the next set of questions - about how we define patients and how we improve the assays.
So, that's going to be the first, I think, round of activity - what you're going to hear soon. And also, I think that the information from the National Blood Bank - that kind of information - is not going to have to wait for a publication. When their study is done, they will announce what they find. And I think that would happen fairly quickly.
But, again, that kind of study is hindered by the technology. Do they have a good assay? Do they know they using the right assay? And are the going to study patients in just one group or are they going to look across groups - and they're going to look across groups. And they're going to look at groups from around different areas and compare it to groups in Nevada and groups that are known to be positive for the virus. This is going to take a little bit of time.
Ya know, we just did that exercise study and we could study about 2 patients a week. Ya know, we did 60 patients. It just takes time. And even drawing the blood, having one person come in and draw the blood, and take the blood, and handle the blood correctly, and take it to the lab...if you do that in 1000 patients, we're talking about a big, big, big time consuming project. So, projects are happening everywhere, but it's just hard to get it done quickly, because you can't just run it up to ARUP (Associated Regional and University Pathologists) and run it through a machine.