Charles Shepherd posted this to
co-cure today
ME/CFS, XMRV, DSM-V and the British Medical Journal - 6 March 2010
Current issue contents:
http://www.bmj.com/current.dtl
This week's edition of the British Medical Journal is concentrating on ME/CFS and XMRV.
Besides having XMRV on the front cover there are seven other items:
1 Editor's choice: 'Let's proceed with caution' by Fiona Godlee.
2 Editorial: 'Chronic fatigue syndrome and human retrovirus XMRV' by Simon Wessely and Myra McClure (p489)
3 Letter: 'More than defeatism greets patients with ME' from Stephanie Munn (p495)
4 Letter: 'Severely affected, severely neglected' from Charles Shepherd (p495)
5 Observations/Medicine and the media: Science, chronic fatigue syndrome, and ME by Cathie Sudlow (p510)
6 Research highlights: Chronic fatigue syndrome and XMRV - reasons why the BMJ fast tracked the Dutch XMRV study and critical comments about the media publicity that accompanied publication of the Science paper in October 2009 (p516)
7 Fast Track Research: Prevalence of XMRV in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome in the Netherlands: retrospective analysis of samples from an established cohort (summary of key points on p520)
Up until now many clinical doctors in the UK have not even heard of XMRV and only a few knew about the possible link to ME/CFS.
Things are about to change....
There is also an editorial - 'If accepted, will fan the flames of false positive diagnoses' - on the first draft of DSM-V (p492)
Post by The ME Association:
http://www.meassociation.org.uk