With Silvermans retraction of his sequences from the Lombardi 2009 Science paper, the people running the 0/0 studies have huge problems.
The VP-62 sequence is now known not to correspond to the gammaretroviruses detected by Lombardi et al. It is also known that Silverman's primers are capable of detecting the VP-62 plasmid and NOT capable of detecting the gammaretroviruses which exist in the Lombardi CFS patients.
I disagree, there is no trouble for the 0/0 studies in the Silverman sequence problem. If everyone had just run gag and env sequences, as WPI did,then maybe this would cause some issues. Fortunately, most of the 0/0 studies used broader, and more sensitive tests, including the pol gene, which MUST be present in a viable virus, even if it is integrated in the host DNA. And the pol gene is stable in the entire MLV family (it is the 'conserved portion' of the viral genome that is required for replication and can not mutate or the virus loses viabillity). Therefore, the specific VP-62 MLV sequence that was retracted is not changing the general conclusions. The 0/0 studies overwhelmingly demonstrated that there is no MLV family in ME/CFS patient samples, contradicting the WPI hypothesis.
The WPI and NCI tried to use Silverman's primers on the patients who tested positive for their nested PCRs, but could detect nothing. A great number of the 0/0 studies used Silverman's primers alone or in combination and thus their negative findings are invalid.
Not true, the negative findings are still valid, they were testing more than what WPI had tested, these labs used more sensitive and more modern tests than WPI, and they tested for the conserved portion as I mentioned above, which WPI did not. This is false logic, Silverman's primers are not the only variable here, and you can not conclude that their failure invalidates all the 0/0 studies, just not true.
The slide being so viciously attacked demonstrates that the viruses are normally in a latent state which is maintained by methylation of the provirus. If one removes the methyl groups as shown by the experiment in the slide and the virus becomes active.
That gel showed nothing significant and is far less important than the PCR testing which has conclusively ruled-out MLV species infection in ME/CFS blood.
So what, says a chorus of voices - well, the virus or viruses are integrated into G-C rich areas called CpG islands. These are extremely difficult if not impossible to amplify using standard PCR approaches.
Maybe in the 1990s that would have been true, with older PCR test designs like those WPI used. However, modern PCR testing, like was used in most if not all the 0/0 studies, takes this into account, they know about the G & C rich areas, their triple hydrogen bonds, and can extract the DNA sequences successfully.
Any PCR which has been adjusted to detect the VP-62 clone in a spiked sample would not have a prayer of detecting a human MLV related gammaretrovirus integrated into such a region even if the virus did have the same sequence as VP-62 which it or they do not.
As just mentioned, the DNA was properly amplified, and some of the studies tested against live XMRV viral samples, so in fact they had no trouble detecting MLV integrated into human cells, including in the G&C rich areas. And again, unlike WPI the outside labs tested the pol gene, so does not matter whether VP-62 was 'recalled' or not, its pol gene is the same as the rest of the MLV family, by definition it has to be, or it is not in the family.
Thus the combination of Silvermans retraction and the discovery that demethylation can activate the virus or viruses in question completely invalidates ALL the negative 0/0 studies
I've already disproved this claim. There is ABSOLUTELY NO TRUTH to the above statement and nothing has been invalidated except the original WPI hypothesis and the Science study.
Stoye, Coffin and ERV and their ilk must get Lombardi retracted at all costs before the scientific community as a whole realize that.
So there is a conspiracy here? Why on earth would these people conspire against us? They would not, and have not, and the facts can speak for themselves to those who know the science, or have access to credentialed researchers, which I was lucky to have two years ago.
I realize some people want to continue propping-up their hopes for XMRV, or now for some other MLV/HGRV, but they need to look somewhere else than what was presented here. The argument that Silverman's retraction invalidates the 0/0 studies is not based on fact.