One thing I wonder about the folks still supporting the 2009 Lombardi paper - what kind of evidence would have to be produced for you to change your minds about whether the only virus sequenced so far by Mikovits or her coauthors (i.e. XMRV) is associated with CFS/ME? I guess some folks think that Mikovits found some other virus which she has not yet sequenced? Does the 2009 Lombardi paper present any evidence for this other virus?
Well, I can only speak for myself...
But I'm not just looking at the Lombardi paper... I have been studying a great deal of other (published and unpublished) XMRV research over the past couple of years.
There now seems to be a scientific consensus that XMRV is a real virus that has an affinity for human tissue. It took a long time for this consensus to be reached. Originally, many scientists were saying that XMRV was not a real virus. So this has been an interesting field of research to follow, whether or not there is an association with ME.
But also, there is some evidence that XMRV is associated with prostate cancer. Some of Dr Singh's evidence cannot be explained by contamination. So this suggests that XMRV may indeed by a human retrovirus.
As for the Lombardi study, the serology results still stand, and have apparently been confirmed by Maureen Hanson (presented at the Ottowa conference but unpublished).
The question of specificity or cross-reaction has been raised, but Mikovits has reported that these antibodies are specific for MLVs.
(As far as I understand, much of the PCR, nested PCR and culturing work, in the Lombardi study, still officially stands as well... I believe that the partial retraction only relates to the 11(?) samples that were tested in Silverman's lab.)
Now there is a new paper that raises questions about all of the negative studies in relation to using PCR to detect low copy numbers.
This has been a big question for many of us for a long time...
When looking for a novel virus at extremelly low copy numbers, can the standard procedures for PCR be relied upon?
Very few of the negative studies, if any, have devoted time to studying the behaviour of XMRV in human blood and tissue, but they have just carried out a standard investigation using existing PCR procedures using blood only. So for me personally, I cannot be certain about the adequacy of the negative studies, however many there are, and however esteemed the researchers are. I don't dismiss them outright, but I cannot be certain that they have conclusively ruled out the possibility of HGRVs.
Even Dr Singh, who, people say, carried out a thorough study, did not test human tissue for her ME study, and her results for healthy controls do not match up in the ME blood study and the prostate tissue study. (Tissue = ~4%, Blood = 0%).
On the surface, I agree that the BWG study seems strong in many ways, but it is not definitive.
There has always been a question about using EDTA instead of Heparin, for example... This is not a new issue.
And there are so many variables in relation to a potentially novel human retrovirus.
And only 15 samples (is that correct?) were tested - that is a very small number.
So, yes, the VP62 contamination threw a spanner in the works, and, yes, there have been discrepancies in the research results...
But that doesn't mean that we are not interested in seeing the research continue...
There might even be a similar undetected retrovirus associated with ME, that has not yet been detected... It's a possibility... And the XMRV research might lead us to new discoveries.
The reason that many ME patients are so interested in the retrovirus research, is that they see a good fit for their disease.
It would explain so much.
Yes, there are plenty of questions, and some people think that a retrovirus would not explain some of the clusters or epidemics, or the general epidemiology of ME... But, for me, I think that the epidemiology issues raise questions, but do not give answers...
So, many of us think that this is definitely an interesting field that should be fully explored, and it does not entirely rely on the Lombardi paper.
But I do accept that other people might not be interested in this research, and don't see it as a likely explanation for ME.
I also accept that the current retrovirus research in relation to ME looks weak, especially to people who are only aware of the Lombardi study, and have not been following all of the other research closely.
But continued
general research into XMRV-like viruses will not be fruitless (as it hasn't been so far), and there are many questions left to answer in relation to an ME-retrovirus association, such as the antibodies. Also, this field of research might also lead us to unexpected answers that are not currently on the radar, in relation to the immune system, for example. I don't see why it should not continue in parallel to other research.
While I continue to see possibilities and questions, then I will continue to take an interest in, and explore and support this field of research.
And there is one other important aspect of this research that is not just related to ME...
XMRV is infective, and infects human tissue, and exists in many labs as contamination...
If it hasn't already infected the human population, it is only a matter of time before it (or a mutation) goes wild...
So this does seem like a crucial field of research in relation to the safety of the human population.
I think they need to urgently pump many multiple millions of funding into it, and at least some of the US health agencies seem to realise this.
Some studies suggest that the virus can evade the human immune system, can disappear from the blood, can sometimes only be detected in certain specific tissues, can become latent and can hide from detection, so it seems that simple PCR blood tests will not be good enough to protect the population.