Media Links - no discussion

[Summer]

In this video blog, Paul G. Auwaerter, MD, MBA, describes a newly published report of a potential link between a recently discovered virus and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Video Blog Here

 

[Advocate]

ERV's blog

ERV's (foul-mouthed) blog discusses XMRV, viruses, contamination, vaccines. Dismisses CFS. Nov. 19, 2009

"Turning 'crazy' into learnin-- XMRV from contaminated vaccines?"

http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2009/11/turning_crazy_into_learnin--_x.php

 

[leelaplay]

NYT Consults with Dr Klimas Nov 24 09

Expert Answers on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome NYTimes

When Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Goes Undiagnosed

Can Vaccines Set Off Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Outbreaks?

Are There Two Viruses Linked With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Accuracy of Current Results

In the population-based Georgia study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, investigators used a broader case definition and identified a population with C.F.S. that was fivefold larger than previous prevalence studies. That study may have included people with other disorders that cause fatigue, and I would expect to see up to a fivefold difference when compared with a more tightly defined group

 

[leelaplay]

Keeping the Crosswords Puzzling Metronews Nov 23 09

Tom Kindlon sent this to CO-CURE

Keeping the crosswords puzzling

Talk about your late bloomer: one of Canada's foremost crossword writers
only started doing crossword puzzles in her 50s.

........
But around the time she got into puzzles, chronic fatigue syndrome made
working full-time a challenge. So she moved out to Victoria in 1997 to
become a freelance writer.
-------
Job title: Crossword creator

Salary: "It's my sole source of income."

Education/training: A knowledge of puzzles and editing skills

Best Part of the Job: "I like working with words and I like the fact that
people enjoy doing my crosswords."

Worst Part of the Job: Sometimes it's tedious. The pressure of deadlines."

 

[Summer]

Cleveland Clinic conference puts spotlight on XMRV link with chronic fatigue syndrome

The scientists who gathered in Cleveland two weeks ago to share research on the retrovirus XMRV thought they would be able to convene in relative obscurity.

They were wrong.

Interest from people who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and other researchers who want to study XMRV, continues to grow in the wake of the Nov. 11 meeting at the Cleveland Clinic.

"There was a lot of excitement at the meeting," Clinic cancer biologist Robert Silverman said of the gathering that drew 75 of the top scientists from 14 institutions who are studying XMRV.

For nearly 10 hours, including a break for lunch, those gathered heard 17 short talks on different facets of research. A panel discussion wrapped up the day. More informal chats stretched on into dinner at Valerio's in Little Italy (the group took over the entire restaurant).

And that's all Silverman will say for now.

"We need to keep the data presented to ourselves," he said. "It's not appropriate to present unpublished, nonpeer-reviewed data to the public.

"Every day I'm getting e-mails from scientists wanting the virus for their studies," he said.

These people are mostly virologists looking at other viruses, or researchers looking at CFS and prostate cancer, which also has been linked to XMRV.

Silverman's lab has been trying to fill requests as quickly as possible, sending the virus DNA -- not the live virus -- by mail in a test tube. (The researcher can then insert the DNA into human cells in the lab, which makes the actual virus.)

In the meantime, researchers are working to develop a diagnostic test for XMRV.

"We're working on what makes XMRV tick, how it grows and replicates, what stimulates and inhibits growth," he said.

"Patients are really intrigued," said Silverman, who said he and his colleagues have heard from CFS patients across the country. "I think this is giving them hope that there could be a treatment in the future or establish a cause. But I try to be cautious [with them]."

 

[Summer]

Scientific Consensus is Building Towards XMRV as Causal Agent of ME/CFS

I had the opportunity to speak with one of the researchers who attended the Cleveland Clinic conference a short while back. Since the landmark study appeared in Science last month, several groups have been in a race to replicate the findings of Dr. Judy Mikovits - preliminary results are beginning to come in, while other researchers are waiting for their virus samples to arrive. There is now reasonable certainty that XMRV is the causal agent of CFS/ME, as opposed to probable grounds at the time of publication. It is hoped that by the middle of next year XMRV will beyond a reasonable doubt be shown to be the causal agent of ME/CFS.

 

[_Kim_]

New Zealand Herald

November 29, 2009

Chronic fatigue cause unlocked by Alice Neville in the NZ Herald

Auckland GP Dr Ros Vallings will be among the first to learn how the findings can help the estimated 17 million sufferers around the world, thanks to the Cathay Pacific/Herald on Sunday High Flyers Awards. The Associated New Zealand Myalgic Encephalopathy Society will use its travel award to send Vallings to a high-powered conference in London next May.

The fifth annual ME/chronic fatigue syndrome conference will focus on the discovery of the XMRV retrovirus in blood samples from ME patients - and possible cures.

"A lot of sufferers look well, so had been mislabelled as having psychiatric conditions, and the term fatigue is very vague." Attitudes to ME in New Zealand are more advanced than in other countries such as America, where sufferers struggle to have their condition accepted as a legitimate illness, she says.

"We're quite lucky because we're a small country and it's easier to educate the powers-that-be and doctors."

 

[JayS]

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/good_day_ny/091130-retrovirus-causing-fatigue-in-millions

 

[mezombie]

http://wbztv.com/local/chronic.fatigue.syndrome.2.1238717.html

This is old (Oct. 9), but I don't think it's posted here.

This is a Boston TV station.

 

[Recovery Soon]

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/good_day_ny/091130-retrovirus-causing-fatigue-in-millions

This is despicable. I sent a 2 page letter to Oz, detailing the differences btw CFS and fatigue, in addition to the hundreds others he's received, and here he is reducing CFS to fatigue, and an immune system that can be pepped up with exercise.

And the fucking anchor, with that chipper "Aw shucks, I think I must have that virus!" grin on her face is unbelievable.

I want to see them treat AIDS or Cancer like that.

 

[glenp]

16 x 9 Sick for Life

This show was on a couple of nights ago, no mention of xmrv were made in the show nor in the comments after, except for in my one post

http://www.globaltvbc.com/programs/16x9/Sick+Life/2265585/story.html

 

[JayS]

http://www.evidenceinmedicine.org/2009/11/plausibility-and-a-tale-of-two-viruses.html

Ugh.

 

[Advocate]

http://www.flexcin.com/blog/?p=346

This is a brief, reasonable article by the makers of an arthritis/fibromyalgia drug.

 

[Summer]

XMRV (The Retrovirus) Video

This is an excellent 4 minute You Tube video to share:

XMRV (The Retrovirus) Video

 

[Hysterical Woman]

Woman's Day

Article in Women's Day:

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Health/Conditions-Diseases/Understanding-Chronic-Fatigue.html

Thanks for posting, Wildaisy. I see that the article was rated 3 out of 5 stars. I wonder who can vote for "rating", I was not able to select the "rate this" link.

Maxine

 

[Summer]

Q&A with XMRV Researcher Dr. Judy Mikovits to Be Streamed Live Friday Jan 22:

Submit Questions Now

 

[fresh_eyes]

Futures in Biotech podcast

*Highly recommended*. A new podcast with guest virologist Vincent Racaniello of the Virology Blog. He is very enthusiastic about XMRV and optimistic for treatment. The XMRV section begins around 30 minutes in.

http://www.virology.ws/2009/12/09/futures-in-biotech-50-more-biotech-stories/

Highlights of the discussion:

"…Chronic Fatigue of course is a very serious debilitating disease characterized by immune activation, persistent fatigue, and possibly several percent of the world's population is affected by it…It could be that 3-4% of the world's population have this virus, and who knows what kind of disease it's going to cause…Maybe relatively recently, maybe in the last 50 years, who knows, the virus went form a mouse to a human and it started replicating in the human and spreading from human to human…We have never tested blood for this virus, because we didn't know about it, and it's possible that 4% of the blood supply of the world is contaminated with this…That's like a home run. A scientific home run…It's almost like overnight there's a potential cure [for CFS]…"

(I love hearing this from someone with no investment in CFS one way or the other.)

 

[parvofighter]

XMRV on MSNBC

This just up on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34225362/ns/local_news-reno_nv/

Reno laboratory offers diagnostic testing for retrovirus
Last month scientists at Reno's Whittemore Peterson Institute and the Cleveland Clinic published the results of a study that found the retrovirus XMRV present in more than 95 percent of chronic fatigue...

I think they might still be loading it up - I can't read past the above.

 

[Summer]

Dr. David Bell Lauds 'extraordinary' study

Pediatrician lauds 'extraordinary' study

Of the 101 CFS patients in the Whittemore test group, XMRV was detected in 68 of them, or 67 percent.

In addition to the 68 CFS patients who had XMRV, three other types of tests showed evidence of XMRV in another 31 people in the clinical group.

In total, 99 our of 101 people had either XMRV or showed evidence of the virus.

"This is an extraordinary number. The implications are extraordinary," said Dr. David S. Bell of Lyndonville.

Bell said if clinical trials are conducted on drugs to treat CFS, it won't happen in Lyndonville. It will have to take place at a medical research facility that would have the staff and resources to perform the studies, he said.

Bell said he'd like to see, at minimum, a satellite research clinic established in Western New York so local CFS patients could participate in the research. He suggested that CFS patients and their families contacted their Congressional delegation to lobby for research to be done in the region.

 

[Summer]

UNR virus discovery could lead to new drugs, treatment

The story in 2009: A team of researchers of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute at the University of Nevada, Reno discovered a new bug that can be transmitted via blood and other human fluids.

Judy Mikovits and Vince Lombardi, the institutes two lead researchers, discovered a link between a new infectious human retrovirus dubbed XMRV and people who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Why it matters: The discovery of XMRV could provide doctors with the means to actually diagnose patients as having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a mysterious illness which has multiple symptoms and now is diagnosed by eliminating possible other causes. Finding the retrovirus in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome also could lead to the development of drugs to treat it and other neuroimmune diseases.

Were very hopeful that within the year, we will begin to see clinical drug trials for XMRV-related diseases such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia and many other unknown diseases, said Annette Whittemore, founder and president of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute.

What the skeptics say: Although the Reno researchers discovery underwent strenuous peer review before their study was published in the world renown scientific journal Science in October, protocol requires their findings be duplicated by other independent studies.

We are continuing to work with the National Cancer Institute and many other individual researchers, Whittemore said. We also are doing confirmation studies of additional Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients with other countries, including Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom, as well as many scientists across the United States.

The Whittemore-Peterson Institutes study that found the new human retrovirus was listed as one of the top 100 scientific discoveries in 2009 in Discovery magazines January issue.

Whats ahead in 2010: Pharmaceutical companies are working to develop drugs that could be used to treat Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers, and clinical drug trials could begin within the year, Whittemore said.

She said the federal government is giving the National Cancer Institute funding to conduct further research into the human retrovirus. Whittemore hopes such funding eventually will be extended to private institutions.

We were told back in Washington, D.C., it could take up to five years before that kind of public funding becomes available because this is a new area of research, she said.
Were hopeful that situation will change and the Obama administration will make this research a priority. Then the Whittemore-Peterson Institute could begin to make an application for the funding in 2010.

Mikovits has become a member of a national group trying to develop a standardized blood test to be used by all government agencies in the United States to detect XMRV to protect the national blood supply, Whittemore said.