From Dr Bell's Lyndonville News

[ixchelkali]

Dr Bell's latest edition of his Lyndonville News newsletter (http://www.davidsbell.com/) has a question he was asked that I think is worth posting here:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Question:

In the Dubbo study, a percentage of persons developed CFS after Epstein-Barr virus, Ross River virus or Q fever. They must have saved blood from those who came down with CFS and those who did not. Test the blood for XMRV. If this virus is present in the subjects who came down with CFS, but not present in the blood of those people who had regular illnesses and quickly recovered, we would have the answer as to whether XMRV "causes" CFS. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Answer: [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Excellent question. I would hope that the CDC and the Australian government are doing exactly this.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I think it's a great idea. I'm not sure, though, that I'd want the CDC or the Australian government to be doing the testing, at least until we're sure they know how to find XMRV when it's there. But testing that blood seems like a very good idea.
[/FONT]

 

[Cort]

I've heard that Dr. Lloyd is or was going to test those samples - but I think he's right - its hard to tell anything until we have a definitive test. I wonder if there's much point in doing a study until we have that.

 

[Greggory Blundell]

Another relevant question might be who within the CDC would be doing the testing...

 

[ixchelkali]

Clarification

I should have used the quotation formatting to make it clear, the last paragraph was my comment on Dr Bell's post. I wouldn't want him blamed for my opinion.

My opinion:
I think it's a great idea. I'm not sure, though, that I'd want the CDC or the Australian government to be doing the testing, at least until we're sure they know how to find XMRV when it's there. But testing that blood seems like a very good idea.

 

[jspotila]

One of the criticisms of the negative studies (especially the Dutch study) is that the samples were old, and I've read a number of posts here where people have said XMRV can't be found in old blood. But now that WPI/Hemispherix are looking for XMRV in banked samples from Ampligen trials, and the Blood Safety working group is (I think) gearing up to test some banked samples, I hope it means that the difficulties with finding XMRV in banked samples have been overcome. In fact, I think Dr. Peterson said at the CFSAC in October 2009 that WPI had grown live XMRV from a blood sample that was 20+ years old. If this hurdle has been overcome, it will be a leap forward.

 

[Otis]

I should have used the quotation formatting to make it clear, the last paragraph was my comment on Dr Bell's post. I wouldn't want him blamed for my opinion.

My opinion:
I think it's a great idea. I'm not sure, though, that I'd want the CDC or the Australian government to be doing the testing, at least until we're sure they know how to find XMRV when it's there. But testing that blood seems like a very good idea.

That's funny, I was about to say that Dr. Bell is getting feistier these days but that was really quite the shot across the bow from the mild-mannered gentleman - God love him.

 

[Esther12]

Not entirely relevent, but this reminds me of an article I recently read in Invest in ME magazine about a study looking at glandular fever in teenagers, which seemed to show that only a tiny percentage went on to develop CFS in the longer-term. Just thought I'd mention it as it was a surprising result to me.

 

[Hope123]

Not entirely relevent, but this reminds me of an article I recently read in Invest in ME magazine about a study looking at glandular fever in teenagers, which seemed to show that only a tiny percentage went on to develop CFS in the longer-term. Just thought I'd mention it as it was a surprising result to me.

Well, the number has been around 10% post-mono, which is not a small percentage. We know practically everyone (100%) gets infected by EBV by adulthood; 30% of this number get symptomatic mono. 10% of 30% is equal to 3% of the population.

 

[Esther12]

I'd always thought it was 10% too - and from my personal experience had found that lots of people never fully recovered, even if their ongoing fatigue wasn't very disabling and they were never diagnosed with CFS.

I've just dug out 'breakthrough' magazine (ME research). It had people gradually recovering from glandular fever, with 7% meeting the criteria for CFS after 12 months, and 4% after 24 (when the study stopped). Not a big thing, but it had stuck in my mind since reading it, and this seemed a semi-relevant thread.