The reporter quotes Dr Mikovits as saying one possible way to spread the infection is through breast-feeding. Dr Mikovits herself says maybe through breast-feeding. I don't think that makes it sound as though it's proven. It's true that it's a possible method of transmission of a retrovirus, according to studies with HIV.
It looked to me as though the reporter had asked her (before that clip) how children might get Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (or other XMRV associated disease), and Dr Mikovits was explaining that XMRV could be transmitted by mother-to-child, and then a trigger sets off the immune system, causing XMRV to replicate and cause disease. In other words, mechanisms that could explain it, based on what is known about retroviruses in general. And it's a mechanism that also squares with her theory of XMRV involvement in autism.
"Experts" are going to be speculating in the news about this. I'd rather have that kind of reasonable, realistic speculation. Heck, the psych school have been doing it for decades.
I don't think it's possible to talk about XMRV without discussing possible methods of transmission. It's one of the first things people are going to want to know. And reporters are going to play it up to the scariest scenarios they can, because they want to justify why this is news. I don't think anyone involved in this will be able to avoid commenting on transmission. Wasn't the very first question, is it in the blood supply? And reporters will focus on babies, because babies are "innocent" (and presumably not crazy), we want to protect them, and the thought of babies getting infected scares the heck out of people...and that gives a news story legs.
As much as I might wish it otherwise, I think we need to be prepared for sensationalized news reports. The alternative is no news reports. Or, possibly, trivialized reports along the lines of my nightmare-vision headline: "Is a virus making you tired?"
This one actually wasn't bad. I guess it's too much to hope that they might say Chronic Fatigue Syndrome instead of chronic fatigue. But maybe soon we can lose that #*@% silly name.
It looked to me as though the reporter had asked her (before that clip) how children might get Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (or other XMRV associated disease), and Dr Mikovits was explaining that XMRV could be transmitted by mother-to-child, and then a trigger sets off the immune system, causing XMRV to replicate and cause disease. In other words, mechanisms that could explain it, based on what is known about retroviruses in general. And it's a mechanism that also squares with her theory of XMRV involvement in autism.
"Experts" are going to be speculating in the news about this. I'd rather have that kind of reasonable, realistic speculation. Heck, the psych school have been doing it for decades.
I don't think it's possible to talk about XMRV without discussing possible methods of transmission. It's one of the first things people are going to want to know. And reporters are going to play it up to the scariest scenarios they can, because they want to justify why this is news. I don't think anyone involved in this will be able to avoid commenting on transmission. Wasn't the very first question, is it in the blood supply? And reporters will focus on babies, because babies are "innocent" (and presumably not crazy), we want to protect them, and the thought of babies getting infected scares the heck out of people...and that gives a news story legs.
As much as I might wish it otherwise, I think we need to be prepared for sensationalized news reports. The alternative is no news reports. Or, possibly, trivialized reports along the lines of my nightmare-vision headline: "Is a virus making you tired?"
This one actually wasn't bad. I guess it's too much to hope that they might say Chronic Fatigue Syndrome instead of chronic fatigue. But maybe soon we can lose that #*@% silly name.