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Interesting - XMRV & Autism

shannah

Senior Member
Messages
1,429
PCR and serology find no association between xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) and autism
Brent C. Satterfield , Rebecca A. Garcia , Fiorella Gurrieri and Charles E. Schwartz

Molecular Autism 2010, 1:14doi:10.1186/2040-2392-1-14


Published: 14 October 2010

Abstract (provisional)
Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) is a retrovirus implicated in prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Press releases have suggested that it could contribute to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study we used two PCR assays and one antibody assay to screen 25 blood samples from autistic children born to mothers with CFS and from 20 mixed controls including family members of the children assayed, people with fibromyalgia and people with chronic Lyme disease. Using a real-time PCR assay, we screened an additional 48 South Carolina autism disorder samples, 96 Italian ASD)samples, 61 South Carolina ASD samples and 184 healthy controls. Despite having the ability to detect low copy number XMRV DNA in a large background of cellular DNA, none of the PCR assays found any evidence of XMRV infection in blood cells from patients or controls. Further, no anti-XMRV antibodies were detected, ruling out possible low level or abortive infections in blood or in other reservoirs. These results imply that XMRV is not associated with autism.

http://www.molecularautism.com/content/1/1/14
 

shannah

Senior Member
Messages
1,429
Ah - this is making a little more sense now. Just found out a little more on this.

http://www.molecularautism.com/content/pdf/2040-2392-1-14.pdf

COMPETING INTERESTS
BCS and RAG are employees of Cooperative Diagnostics. Cooperative Diagnostics is
a commercial enterprise that owns the rights to the XMRV real-time PCR assay
described in this manuscript, in addition to the Master Mix that was used. Publication of
these results may well reduce the potential market that Cooperative Diagnostics could
reach with its XMRV assay.
AUTHORS CONTRIBUTIONS
BCS and RAG designed the XMRV assay. CES and BCS planned the experiments, and
RAG ran the assays. BCS wrote the paper. CES and FG contributed samples and
expertise surrounding autism.
 

guest

Guest
Messages
320
Ah - this is making a little more sense now. Just found out a little more on this.

http://www.molecularautism.com/content/pdf/2040-2392-1-14.pdf

COMPETING INTERESTS
BCS and RAG are employees of Cooperative Diagnostics. Cooperative Diagnostics is
a commercial enterprise that owns the rights to the XMRV real-time PCR assay
described in this manuscript, in addition to the Master Mix that was used. Publication of
these results may well reduce the potential market that Cooperative Diagnostics could
reach with its XMRV assay.
AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
BCS and RAG designed the XMRV assay. CES and BCS planned the experiments, and
RAG ran the assays. BCS wrote the paper. CES and FG contributed samples and
expertise surrounding autism.

Sorry but this is contradicting. A negative study is bad for their business.
 

Jemal

Senior Member
Messages
1,031
I just can't believe all these scientists don't want to find XMRV or are incompetent. There must be something else.
 

shannah

Senior Member
Messages
1,429
Well here's a scary thought on their website ...

"Research
Cooperative Diagnostics is participating with government institutions in research on the Xenotropic Murine Leukemia-Related Virus and diseases potentially caused by the virus.

Until scientific controversy surrounding XMRV is resolved, Cooperative Diagnostics will no longer offer its test for sale to the public.
LearnMore"


Perhaps the CDC used them ! (lol)

http://www.codiagnostics.com/XMRV/index2.php
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
The entire field of so called doctors is degenerated. Money talks! Ego talks! What about the Thruth set you free?
It seems like some doctors are dyslexic and interpret The hippocratic oath is an hypocrite oath...
Veritas Vos Liberabit is a fine motto, but doesn't apply to hypocritical oafs.
 

Berthe

Senior Member
Messages
136
Location
near Antwerp
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

This is the Thruth in the eyes of the beholder, the doctors who sweare this oath. I know it' s a fine motto and doesn't apply to hypocritical oafs:oops:

Love,
Berthe

http://www.onwilliglichaam.blogspot.com
 

omerbasket

Senior Member
Messages
510
I just can't believe all these scientists don't want to find XMRV or are incompetent. There must be something else.
I think that there is something else. I think that some of them are just arrogant. After the study of the WPI, that was the found XMRV in peripheral blood for the first time, there has been, I think, about 15-20 publications looking for XMRV in the blood (not just of CFS patients) - and all of them did not replicate WPI's study. Moreover, most of them found zero XMRV or very close to zero. I think that some of them might have tried not to find XMRV, but I think that there are also scientists the performed these studies that did try to find the truth, but they are arrogant. They think that as scientists, they know everything. They forget that even if they knew all the science that a person can know these days - there are still things out there which we don't know yet. For exapmle, you can see how many diseases there are out there for which we don't know the cause. But they probably tend to forget that, and therefore skip an elementary part of science: Before you move on to try to find something with other methods - which might or might not tell you the truth - first check out if you can reproduce the results that were reported, by reproducing the methods that were used. But they probably think that they know everything - so they test with other methods, find nothing, and than say that their method should have found something if something was there. "Should have found"?! What is that? You don't know if it would have found. Therefore, don't mislead us. First - reproduce. Than, if the results were reproduced too, move on if you'd like to try to validate it by other methods (which is, by the way, not absolutley neccessary in order to prove that the initial methods are correct).

About the autism study here - again, what would we expect from an organization that fouind nothing when testing people from here on this forum for XMRV? Perhaps even that is their motive to find nothing - because if they now have found XMRV in people, what would they say to all of these people that paid for getting tested in their lab, and all of them were found negative for XMRV?
And also - we now have several studies finding XMRV in the blood. Is it reasonable to think that your methods are good, when you test 434 persons and don't even find one copy of XMRV?

I think that this study tells us nothing, and I think that a study that tells us a lot is the study performed by the WPI and the NCI which was published in the abstracts PDF of the first XMRV workshop - a study that found 14 out of 17 (82%) autistic children to be positive for XMRV.
 

shannah

Senior Member
Messages
1,429
Excerpt from:

Dr Mikovits' lecture at the NJCFSA on October 17th 2010, XMRV positive's notes
.by XMRV Global Action on Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 7:10pm.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/xmrv-...r-17th-2010-xmrv-positives-notes/453519671796

"I just remembered another point. The latest negative autism study used Cooperative Diagnostics 'drop o' blood on paper' test. They've been trying to get that thing published since last fall and only after the WPI presented their autism poster at the XMRV Workshop did they finally published this 'crap' study. Her words, not mine." (referring to Dr. Mikovits)


.
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
Excerpt from:

Dr Mikovits' lecture at the NJCFSA on October 17th 2010, XMRV positive's notes
.by XMRV Global Action on Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 7:10pm...

"I just remembered another point. The latest negative autism study used Cooperative Diagnostics 'drop o' blood on paper' test. They've been trying to get that thing published since last fall and only after the WPI presented their autism poster at the XMRV Workshop did they finally published this 'crap' study. Her words, not mine." (referring to Dr. Mikovits).
The group at the CDC keeps digging their own grave by continuing to use test assays that have never been validated using blood from any infected human being -- with or without apparent illness. This follows on their use of diagnostic criteria only they could validate, while ignoring Jason's invalidation of the same. Remove the 38% with a primary depressive disorder, as found by qualified psychiatrists, and it is not clear at all you have any specific illness left.

Circularity is apparently the preferred modus operandi for some at CDC. It has the advantage that it cannot be falsified, to offset the minor disadvantage of not being science. But, then this dispute was never about science was it?
 
Messages
90
Location
Cleveland, Ohio
This is why the big need for a standardized, reliable assay (test) was one of the big things to emerge from that conference a bunch of weeks ago. This will most likely emerge from the Blood group, since that is where the big anxiety among government officials is: how do you accurately screen in high volume for the presence of a difficult to detect organism.

Cooperative Diagnostics has nothing here. Just because a method can "detect low copy numbers" doesn't mean it will, especially if other factors are involved in getting adequate samples. As far as I've seen, they popped out a test without any validity or reliability studies, eg proving it could detect XMRV in a known sample, proving it can do so time after time, etc. The "legitimacy" is solely based on including primers that detect the published protein sequences. It was an opportunistic attempt to get in on e testing business early, before patients could discriminate between what was legit and valid. There's big money in this, especially if their test is in the running for detection in blood. Publishing a negative study is better, in terms of PR for a company like this. It leaves the impression that your test is a legitimate scientific tool because it was used in a published study, even if there's nothing behind it. Smoke and mirrors.
 

Desdinova

Senior Member
Messages
276
Location
USA
Well here's a scary thought on their website ...

"Research
Cooperative Diagnostics is participating with government institutions in research on the Xenotropic Murine Leukemia-Related Virus and diseases potentially caused by the virus.

Until scientific controversy surrounding XMRV is resolved, Cooperative Diagnostics will no longer offer its test for sale to the public.
LearnMore"


Perhaps the CDC used them ! (lol)

http://www.codiagnostics.com/XMRV/index2.php

Well that's one way to shut something down and shut them up, just buy them off. Here's some goverment money to help us (Wink) with some research (Wink, Wink).
 

kurt

Senior Member
Messages
1,186
Location
USA
I just can't believe all these scientists don't want to find XMRV or are incompetent. There must be something else.

Yes there certainly is something else. These labs are running their best tests and simply do not find any XMRV. That is the entire story, no conspiracy, no hidden agenda, no anti-CFS mindset, and no fraud. They are definitely not incompetent, they are just scientists and this is often the way science works. Scientific methods in this type of area are not perfect and scientists often disagree, particularly in early stage research.

These are the people who came out with the 'finger prick test' for XMRV very soon after the Science paper last fall.

http://www.forums.aboutmecfs.org/showthread.php?826-XMRV-test-by-Cooperative-Diagnostics

It makes sense to me but is totally conjecture that after finding it in no one, they decided to turn their negative results into a paper. Perhaps notoriety is their motive.

I know Cooperative and they fully expected to be confirming WPI's results, based on the Science paper. Their finding surprised them as much as everyone else, particularly given the higher sensitivity of their testing.

Excerpt from:

Dr Mikovits' lecture at the NJCFSA on October 17th 2010, XMRV positive's notes
.by XMRV Global Action on Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 7:10pm.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/xmrv-...r-17th-2010-xmrv-positives-notes/453519671796

"I just remembered another point. The latest negative autism study used Cooperative Diagnostics 'drop o' blood on paper' test. They've been trying to get that thing published since last fall and only after the WPI presented their autism poster at the XMRV Workshop did they finally published this 'crap' study. Her words, not mine." (referring to Dr. Mikovits)
.

So Mikovitz is trying to disparage another lab ... has she actually read their paper? If you read the Cooperative paper, you will see that their sample volume was larger than WPI's in the original Science study. This test was run with fresh full blood draws, full tubes, and was designed to help validate the WPI finding. Even their earlier finger-prick test used a larger sample volume than some of the other XMRV tests. That is a well proven method for retrovirus detection, now used in HIV testing.

Anyway, the Cooperative study is just one view, their finding might be right or wrong, but building a scientific consensus must be a non-political, evidence-based process. For Mikovitz to make comments like that discredits her and WPI.