Dr. Marshall on XMRV

[Cort]

Dr. Marshall's thoughts on XMRV can be found on his forum

http://www.marshallprotocol.com/forum39/13461-1.html

He's got quite a tongue! and I don't get several of his points. I do know someone (not a CFS patient) who did very well on his protocol and a CFS patient who didn't. Kind of a snarky guy at times.

It appears, on the other hand, that Suzanne Vernon is leaving no stone unturned.

 

[anne]

Since he's so big on giving tips, I might suggest one to him--when you are posting as a professional, smileys do not necessarily enhance credibility.

 

[lebowski]

doctor of what

dr title in front of his name gives a false impression while talking about medicine , as far as i know he is not a dr in medicine ..

 

[Tony]

Marshall has a PhD but not is not an MD

This bloke is a shocker! I'm glad he moved to the US, you guys are welcome to him...sorry! We'll send another good rock band over by way of apology, OK?

This bloke makes enormous claims about curing all sorts of disease, not just helping, but curing, and has been proven wrong so many times by so many patients who have faithfully followed his protocol for years.

And he has the gall to say that Mikovits and Lombardi's science is bad? Get a grip Trevor, sheesh!

 

[Mark]

Sheesh, I wonder how much de-programming it takes to become a 'Member in Phase 3'.

I remember reading this gibberish a week or two ago and, while his disinformation is laughable on any close inspection, as part of an overall google-trawl of the subject, the headline you get from a scan is a Doctor (not even a real doctor) who's sceptical about XMRV and sees multiple (spurious) flaws in the study. So this sort of disinformation is profoundly damaging actually in the information war, slowing the progress of acceptance of the truth.

I do find it fascinating the way that X is shining a light on some of these dark corners, and bringing them into sharp relief, somehow it seems easier now to work out who was genuine all along and who were the charlatans. Those practitioners who respond seriously on a scientific level all seem to have signficant science to add to the emerging picture, and the rest seem to be talking gibberish. Or is it just my imagination?

 

[Marylib]

Me too

Sheesh, I wonder how much de-programming it takes to become a 'Member in Phase 3'.

I remember reading this gibberish a week or two ago and, while his disinformation is laughable on any close inspection, as part of an overall google-trawl of the subject, the headline you get from a scan is a Doctor (not even a real doctor) who's sceptical about XMRV and sees multiple (spurious) flaws in the study. So this sort of disinformation is profoundly damaging actually in the information war, slowing the progress of acceptance of the truth.

I do find it fascinating the way that X is shining a light on some of these dark corners, and bringing them into sharp relief, somehow it seems easier now to work out who was genuine all along and who were the charlatans. Those practitioners who respond seriously on a scientific level all seem to have signficant science to add to the emerging picture, and the rest seem to be talking gibberish. Or is it just my imagination?

I have the same impression.

 

[Katie]

I feel a bit bad eavesdropping on a conversation but on Mr Marshall (yeah, 'doctor') it's fascinating to watch him write to his own choir, not guarded at all and he comes across as... the only phrase I can think of that perfectly sums him up is not polite enough to put on here... ok, censored version... a closeminded, dogmatic windbag with all the scientific curiousity of a plate of Little Chef omlette.

Mark, you summed it up best.

The only criticisms I've taken heed of since the WPI study are those which ask questions and request further information through further studies. Those which seek to blast it out of the water in one fell swoop seem not only to fail miserably but also make themselves look like hacks. Some simple research that we've all done through google have answered questions raised about sampling and whether the lymphoma patients were part of the 101. In someways, it's building my faith in XMRV when I should remember those that say 'wait, we need to do more first'.

If XMRV does work out (causal or just a virus that can be treated to increase quality of life) some people are going to be out of a lot of money.

 

[garcia]

I wonder how many articles TM has had published in Science?

Answer here

 

[anne]

Also, is he really claiming Dr. Vernon helped get the study in Science? It seems like that would be something we would know. There's been no hint of collaboration between the WPI and CAA, and Dr. Vernon has been very cautious about the study.

 

[garcia]

Also, is he really claiming Dr. Vernon helped get the study in Science? It seems like that would be something we would know. There's been no hint of collaboration between the WPI and CAA, and Dr. Vernon has been very cautious about the study.

Trevor seems to have gotten his wires crossed. Kinda ironic given he is an electrical engineer.

 

[Mark]

a closeminded, dogmatic windbag with all the scientific curiousity of a plate of Little Chef omlette.

I think you're giving him too much benefit of the doubt there Katie.

The impression I got was more of a cross between a deliberate charlatan and the head of a cult. The scientific detail he invents gives him away, like when he impressively tells his followers he's off to compare the genome sequences or some such, or asks questions to check that none of his group are educated in particular subjects before he spouts. His imitation science seems pretty transparent to me, but only because I've recently educated myself in some of the science and realise how far out of line he's standing. His group manipulation techniques, on the other hand, look impressive.

In other words, it's not even an out-there, controversial pet theory of his, it's a theory he cooked up in order to make money. There are a lot of these about, and they have done our cause no good at all, they have taken our money and discredited us in the eyes of the world as they do so. They have a lot to answer for, some of these people.

 

[Katie]

I think you're giving him too much benefit of the doubt there Katie.

The impression I got was more of a cross between a deliberate charlatan and the head of a cult. The scientific detail he invents gives him away, like when he impressively tells his followers he's off to compare the genome sequences or some such, or asks questions to check that none of his group are educated in particular subjects before he spouts. His imitation science seems pretty transparent to me, but only because I've recently educated myself in some of the science and realise how far out of line he's standing. His group manipulation techniques, on the other hand, look impressive.

In other words, it's not even an out-there, controversial pet theory of his, it's a theory he cooked up in order to make money. There are a lot of these about, and they have done our cause no good at all, they have taken our money and discredited us in the eyes of the world as they do so. They have a lot to answer for, some of these people.

I've just gone and had a little poke around and now I'm slowly closing my tabs and going to read some post here to make myself sensible again. Gosh what I read was troubling, a lot of it was complete mumbo jumbo dressed up as science, a little reminsent of Phil Parker, but he goes to more effort. The unquestioning crowd of patients around him was even more trouble on a human level. As long as there are desparate people, there will always be people like him.

I stand by my point, Little Chef omlette is pretty bad, at least it was in the early nineties when I last had it.

I've been noticing that you talk a lot of sense around these parts Mark, I think you might be developing a series of followers, I really appreciate your input.

 

[fresh_eyes]

OK, Marshall is absurd. You know we're truly desperate when we even consider his protocol. But there was an interesting link to an article in Scientific American in those discussion - have you guys seen this? It addresses the question of whether XMRV is exogenous (acquired) v. endogenous (passed down in the genes, and it looks like they suspect it might be a combination, with eXogenous XMRV possibly activating previously latent eNDogenous retroviruses in the genome:

"We think that the problem is that CFS is a collection of many, many different diseases even though it has similar symptoms," says Brigitte Huber, a professor of pathology at Tufts University's Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences in Boston. She and others suspect that the retrovirus may be unleashing other underlying conditions and viruses in the body.

"This new retrovirus may be able, through infecting human cells, [to] induce a transcription of an endogenous virus," says Huber, who has been studying the presence of an ancient retrovirus (HERV-K18) dormant in most people but active in patients with CFS and multiple sclerosis. "We've already shown that Epstein-Barr virus can do exactly this."

Even in their testing for the XMRV retrovirus, Mikovits says, "We could see a human endogenous virus at the same time" as XMRV. "There are a number of old diseases that seem to be rising at an infectious rate," she says. Although this background noise of various viruses may be difficult to sort though, it brings clues to help researchers find the root cause of CFS. "It's possible, downstream, that this will all feed into the same mechanism," Huber says.

That's from Scientific American, here http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chronic-fatigue-syndrome-retrovirus

This seems like it could be a very big deal, considering the human genome is apparently 8% old retroviruses thought to be defunct.

 

[MEKoan]

Fresh Eyes,

Your post was fascinating but many people won't bother reading this thread. Do you think it deserves it's own thread?

Maybe it's linked up elsewhere but my brain has been offline for a couple of weeks. Just ignore me if I'm not making sense.

Thanks much,
Koan

 

[SDD1244]

I don't care for Dr. Marshall personally, but I was on his protocol and made some progress. I did stop the protocol early, to start on the Pleo and UNDA formulas (also making progress with that). I'm still in touch with two people who are on his protocol and they both have said that they've made some progress. I can only tell you that treatment is very frustrating because it is long (especially for those of us who have been ill a long time) and sometimes brutal.

Anyhow... one of the CFS patients who completed the Marshall Protocol, is now promoting his protocol on her website. In addition to that, she has interviews with some patients who were or currently on the MP. Here is the link:

http://bacteriality.com/

 

[fresh_eyes]

Fresh Eyes,

Your post was fascinating but many people won't bother reading this thread. Do you think it deserves it's own thread?

Maybe it's linked up elsewhere but my brain has been offline for a couple of weeks. Just ignore me if I'm not making sense.

Thanks much,
Koan

Good thought - I'll start a new thread.

 

[Mark]

the question of whether XMRV is exogenous (acquired) v. endogenous (passed down in the genes, and it looks like they suspect it might be a combination...

This seems like it could be a very big deal, considering the human genome is apparently 8% old retroviruses thought to be defunct.

I agree this line of enquiry looks very likely to be important. If there is a bigger picture that's set to emerge and replace the core conclusions from the WPI study with a more nuanced picture, this is a very good candidate.

I was looking into multiple sclerosis on wiki the other day (following up the XMRV association with atypical MS), and I was quite startled by what I read because although the clinical symptoms and other stuff at the top of the page don't look too familiar, the rest of the explanations look uncannily similar to the XMRV theory. The impression I got was that the best theory on how MS works (and it's another ideopathic condition) seemed to sound like an endogenous retrovirus version of XMRV, even down to details like B and T cell abnormalities. Not to mention the unexplained rise in MS since the 80s.

The 8% of the genome made up of ancient retroviruses is also a really suggestive factor. To me it suggests that the process of XMRV crossing species is an ancient process, and that exogenous viruses become endogenous in this way all the time.

So even if as individuals some of us don't have XMRV, it's quite likely that the general model of retroviruses creating neuro-immune disorders will still hold good for other as-yet-undiscovered retroviruses and will turn out to be a breakthrough in understanding not just a range of ideopathic conditions, but the origins of many other established conditions too.

When you think of it, it seems more likely than not that there are further retroviruses out there waiting to be discovered.

And yes Koan, I agree this subject is worth moving to another thread away from the Dr Marshall discussion. I remember another thread touching on this issue recently but not sure which one.

 

[fresh_eyes]

Hi everybody, new thread started on this: "XMRV endogenous AND exogenous??" (thanks islandfinn for the title suggestion!) Come on over there if you like and let's discuss.

 

[SDD1244]

Wildaisy,

I heard about that. Although I don't want to discuss what I think of Marshall personally... I can only say what his protocol was like for me.

From what I understand, AIDS patients do not die from retroviruses alone... they need a co-infection and often that co-infection is mycoplasma. I do believe that bacterial infections are just as serious if not more serious than our viral infections.

 

[myco]

SDD1244,

What you said is very important and what most CFS patients are overlooking. The virus may open the door, but the bacterial infections will disable and do real damage unless they are treated.

I did pulsed antibiotics in different combos for Mycoplasma, Lyme, etc and am cured.

I really wish more CFS patients would get the Mycoplasma co-infection dilemma. It's really the key to getting your life back. I have tried to tell them on many boards. Oh well. One can only try.