but that makes only limited sense again. should it be a coincidence then that so many people are out of this pile of so many outbreaks that this genetic change occurs after an infection and then all get ME at the same time?
Unfortunately, I miss the logic, sorry. in addition, the pathogen must still be present because there are clusters. Even spouses get stuck with each other after years! As stated above, considering the folding outbreaks and clusters of ME, one can only conclude that ME must be an infectious disease and that all other findings are only secondary consequences of this infection (this infection must persist!)
I absolutely do not understand why science does not take this into account anymore. is it fear to end like Mikovits? is it because you do not get any research funding? Lot of questions ... but also the unpleasant questions must be asked.
Those outbreaks are very well documented, [
leaving this for posterity but it's wrong: [but there's only been three, each about 30 years apart. (Royal Free Hospital, Incline Village on Lake Tahoe, the other one)]]. 99.9% of patients aren't part of an outbreak. Furthermore, huge amounts of work have gone into hunting for persistent pathogens. That work is ongoing. For example, Michael van Elzakker is looking into whether a virus is infecting the vagus nerve.
But so far the great pathogen hunt has yielded nada. They have found
lower levels of virus particles in blood than in normal people.
So for now the preferred model for understanding the disease is like this: some patients have a predisposition (because of their genetics or microbiome or other reason) such that when they get hit by an infection they develop a problem in their (immune/metabolic/microbiome) systems, that doesn't go away and causes ME/CFS symptoms.
The problem in the ion channels described by the Australian researchers here
could be one of these types of susceptibility. They are now looking for more ion channel problems.
If you want to explain outbreaks, perhaps you can imagine that everyone has levels of susceptibility, and certain viruses harm people with even low susceptibility and turn them into MECFS sufferers, while other viruses only harm the highly susceptible. The outbreaks must represent those more powerful viruses.This is just a theory. In any case the disease is perpetuated by the body not the virus.
I think it's important to remain open-minded about the possibility of pathogens, but be guided by evidence.