Retroviral Cause Suspected in 1987 Pub. Letter
This might be old news, because it literally is old news, but I was reading Dr. Bells The Doctors Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and in it he cites a letter written in 1987 by Professor J.C. Murdoch of New Zealand to the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners in which Dr. Murdoch states that he believes that M.E. is caused by a retrovirus.
My impression is that Dr. Bell was citing this as the earliest example he could find in print that M.E. could be caused by a retrovirus.
I dont know if the intervening years have surfaced earlier examples, but I find it historically interesting. Here is the pertinent passage:
A subsequent study, as yet unpublished, has shown significantly decreased cell-mediated immunity in 33 patients as compared with age and sex matched controls. This latter study has led me to believe that the syndrome is an acquired immune deficiency syndrome and we are presently searching for evidence of retrovirus infection in our patients.
The entire letter can be seen here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1711121/?page=1
This might be old news, because it literally is old news, but I was reading Dr. Bells The Doctors Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and in it he cites a letter written in 1987 by Professor J.C. Murdoch of New Zealand to the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners in which Dr. Murdoch states that he believes that M.E. is caused by a retrovirus.
My impression is that Dr. Bell was citing this as the earliest example he could find in print that M.E. could be caused by a retrovirus.
I dont know if the intervening years have surfaced earlier examples, but I find it historically interesting. Here is the pertinent passage:
A subsequent study, as yet unpublished, has shown significantly decreased cell-mediated immunity in 33 patients as compared with age and sex matched controls. This latter study has led me to believe that the syndrome is an acquired immune deficiency syndrome and we are presently searching for evidence of retrovirus infection in our patients.
J.C. MURDOCH
The entire letter can be seen here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1711121/?page=1