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So, 470 *MILLION* people may have XMRV?

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
from great point Alex brought up in chat...
if we go by a 7% of the average population has XMRV that could infer 470 MILLION people across the world have it!
that so utterly dwarfs most other illness concerns it's mind boggling...

if XMRV causes various effects in differing people, for a y et unknown reasons: ME for some, autism for others, cancer for yet another group...we could have one pathogen causing a vast amount of sickness.

THIS WOULD BE SOMETHING TO RAM DOWN THE THROATS OF THE POLITICIANS ETC, if more supporting evidence for XMRV comes in.
Talking a literal gawd damn plague!!
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
7%...

I wasn't in the chat so not sure where the 7% came from, but he could've been referring to the 'healthy' control groups, which have ranged from 3.7 to around 7 or 8 percent. They tested positive, but aren't sick, so it might be premature to call it a plague, especially since they don't know if it's causative or how it may cause illness if it does. You're right -- more supporting evidence is crucial.

Now of course these healthy folks could get sick, but we don't know that yet. They could stay healthy too. Probably won't have those answers for years, if not decades unfortunately.

d.

p.s. Off-topic, but just wanted to let you know I checked out your website SilverBladeTE -- you're an amazing artist -- fantastic work. Everyone should check out your site...
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
yeah takling 7% from one of the studies :)
they aren't sick with ME/CFS....but we dont' know what else they may suffer as a result of this, that's the worry since XMRV seems tentativley linked to Autism and MS, and stronger link to prostate cancer


and thanks! :) great fun making art, keeps me going!
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Case spectrum from XMRV irrelevance to Global Pandemic

Hi SiverbladeTE and dannybex,

I just wanted to add to what SilverbladeTE has said. I want to do a risk analysis. The sad thing is that I am happy if XMRV turns out to be a non-issue, and also if it turns out to be a nightmare pandemic, but for different reasons. I am also unhappy about it along a similar line of reasoning. The reason is that it is good for the world, and bad for us, if XMRV is a non issue. It is dire for the world, but offers us hope, if XMRV is a nightmare pandemic. At least then the world will be forced to deal with the issue, and focus on a cure - and we will benefit.

Let me sum up the cases for everyone to consider. I think the real case is somewhere toward the worst case, but we wont know for sure until we have hard evidence. While I am listing these as discrete cases, it is more a spectrum from "what the hell are we even talking about this for?" all the way to "why the hell has the world allowed this to happen?".

1. The first case is either for very low prevalence (e.g. XMRV is all a mistake) or very low pathogenicity. In this case most XMRV is a laboratory contaminant (no I don't believe that, I am just listing the possibilities), or XMRV is a mostly benign passenger virus.

2. If XMRV has low prevalence but minimal pathogenicity, it might still explain ME/CFS by inducing a type of autoimmune response. This is the autoimmune theory of ME/CFS, and may include molecular mimicry as a mechanism. This definitely opens the question as to whether other pathogens may induce the same autoimmune response. At this prevalence XMRV can probably only explain some ME/CFS instances. Under this case it is also possible that XMRV is a bystander virus, and we need to look elsewhere for causation.

3. If XMRV has slightly higher prevalence, but low pathogenicity there is only slightly more of an issue. In this case something like the Japanese prevalence data of 1.7% is more accurate, and the higher percentages are statistical anomalies, clusters, or lab mistakes. It is similar to case 2, although it might explain most ME/CFS instances.

4. If XMRV has moderate prevalence, say just under 4%, then it can explain most ME/CFS instances and still be a major problem for the world. At this prevalence cancer risks could become significant if XMRV can induce cancer (e.g. prostate cancer, CLL or MCL). One of the issues here is that this prevalence figure is probably low because some cases will not be detected. In addition, we finally have to acknowledge a possible several percent more from the non-well population. The final prevalence could thus easily be 7%.

5.a. This is the figure that SilverbladeTE mentioned - 7%. Two studies have shown around that prevalence. The cancer and neuroimmune risks could be even worse at this prevalence. Of course, it also depends on pathogenicity. For this case I am going to look at low pathogenicity first. In this case ME/CFS is probably also again an autoimmune disorder. Cancer and other neuroimmune risk could be more from inflammatory responses and immune disregulation than from direct viral impact.

5.b. For higher pathogenicity, it is more likely that XMRV can directly induce neuroimmune diseases and cancer. It is possibly the direct cause of most ME/CFS, although it still might require other factors such as genetics or co-pathogens. If this case is correct, ME/CFS is probably a global pandemic. It is time for the world to be worried.

6. I am not going to discuss low pathogenicity in the worst case scenario. I am going to jump straight in and give my nightmare scenario, a major pandemic of Biblical proportions sweeping the world. All figures are uncertain at this point, so I am going to simplify the argument a little - the final outcome could be a little better or worse than what I will discuss. Lets presume the healthy population has an XMRV and related virus prevalence of 8%. Add one or two percent more to allow for false negatives (I am not going to bother discussing false positives here, this is the worst case possibility). This could be a percent or two more. Add in the neuroimmune disease and cancer from the virus, and we are talking several percent more. This problem could be 10%-12% of the world population at risk of premature death, most of whom are infectious (albeit I think the evidence is clear that XMRV transmission rates may be very low). This is in accord with the Dubbo studies which showed that the single biggest risk factor for developing ME/CFS was severe infection, and that 10-12% of these infected will develop severe post viral fatigue. At this prevalence, the risk of being infected is probably much higher than half a century ago, and we can expect XMRV to spread much faster. Until we can screen the blood supply, anyone who has a blood transfusion without appropriate viral deactivation of the blood is at extreme risk. This is very much a nightmare scenario - and nobody can prove this is not what we are facing.


The risk is that we have no certainty that it is case one, or case six or anything in between. We need to KNOW. Simply hoping this will go away without investing in the science is extreme stupidity. If the science can prove, and not just suggest, that XMRV is non-issue that is a good result. We can then move on and look for other causes of ME/CFS.

If however, case six can be proven, we will finally know what we are dealing with. The sooner we can determine if this case is correct, the better it will be for the world, in terms of health, suffering, panic and economic impact. It is this scenario which, until disproved, should compel the world to fund research. Failure to do so is verging on complicity in global genocide. If it is correct, we can finally divert the resources to this problem that it deserves - this will be like HIV research on speed. Fortunately we have both a large HIV research community and over half a century of research into murine leukemia viruses to give it a boost. This was a lucky break, I would not expect the universe to give us another one if we ignore the warning.

Seriously worried,
Alex Young
 

Tia

Senior Member
Messages
247
VERY good point, Silvie.

Thought about this myself and came to the conclusion that this is why the government denies xmrv and tried to keep it low key: it would be too expensive to treat or even admit.
 

Grape Funk

Senior Member
Messages
113
Location
USA
Tia you love your conspiracies(I don't blame you),

And whenever Alex signs his real full name, along with something other than "Bye, Alex", you know he means business.

Word will be Born in due time.
 
Messages
13
Location
madrid
Do not forget that from all HTLV carriers in the world, 80% stay healthy and never develop leukemia or anything else.
If that % stays in XMRV, that would mean that less than just 1,4% of population would develop an XMRV associated disease...
 

insearchof

Senior Member
Messages
598
They tested positive, but aren't sick, so it might be premature to call it a plague, especially since they don't know if it's causative or how it may cause illness if it does. You're right -- more supporting evidence is crucial
.

The term plague actually refers to a disease state and not a state of disease spreading at rates that would attract the terms epidemic or pandemic. Though I understand it was used to describe such.

I am sure there are many infectious illnesses (ie: virus which manifests symptoms) where disease causation is still not known, and yet the term epidemic or pandemic (later signifying a global epidemic) are nevertheless used. Classic illistration of this is the term epidemic assigned to outbreaks of the EBV. As far as I am aware, EBV has not been shown to be the cause of any known illness or disease. Based on positive XMRV study findings of subjects across the world and on estimates in healthy controls, it would not be unreasonable to discuss this as a potential pandemic, even though disease causation in humans remains unknown. Disease causation is not a prerequisite for application of the term epidemic/pandemic or 'plague' - as employed by common vernacular.

It should not be forgotten, that it has been reported that scientists have known for some years that XMLV/MLV causes cancer, neurological and immune dysfunction in mice and other animals.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Insearchof
interestingly one of the worst plague sHumanity has currently, is Tuberculosis
around 1/3rd of the entire Human Race has the bacteria, but most will not develop any illness as their immune system keeps it at bay
however, if their immune systems weaken or have deficiencies...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis
One third of the world's population is thought to be infected with M. tuberculosis,[3][4] and new infections occur at a rate of about one per second.[5] The proportion of people who become sick with tuberculosis each year is stable or falling worldwide but, because of population growth, the absolute number of new cases is still increasing.[5] In 2007 there were an estimated 13.7 million chronic active cases, 9.3 million new cases, and 1.8 million deaths, mostly in developing countries.[6] In addition, more people in the developed world contract tuberculosis because their immune systems are more likely to be compromised due to higher exposure to immunosuppressive drugs, substance abuse, or AIDS. The distribution of tuberculosis is not uniform across the globe; about 80% of the population in many Asian and African countries test positive in tuberculin tests, while only 5–10% of the US population test positive

nealry 2 million deaths a year, which makes terrorism, drug crime etc totally insiginificant in damage comaprisons...yet what war do we wage on TB?
People, or rather, our organizations, are batshit insane on their priorities! :p
 

insearchof

Senior Member
Messages
598
Interesting parallel between TB and XMRV there Silverblade - can be XMRV+ and healthy, until the immune system crashes. Then again I think we carry a lot of viruses and bacterias that co exist with us until the immune system goes down.

TB causes disease in the body. So there is no problem in applying the term pandemic to global outbreaks of TB.

The point I was making was that there are some viruses etc that - notwithstanding the lack of scientific knowledge on whether they cause disease in the body or not (unlike TB), can be and are correctly referred to as epidemics/pandemics. To refer to an XMRV pandemic- when XMRV has been shown to be an infectious retrovirus invitro and in positive patient samples across the globe, seems consistent with my understanding of the use and context in which the terms pandemic and epidemic are use. Disease causation is irrelevant.
 

guest

Guest
Messages
320
After reading the comments on the latest XMRV post on virology.ws I think you guys lean far out of the window when you say that XMRV could be a pandemic. As it seems XMRV could turn out to be nothing at all. I really don't understand how you can be so sure that XMRV is pathogenic whatsoever while all the latest research casts doubt about it.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Diesel

1) there's huge vested interest in making ME/CFS *go away*, which also includes sabotaging any attempt at finding a real cause for it, never ever underestimate this and it's potential consequences. Note that many powerful heads will roll if that occurs, and in such cases they will do any skullduggery they can to prevent it.

I know most researchers are honest, but as said, you can still skew the science by loading the research funding/grant to areas more likely to produce negatives, and hey if the ones trying to screw us over include the CDC, some parts of government and perhaps insurance compnaies, they have a LOT of clout.
Please note how biased the system is against the ones claiming vaccines cause harm, irrespective of whether they were right or wrong, fat FAR too many associations existed between vaccine patent owners, pharma corps, positions on safety committees etc, very serious conflicts of interests there.

2) Um, "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings"
it takes many years of research to understand such a new organism. As said took about 4 years to get HIV found (for various reasons and look at the fighting and DELIBERATE denial of the existance of that disease that went on!)
so I'm not expecting this investigation into XMRV to be settled for another 2 or 3 years.
 

bullybeef

Senior Member
Messages
488
Location
North West, England, UK
I have been interested in the prevalence situation since the XMRV/ME broke in 2009.

If we use the MLV 7% figure for healthy or asymptomatic people that equates to around 470 million as what as already been suggested.

Now if we take into account that XMRV does cause disease, and particularly ME and P. cancer, those infected patient groups need to be added to the 470m.

If XMRV is then proven to be other disease group, such as autoimmune diseases, such as bowel diseases, we then add those the 470m. So 470m + ME + P. cancer + autoimmune diseases too. Then we may have other cancers to add to that list

By the time we’ve finished, we could be easily talking about over half a billion people globally infected with XMRV, and they all may have the ability to infect others!

I have suggested before whether XMRV may have already reached such a tipping point that there is no way to control its future infection rate.

I have recently been look into the history of ME in the UK, and it is interesting that it was first coined atypical poliomyelitis after the 1955 outbreak in London. We know that polio was highly infectious and epidemic prior to the vaccine being developed.

I also discovered a British doctor, Dr. John Richardson suggested naming ME: “Epidemic ME”, in the late 1970s: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1604957/pdf/brmedj00128-0006b.pdf?forumid=331851
You also may notice in that report, it says the following:

“Nevertheless, the organic basis is clear - from the finding that the putative agent can be transferred to monkeys…”

So no one can tell me that they weren’t on the right track all those years ago.

Finally, we have to look at comparisons with regards in prevalence. HIV has a global prevalence of 0.5%, around 32m globally infected.

If XMRV is infecting upwards of 7% healthy plus other diseases, it would dwarf the number of epidemic HIV/AIDS sufferers. This reason alone screams the problem of controlling the future spread of XMRV is going to be incredibly difficult.

I think Alex has qualified the threat to the public using his possible worst case scenarios. But I would suggest, even the 4% prevalence would be classified as high, and a major epidemic in its own right.

God knows how we classify something as high as 7% or above. Something infecting the public at this rate is obviously unprecedented, and there is no looking at history to help us create a plan. Mainly because XMRV has been running free and unchecked for so long, and no one can tell me there wasn’t a whiff that something like this loose in society.

Dr. Dodd suggest at a blood meeting last May that XMRV could be a doomsday virus, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case.
 

insearchof

Senior Member
Messages
598
After reading the comments on the latest XMRV post on virology.ws I think you guys lean far out of the window when you say that XMRV could be a pandemic

Yes, that is exactly what we are saying....COULD be. The case for XMRV as an infectious human retrovirus, would suggest that use of the term pandemic *may* not be out of place/*may* well be justifiable.

As Silverblade points out - its still early days and science continues to raise issues that need careful scrutiny and consideration. But looking at the case for XMRV, the use of the term pandemic might not be inappropriate.
 

insearchof

Senior Member
Messages
598
I have recently been look into the history of ME in the UK, and it is interesting that it was first coined atypical poliomyelitis after the 1955 outbreak in London. We know that polio was highly infectious and epidemic prior to the vaccine being developed.

I also discovered a British doctor, Dr. John Richardson suggested naming ME: “Epidemic ME”, in the late 1970s: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...forumid=331851
You also may notice in that report, it says the following:

“Nevertheless, the organic basis is clear - from the finding that the putative agent can be transferred to monkeys…”

So no one can tell me that they weren’t on the right track all those years ago.


This is correct Bullybeef. If I recall the first outbreak of atypical polio (ME) following a poliomyelitis epidemic was in *1934 at the LA County General Hospital. From this period up to 1978 (or thereabouts if my memory serves correct) ME was known as atypical poliomyelitis or non paralytic polio.

Polio is caused by enteroviral infection. 95% of people who contracted enteroviral infections associated with polio did not become ill during the epidemics. 5% however became very ill indeed. Of this 5% only 1% got the paralytic form of polio - with the vast majority (4%) getting non paralytic/atypical polio (who incidentally, when followed up 30-40 years later were still very sick and disabled)

Whether you got the paralytic form of polio or non paralytic form (ie: called non paralytic polio, atypical polio or poliomyelitis -later to be called ME) - it was all regarded as polio but only up until 1958. Then in 1958 they changed the infectious diseases reporting requirements associated with polio. This incidentally, coincided with the arrival of the polio vaccines.

With the introduction of these changes, they stated that to have paralytic polio, you had to have muscle paralysis and difficulty for more than 20 days (if I recall). This had not previously been required for a diagnosis of paralytic polio. Secondly, new categories were created: asceptic meningitis (very hard to distinguish from non paralytic polio) coxsackie virus and echo virus (types of enteroviruses). Non paralytic polio cases were then diagnosed or re assigned to many of these new classes. Thereafter, only paralytic polio was known as ''polio''. This then resulted in the number of reported polio cases (both paralytic and non paralytic) dropping - interestingly - at the time of the introduction of the early polio vaccines which were in fact causing provocation polio. These reclassifications in turn made it look as though the polio vaccines were solely responsible for the large drop in polio cases.

As a result of the reclassification (terming non paralytic polio - coxsackie, echo etc) and renaming non paralytic polio/atypical poliomyelitis to ME in 1978 - the association between ME and polio and its highly infectious epidemic nature was largely lost to many doctors as the years roled by and with it, the significance of the role that entroviral infection plays in this illness. Thankfully, there are doctors such as John Chia (US) who have been pursuing this association in recent years. The historical research and medical literature on enteroviral infection, as well as the work of John Chia - show that an enterovirus is notoriously difficult to isolate in the blood and that it goes quickly to and remains in the tissues for many years. Sounds very familiar to the findings of the XMRV infectivity study in monkey's doesn't it - where it was found to migrate quickly from blood to tissue?

As the virus migrates out from tissue (presumably with corresponding crashes), more virema can be detected via serology (though you need to continually run blood tests and detection levels are never very high). Consequently, if you can convince a doctor to give you a serology based test for enteroviral infection and it comes back in the low positive range - they are more than likely to down play it -ie: enteroviral infections are common and are of no consequence. And of course this is true for 95% of people - but medical literature attests to the fact, that for 5% of people, it is an entirely different story..... -and although we do not see paralytic polio any more -due to vaccinations - the remaining 4% who were serious ill and disabled for 30+ years are never mentioned .....have all been forgotten - and especially the fact that what they had/have is polio -because they were disassociated from polio due to shifting classifications. In fact to ensure that this remains so, the lingo employed today reinforces the notion of estrangement by speaking in terms of polio (paralytic polio) and 'non polio' entroviral infections''.

Based on this historical background, in a person with CFS and or a history of chronic illness - a low level positive finding on enteroviral serology should be looked into further. John Chia will biopsy tissue from the gut and will corroborate the findings of a low level sero positive enteroviral test in persons with CFS. So for persons with CFS who are having to undergo an endoscopy - it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to get extra tissue biopsied and sent to John Chia for testing. And this should be done, I believe, even if you are XMRV+ because you will not clear that infection with an anti retroviral or antibotics. The infection must be specifically addressed.

Irrespective of the outcome of XMRV in CFS and or the use of the term 'pandemic' being applied there- one thing is for certain and that is ----the history of ME as an infectious epidemic cannot be denied.
 

Grape Funk

Senior Member
Messages
113
Location
USA
That is a vintage post insearchof, extremely helpful. We should have an area strictly for how our history has intertwined with facts in the past of similar natures. I bet we could come up with some dignified findings.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Hi insearchof, I would like to add this to your interesting post. Some years ago I remember reading that in some cases enteroviruses such as coxsackie are known to cause paralytic polio in mouse models. I do not recall the study, but they were worried that more viruses could cause polio than just the polio virus.

Myabe we should be pushing for a new name for ME/CFS as Exhausting Polio, or Non-Paralytic Polio or something.

Bye, Alex
 

insearchof

Senior Member
Messages
598
Hi Alex

That accords with my understanding as well Alex. Aside from the first three enteroviruses identified as being the cause of paralytic polio, other enteroviruses including coxsackie can do so as well.

This might interest you -taken from "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) An Historical Perspective Hyde, Byron MD Chp 12 in The Clinical and Scientific Basis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at p 115:

"...we beleive like Albert Sabine, that many of the enteroviruses cause paralytic poliomyelitis. We also believe that many of the enteroviruses cause ME. ....Up to 1955, recognised ME was clearly previously associated with poliomyelitis. Many of the symptom complexes assocated with poliomyelitis epidemics we call ME today. In the past we attributed these findings to abortitve polio, atypical polio or posterior polio. The viruses that cause paralytic poliomyelitis are some of the same viruses that cause ME."