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Interview with Richard Easingwood, by Mindy Kitei

M

Mindy Kitei

Messages
73
I emailed Richard Easingwood, one of the New Zealand coauthors of a 1994 study that identified retroviral particles from the peripheral blood lymphocytes of ten of 34 CFS patients and none of the controls. Easingwood replied that he would be interested in revisiting the samples, some of which he still has.

Mindy Kitei
CFS Central
http://www.cfscentral.com
 
ukxmrv

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
Thanks Mindy, that's wonderful news! Someone from the ANZMES group posted a while back to say that the samples had been destroyed in NZ by the Uni there so I'm really happy to hear that they still exit.


I wonderd if Dr Easingwood was the researcher who posted to this forum a while back that he had found the original electron microscope records from that time?

Maybe this chap would be interested in them as well?

(from the Otago Uni site)
University of Otago Division of Health Sciences.
Indicative projects for 2010:

XMRV as a potential cause of chronic fatigue syndrome

Supervisor: Professor Warren Tate

"Currently there is no diagnostic test for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) although millions world wide are affected with the syndrome. A very recent Science paper (9.10.09) has linked CFS with a rodent retrovirus XMRV (rather like HIV-1) that can as well cause aggressive prostate cancer. About 70% of the affected group had evidence of the virus compared with only 4% of the control population. My lab has done developmental work on a rogue RNAse L cleavage fragment for a biomarker since it is claimed to be specific for CFS and indirectly to deplete affected cells of 50% of their ATP. We would like to examine the virus and its translational mechanisms as a potential drug target and establish the RNAse L fragment as a biomarker."
 
E

eric_s

Senior Member
Messages
1,925
Location
Switzerland/Spain (Valencia)
ukxmrv said:
[...]My lab has done developmental work on a rogue RNAse L cleavage fragment for a biomarker since it is claimed to be specific for CFS and indirectly to deplete affected cells of 50% of their ATP [emphasis added]. We would like to examine the virus and its translational mechanisms as a potential drug target and establish the RNAse L fragment as a biomarker."
Click to expand...
This sounds very interesting
 
Gemini

Gemini

Senior Member
Messages
1,176
Location
East Coast USA
Mindy,

Good work!

Speaking of New Zealand, has anyone explored Dr. Michael Holmes' 1986 presumed retroviral findings?

Byron Hyde's book details them with photos. Wonder if his blood samples were saved?
 
Hope123

Hope123

Senior Member
Messages
1,266
He should try contacting people involved in the Tapanui flu outbreak. Interestingly, someone related to that outbreak posted here a while ago and noted that although the 10-yr. follow-up paper on that outbreak reported many recover, that poster said many had not recovered. [This is definitely possible as the papers on recovery have varying definitions and some even have the investigators gauge recovery subjectively instead of getting the sick person's view on whether they had recovered.] They could do an Alter-study-type things where they test blood samples from the past and also fresh blood samples.

[Old paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9125006]
 
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