Thanks, that was fascinating!
I was following the stock market when Lyrica came out -- I had no idea how keenly investors follow pharmaceuticals, research and diseases. That can be good and bad, obviously. However, there was debate about whether or not fibro is "real" and therefore needed treatment. A very scathing Associated Press article said it was not and snorted that funding for research should go elsewhere. However, the investors didn't care! The idea being that pain is pain and if there is a successful clinical trial that offers treatment, they're all for it. I kind of love that and hope that, like the article suggests, Big Pharma turns its giant head
our way.
It was also interesting about the prevalence of cancer in the WPI study. I know this has been posted elsewhere on the forum but it bears repeating.
Given the great diversity in CFS symptoms, disclosure of the medical histories and clinical conditions of the high number of WPI's XMRV-infected CFS patients is critical. "Of course, this would generate more questions, but a cleaner association is needed," Vernon says. "I don't know why WPI won't provide this."
So far, Mikovits has refused to budge. "No additional medical histories or anything about the patient population would shed any light on XMRV," she says.
Sleuthing on her own, Vernon was able to uncover some suggestive information about the 32 CFS patient samples about which WPI originally reported assay results. Only 12 tested positive on more than one assay (WPI ran four assays); of those 12, four had been diagnosed with cancer. Another 13 of the total 67 XMRV-positive CFS samples also had cancer.
Also, Coffin weighs in on some of the other studies:
"Validation and confirmation are not coming as fast as one might like, that's for sure," says John Coffin. "If you can't establish a disease association, then there is less interest in developing a drug, obviously." Coffin also notes that uncertainty remains about whether or not the virus is replicating. "If it does so, like HIV, then an antiretroviral would be very effective. But if not, as it appears in prostate cancer, a drug would not make any difference."
Wow! How the hell would they treat it, then?
So I will just be thankful that pharmaceutical companies are starting to pay attention.