Fact Check from a WhatsApp Group

[Dude]

Hello everyone,

Today, I came across a screenshot from a Long Covid WhatsApp group that someone posted. When I read the text, I somehow thought it must be fake. I couldn't find anything about it, though. Can anyone confirm this? The text translates to:

News about the CFS study at Cornell University, in which I am also taking part.

During the preparatory discussion for the biopsy, I was told that the previous Long Covid study (not yet published) shows that the viruses are active in the small intestine and constantly trigger the immune system there.

Now with the cfs study they think the same thing happens with enteroviruses. If this is confirmed, we will know what is probably the cause! That would be huge progress!

He also explained that HIV, for example, is not curable because the virus can also be banished from the body, just not from the small intestine.

But that gives hope! Then there would at least be a test to detect CFS! And a concrete indication of how to develop drugs for this purpose.

However, it will take at least a year for the study to be published.

 

[Dude]

No this muste be fake, the part with HIV isnt even true. Sorry, was to excited.

 

[Pearshaped]

I think there is more truth to it than we might think, even if this is a fake (is it really?)

 

[southwestforests]

As it happens, Cornell and enterovirus and ME/CFS are connected in a couple different ways.
A thing which neither validates nor invalidates what was presented on that group.

One of them being a reference to the history of looking at enterovirus and ME/CFS,

https://neuroimmune.cornell.edu/new...-disease-etiology-in-mecfs-a-critical-review/

This methodologically focused review covers aspects of ME/CFS pathophysiology that are consistent with chronic enterovirus infection outcomes and then closely examines the technology used in in past ME/CFS publications to determine how rigorously the enterovirus theory of disease etiology has been investigated.

That links to,
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.688486/full

REVIEW article​

Front. Med., 18 June 2021

Sec. Infectious Diseases – Surveillance, Prevention and Treatment

The Enterovirus Theory of Disease Etiology in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Critical Review​

Adam J. O'NealMaureen R. Hanson*

• Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States

Volume 8 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.688486

...

Furthermore, we find that the methods used in prior studies were inadequate to rule out the presence of chronic enteroviral infections in individuals with ME/CFS. Given the possibility that such infections could be contributing to morbidity and preventing recovery, further studies of appropriate biological samples with the latest molecular methods are urgently needed.

Introduction

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex multi-system disease of unknown cause for which there is little insight into the molecular basis of disease progression, persistence and in rare cases - remission. The ME/CFS literature includes findings of patient immune system irregularities, abnormal cellular energy metabolism, and various altered autonomic nervous system manifestations including post-orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, orthostatic intolerance, and dysregulated hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis. A hallmark symptom, required for many case definitions, is exercise intolerance or post-exertional malaise (PEM) (1, 2). The name of the illness itself is controversial, with one view holding that Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, a name dating from a series of early outbreaks of the disease (3), defines an illness that is different than Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a name created in 1988 through a U.S. government committee (4). A discussion of the case definition and nomenclature is outside of the scope of this article, so we will use “ME/CFS” despite of the possibility that the initial CFS case definition results in inclusion of individuals who would not have met earlier criteria for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

ME/CFS case documentation shows evidence of both sporadic events involving singular individuals and regional outbreaks involving significant fractions of affected communities, especially hospitals, schools, and military bases. Machine learning estimation of ME/CFS prevalence using large-scale medical claims data gives a frequency of diagnosis in the United States that falls somewhere between 1.7 and 3.38 million Americans (5) and world-wide, the prevalence may be as high as 65 million (6). ME/CFS is not a rare disease and therefore understanding of disease pathophysiology and discovery of standardized biological markers or tests are important to identify appropriate treatments.
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