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The Race to Retract Lombardi 2009...

Esther12

Senior Member
Messages
13,774
I'm not really sure why you posted that reply Esther.
...

Once again you admitted that you did not know what restrictions that the WPI was under but unlike me you don't seem interested in knowing what they were or importantly with-holding judgement until you know.

There are always things about any study which we will not know. Mikovits was a co-author on the paper, and if she had information which could be shown to be pertinent to explaining the result, then it's difficult to imagine it not being included in the paper.

All of us have been making judgements about the likelihood of XMRV/HGRV being related to CFS over the last two years. Hopefully we've all been withholding some judgement, and remembering how uncertain that things were, but I do not believe that you have not being making probabilistic judgements based upon the available evidence. The new evidence from the BWG makes any association seem much less likely, as it showed that the WPI, Ruscetti and Lo/Alter were unable to distinguish between samples from previous positives and previous negatives in a way that would be expected were their testing reliable. The paper they co-authored concluded that the problem lay with the testing, not with the collection methods. Maybe this is wrong, but as yet, we have no particular reason for thinking that it is.

I'm also genuinely interested to know why you (and a couple of others) think that the BWG was only interested in assays for bulk testing, as I've not seen any reason to think that.

Yes, I think that Dr Singh looked for antibodies, didn't she?
And did they do serology work in the BWG?
(Sorry, brain like a sieve as usual!)

The BWG did include serology from some labs... not looked in to details - I'm brain fired too. Going off line for a veg out soon!:

A total of eleven NAT, five serology and three culture
assays were performed on the samples (17).
 

citybug

Senior Member
Messages
538
Location
NY
About the Meaning of Slide 2c in Lombardi

The figure in question was 2C and the legend from Lombardi et al reads:

'(C) Lysates of activated PBMCs from healthy donors (lanes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7) OR from CFS patients (lanes 3 and 6) were analyzed by Western blots using rat mAb to SFFV Env (top panel) or goat antiserum to MLV p30 Gag (bottom panel). Lane 8, SFFV-infected HCD-57 cells. Molecular weight (MW) markers in kilodaltons are at left.'

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5952/585.full
The text regarding the slide (2nd paragraph p 588) says:

To determine whether XMRV proteins were expressed in PBMCs from CFS patients, we developed intracellular flow cytometry (IFC) and Western blot assays, using antibodies (Abs) with novel viral specificities. These antibodies inluded, among others (i) rat monoclonal antibody (mAb) to the spleen focus-forming virus (SFFV) envelope (Env), which reacts with all polytropic and xenotropic MLVs... {...re:more antibodies} All of these Abs detected the human VP62 XMRV strain... IFC of activated lymphocytes revealed that 19 of 30 PBMC samples from CFS patients reacted with the mAb to MLV p30 Gag (Fig 2A)....In contrast, 16 healthy control PBMC cultures tested negative (Fig 2A and S4A). These results were confirmed by Western blots (Fig 2, B and C) using Abs to SFFV env, mouse xenotropic MLV, and MLV p30 Gag. Samples from five healthy donors exhibited no expression of XMRV proteins (Fig 2C). {(6) is referenced repeatedly, online materials and methods)

So it looks to me that the reason for the chemical amplification originally in slide 2C was to double check the controls, to make sure they were negative. That is why there are 5 controls and 2 patients. It was not to look at 2 of the patients in the study.
 

Sam Carter

Guest
Messages
435
Yes, I think that Dr Singh looked for antibodies, didn't she?
And did they do serology work in the BWG?
(Sorry, brain like a sieve as usual!)

Hi Bob,

Singh was unable to find antibodies to XMRV or related MLVs in her study; in the BWG Abbot Diagnostics and the CDC found no serological evidence of infection, while NCI/Ruscetti and the WPI found plenty of "positives" but they were equally distributed between the control group and the patient group -- ie. their tests were no better than a coin toss.
 

citybug

Senior Member
Messages
538
Location
NY
I'm also genuinely interested to know why you (and a couple of others) think that the BWG was only interested in assays for bulk testing, as I've not seen any reason to think that.:

Some reasons: Dr. Mikovits told patients not to rely on the serology test alone to save money when vipdx serology test came out (I was waiting for serology and contemplating doing that), serology could go up and down and patients might not make antibodies anymore.

They were not able to complete the culture test.

And it was a very small sample, was it 15?, which doesn't matter since couldn't complete culture.

Someone emailed or in a presentation Dr. Mikovits said don't worry about the BWG in response to patient anxieties because it was focused on the testing that could be done for blood banks.

Science type patients have been saying there was no trizol used in the blood preparation. The online methods and materials for Lombardi in Science say DNA & RNA was isolated with Trizol (page 2). http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2009/10/08/1179052.DC1/Lombardi.SOM.rev.pdf

I never thought CDC or anyone else involved had a test (they never said they did), and WPI couldn't complete. I've always thought WPI should have been compensated for participating in all these government comparison tests. They have to spend all their time analyzing samples for other people, who don't have tests ready, instead of doing research for us. I don't know if the panel had all the people doing active research on xmrv like the macaques studies, but they would have looked for XMRV specifically.

No one has looked in tissue yet. Lipkin said at the AAS talks that he can't analyze blood with his methods, there are too many elements in it.

Sequencing not done yet to make PCR more possible, but then none of the others do culture to bring up low copy numbers. The studies are all set up and take place before the latest news comes out like Silverman's contamination.
 

citybug

Senior Member
Messages
538
Location
NY
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....

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.

Taking away the Silverman figure one takes away the misleading single round PCR which most of the negative studies focused on.

From the Addendum abstract:
Since our report, controversy arose after the publication of several studies that failed to detect XMRV infection in their CFS patient populations. In this addenda, we further detail the multiple detection methods we used in order to observe XMRV infection in our CFS cohort. Our results indicate that PCR from DNA of unstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells is the least sensitive method for detection of XMRV in subjects' blood. We advocate the use of more than one type of assay in order to determine the frequency of XMRV infection in patient cohorts in future studies of the relevance of XMRV to human disease.

http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/virulence/article/12486/

And a necessary sensitivity level for their tests was never established. The 0/0's never saw XMRV to know how many copies there are in blood cells.

I would like to know more about the numbers and levels needed. Lo said about one of the Retrovirology papers that there was a math error of several magnitudes in his CDC video. (I hate to watch it again, it's after the old guard cdc guy who says there is no POTS).

Which studies looked at live virus? Most of the clones were injected into water.

I don't think there is a conspiracy, just premature reliance on PCR technology.
 

justinreilly

Senior Member
Messages
2,498
Location
NYC (& RI)
I don't think the Science paper can be rescued and expect a full retraction at some point. And fraud is not the only reason for retraction, if researchers can find alternate explanations for most or all of the findings, then they should retract the paper. That is what will probably happen in this case. Personally I think the excitement about the gels is excessive as those were not very important to the primary issue, which is whether PCR can detect the sequence of XMRV in CFS patient blood. Even though I don't believe XMRV, MLV, or HGRV have a prayer of a chance of explaining ME/CFS, I think we need to leave WPI and Mikovits alone at this point, let them re-trench. We don't need to set a vindictive precedent in ME/CFS research. What will that tell future researchers?

BTW, I think your statement about retracting all the nonsense studies, particularly the psych studies, is brilliant. We seriously should have a campaign to get those out of the literature.

Well, thank you Kurt!

This seems like an awfully low bar for retraction. If this were the case, wouldn't there be a lot more retractions than there are?
 

JT1024

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
Massachusetts
I agree with you Justin...

If they retract Science... every other XMRV publication would need to be retracted - including the 0/0 studies.

The fact is SOMETHING (or more accurately, a family of MuLV's) has been found. Dr. Coffin did not only anticipate this - it is something he EXPECTED.

I'm not on this forum much any more for numerous reasons but IMHO, much more will be published in the months/years to come regarding MuLV and perhaps other retroviruses infecting humans.

Unlike many in online forums, my education is in clinical laboratory science (as well as an MBA) and I continue to work in a lab to this day. I'm well aware of the challenges and what happens in "real life" laboratories.

The Science paper was based on the test results of over a hundred patients which means that hundreds of test were run. More than one assay type was run which further validated findings

I look FORWARD to additional research findings despite certain researchers efforts to discredit Dr. Mikovits.

Sorry... I'm still standing by Dr. Mikovits until proven otherwise. Dr. Coffin and others have not been worthy of my trust to date. The WPI also has to earn my trust back. I've financially supported them in the past but will
not going forward. Trust is earned... Once lost, it is not easy to regain.
 

kurt

Senior Member
Messages
1,186
Location
USA
Kurt, I'm not sure that a campaign to do this would actually be fruitful or were you saying this tongue in cheek?

I certainly agree about not setting a vindictive precedent. Whether based on fact or not, the notion that we are all out for blood will not help the research continue.

I think Justin hit on something big, we really could and probably should go after some of the worst research, and try for retraction, or at least partial retractions. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

For example, in scientific research, when new information invalidates old studies, there can be retractions, partial retractions, or editorial comments. There have been recent retractions of studies on autism, pregnancy, vaccinations, and even global warming. This happens all around us, but seriously, we often maligned as patients because some really bad research has been allowed to stand.

Papers that could probably most easily be attacked for invalidity would be all those using the name ME or CFS, but working from a case definition that we now know conclusively did not rule out mental patients, or ordinary fatigue patients. Clearly going after every bad study would be impossible given our low profile, but just one or two wins might do a lot of good. Particularly for the people in the UK and AU who have to work with that crazy out-of-control 'everything is a psych problem' system where they still use electro-shock therapy for bipolar and depression patients (often barbaric and damaging to the patient).

I trust the integrity of Mikovits and Ruscetti and I prefer to wait until I hear more from them to clarify what went on in the BWG trial.
I would just like to ask where retraction of Lombardi would get us? And why some here want a retraction of this paper?
As I have said on a couple of other threads, even retraction of HGRVs/XMRV in ME will not resolve all the problems created by the discovery that these viruses infect humans, unless Silverman is planning a complete retraction of his prostate cancer findings.
So are Ruscetti and Mikovits just the beginning? Are all findings linking HGRVs to human disease going to be retracted?
And how safe will that be, considering that we are poised to release gene vectors based on these very viruses, with all the danger of recombination and spread into the human population that will entail.
It seems to me that there must be powerful financial interests at play which stand to loose massively if HGRVs are confirmed. So it is all the more important not to rush to judgement, but to wait and evaluate the science impartially, and that means all of it, not only the link to ME.
Personally I think that investigating other viruses will not take our cause very far, because none of them could be shown to cause all cases of ME. We will be left with the same problem of proving that ME is a biomedical disorder, the insurance firms will be able to refuse to compensate those sick, and we will be led round the circle of psychogenic explanations all over again.
Politically it is much better for us to support the HGRV hypothesis, until we can be certain that it is mistaken. We have no idea where this science may lead. We are looking into the unknown and other unexpected causes may yet emerge from the retroviral investigations. I find it incredible, given Dr Snydermen's data that a retrovirus is not involved.
Surely we as a community are politically astute enough to realise that some interests will massively loose out should ME be accepted as it is - as a biomedical disorder. How much would it cost the insurance companies in the US to pay back all the compensation denies to sufferers for their disability over the past twenty years?
We need to be alert to attempts to divide our community, to confuse us as to where our best interests lie.
What is so wrong in allowing the science to continue? Investigation of HGRVs is in its infancy. This call for retraction makes no sense and is highly sinister.

Wow, that is a really good but very complicated comment, you have shown (probably unintentionally) how the political desperation in ME/CFS has caused people to embrace what appears to be bad science. Here are some thoughts (sorry, I'm not trying to be contrary, you just have illustrated the problem so well it is hard not to be).

-In Mokovits/Ruscetti we trust? What has personal integrity or trust got to do with research results. If they were the only lab (socialism in science) then maybe trust would really make a difference. But we have a community of researchers and scientific consensus is the standard for determining whether claims are right. They may be trustworthy, and still be totally, completely, 100% wrong. Happens all the time in science, even Einstein was regularly proven wrong about some things.

-Full retraction is very probable at this point and is important when a study is obviously flawed. Even had there never been a single 0/0 study the paper would need to be retracted after the BWG study. How on earth did WPI get their PCR test results in the Science article when they could not for the BWG study? There is something wrong in their study, even if we can't prove exactly what happened (we will probably never know), we CAN show that the results do not stand up. All the 0/0 studies were NOT horribly flawed as some patient theorists propose, in fact they prove the point conclusively that there is not a single member of the MLV family of viruses in ME/CFS patient blood. That invalidates the WPI study as well. Anyway, data is the issue here, not being nice to researchers we like, or solving ME/CFS political problems (as important as that is)

-Yes, I believe all HGRV papers related to MuLV will probably end up being retracted eventually, because they are or will be proven wrong. They are based on contamination, cross-reactivity, or mistaken identity with HERVs, or some such problems. Even the Switzer prostate cancer study that found two MLV sequences in two different patients is likely a contamination problem, as they had earlier known contamination issues in their lab. (the CDC used Platinum Taq earlier in their study, don't know if that is published formally but it has been mentioned by researchers and is easy to confirm).

-Recombination is definitely a valid issue now and I expect most future studies of MLVs in human samples will be related to managing the risk of using lab viruses. But that is a more general issue and is not really an ME/CFS problem.

-No single virus has yet been proven to cause ME/CFS, of course that is obvious. There are different theories and each needs exploration. What WPI had just proven prior to their Science article was along the lines of multiple co-infections being important in ME/CFS (their virachip study showed this). I really wish they had not abandoned that line of research (I'll bet they wish they hadn't as well at this point). The CFSInitiative is likely to pick up on that thread and perhaps some good will come from that angle. But what proof do we have that ME/CFS is a primary viral infection? We know we have viral triggers some of the time, but not always. And many diseases have viral triggers but are not primarily viral in nature. There is a lot we don't know, but I do think we have to consider ME/CFS a regular disease and not just a syndrome. There will be a way forward for us without HGRV.

-You are right that XMRV was good for us politically. But that only works if it is true, which apparently it is not, at least not based on the research. So do we really want our advocacy to be based on a virus that nobody can find in our blood? I think not. We are in a deep enough pit already, and don't need to destroy what little credibility we have by insisting we have an infection that nobody can find in us. That would make us look like psych patients for sure.

-Why is it that people act like HGRV is the only possible retrovirus? There are thousands of known viruses and retroviruses, there might be others involved in ME/CFS, Dr Huber proved that HERV K18 is activated by herpes in ME/CFS patients, for example. WPI found HTLV in a subset of patients in their virachip study. There could be others. But to explain ALL of ME/CFS by a blood-borne retrovirus, that seems impossible to me given the epidemiology of ME/CFS. What is more probable is that something is damaging our immune function and therefore we harbor a lot of viruses. In fact that is proven by many studies. But there are many ways the immune function can be damaged, so we have a lot of research still ahead.

-Sinister? No, absolutely not, I think there is excessive paranoia in the ME/CFS community. Part of that is understandable, given the way we are treated. But this is not one of those situations. All these independent labs are not involved in any conspiracy against us. Insurance companies do not want to cover us, of course, but that is unrelated to HGRV, that is just ordinary life with ME/CFS.
 
Messages
877
The fact is SOMETHING (or more accurately, a family of MuLV's) has been found. Dr. Coffin did not only anticipate this - it is something he EXPECTED.

I think something has been found too. My opinion is it's all smoke and mirrors until the Lombardi study has been replicated. Just ask Dr. Burzynski how many times the government tried to change his cancer treatment protocols to throw off the clinical trials.

No it's not a conspiracy, just the truth.

As far as vindictive science precedent against researchers, that horse left the barn years ago in "Chronic fatigue" research.
 

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Kurt, just to respond to your suggestion that we ask for the retraction of research we find flawed....how do you propose going about this?

The editorial board of Science make the decision about retractions.

It is not done by consensus, even a consensus of scientists.
Only those with power can make these decisions.

Are you suggesting we write petitions? And are you sugesting anyone will really listen? And retract research because of patient complaints?

We do not have any power to enforce this, in fact we would be laughed at by the scientific fraternity.
 

kurt

Senior Member
Messages
1,186
Location
USA
Kurt, just to respond to your suggestion that we ask for the retraction of research we find flawed....how do you propose going about this?

The editorial board of Science make the decision about retractions.

It is not done by consensus, even a consensus of scientists.
Only those with power can make these decisions.

Are you suggesting we write petitions? And are you sugesting anyone will really listen? And retract research because of patient complaints?

We do not have any power to enforce this, in fact we would be laughed at by the scientific fraternity.

I was not referring to Science or anything they have published about ME/CFS. That is already in review, right?

Rather, think of the long history of flawed ME/CFS studies, particularly those using non-ME/CFS patient cohorts but making claims about ME/CFS. If those studies have resulted in harm to ME/CFS patients (some probably have), or if the studies are based on incorrect samples, or contain other errors we can identify, then we could mount petition drives, things like that. Negative publicity matters to those journals, up to a point anyway. But probably the most important advocates for us would be sympathetic researchers or ME/CFS doctors. If they would write letters, the journals would take that seriously. I believe that is how studies generally get retracted, when other researchers write letters explaining the reasons for retraction.

So if we could compile a list of candidate studies for retraction requests, that would be a starting point. I'm not the right person for that, have ignored most of the flawed studies since I am only reading research looking for answers and help. But probably there are ME/CFS patients here who are familiar with the problem literature and could name some candidates.

Papers are retracted regularly, I don't think scientists would laugh at us if we presented a well-documented case. But we would need to make a credible case, and not just write wild letters making accusations of conspiracies, etc. Yes, they would laugh at that approach. But a systematic effort that made claims of harm to patients due to flawed studies that deserved retraction, I think in light of recent events, the tide is right for that type of effort.
 

JT1024

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
Massachusetts
Kurt,

What you've written above includes insults to patients ("I don't think scientists would laugh at us if we had valid complaints"). I 'm shocked since you claim to be one.

Glad I only visit this forum once in a while. I had forgotten quite a bit. Thanks for reminding me why I don't come here often.

I'm not interested in propaganda or perpetuation of crap. I'm much more interested in the truth.
 

kurt

Senior Member
Messages
1,186
Location
USA
Kurt,

What you've written above includes insults to patients ("I don't think scientists would laugh at us if we had valid complaints"). I 'm shocked since you claim to be one.

Glad I only visit this forum once in a while. I had forgotten quite a bit. Thanks for reminding me why I don't come here often.

I'm not interested in propaganda or perpetuation of crap. I'm much more interested in the truth.

You're right, that came across poorly, I re-wrote that phrase (see the original post). I certainly did not mean to suggest our complaints are not valid. Thanks for the edit suggestion, although I'm a bit surprised it seemed insulting...Why presume some negative intent?

Anyway, yes I am an ME/CFS patient, and have brain fog at times just like everyone else. Anyway, I think my meaning was clear from the context, even if not the best choice of words.
 
Messages
877
The only way to equitably and fully determine if Mikovitz has found a virus is to replicate her assays. Please consider replicating the rest of her existing study, and we will know if a retraction is in order, OR if some (HGRV) really shows up.

It's a pretty simple and equitable way of handling the situation where everybody can feel like Mikovitz got a fair shot.

Using 20 different tests than Mikovitz used, does NOT directly determine if the test Mikovitz used was finding something. Run the replication, and we can all go home or celebrate. Seems simple, and like the least the community can do after all the mud slinging that has gone on here without ever replicating.

It's a classic problem in science trouble shooting. Somebody changes something, and the test/process no longer works. at this point the only thing to do is go back to a known point where The test has shown to work. I have literally been here hundreds of times.

You can't just drag people through the mud without ever trying their original test, and claim the test didn't work. You never replicated the test. It is that simple.

If the test gets replicated by two or three different labs, and no retrovirus turns up. We all move on and you can get a retraction! I'll be happy to change my mind at that point you weren't a bunch of scientists who didn't fully explore Lombardi et al studies fully. That what science is about right? Being absolutely sure?
 

Esther12

Senior Member
Messages
13,774
Someone emailed or in a presentation Dr. Mikovits said don't worry about the BWG in response to patient anxieties because it was focused on the testing that could be done for blood banks.

So this rumour about 'bulk testing methods only' is just from that? Even though the BWG has repeatedly said that researchers could use whatever assay they wanted?

I don't think that anyone else has posted this yet:

From the webinar:
Answers to 10 Common Criticisms of the SRWG study
by Graham Simmons, PhD

1. All of the controls were not screened by all of the labs.
Response: Controls were screened by at least five labs: WPI, National Cancer Insitute/NCI-Ruscetti, Food and Drug Administration/FDA-Lo, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and NCI/Drug Resistance Program (DRP).

2. Control peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were not screened prior to blinding, so could not have been ruled as negative.
Response: Three out of the 15 did have their PBMCs extensively screened prior to blinding, yet two of these were still called positive in various assays by the WPI and NCI/Ruscetti in the study.

3. No cryopreservative was used for the storage of the PBMCs, which would prevent the WPIs assay from working. No Trizol was used.
Response: Due to the short-term nature of the study it was not felt that preservatives were required for PBMC cryopreservation. The Lo/Alter study detected sequences in PBMCs stored for 15 years in the absence of preservatives. Trizol is for the extraction of nucleic acid and laboratories were given the option of choosing their own extraction methods

4. The length of time allotted for the serology and culture assays was massively reduced, so that the WPI or NCI/Ruscetti assays were not performed as desired.
Response: All the laboratories were allowed as much time as required to perform their desired assays. The culture and serological assays were performed by WPI and NCI/Ruscetti to their own specifications.

5. The WPI was not given the opportunity to complete virus culture assays.
Response: The WPI encountered mycoplasma contamination of their target cell population, and used the plasma samples without results. This was very unfortunate. There were no further stocks left to perform repeat cultures with. It was deemed by both the WPI and the working group that performing the studies on freeze/thawed material would be invalid.

6. Samples and collection tubes were handled in the same laboratory as 22Rv1 cells used to spike the analytical controls.
Response: As stated in the paper, 22Rv1 cells were handled in a separate facility to where all other activities were performed. The fact that only one laboratory detected PCR and virus culture in clinical samples supports the fact that 22Rv1 contamination did not occur at the central laboratory.

7. Patients were on additional therapies that would produce false negatives.
Response: Lo/Alter patients were not on any additional treatments. It is unclear what additional treatments patients were on at the time of Lombardi et al. There is no published evidence that additional treatments would have positive or negative effects.

8. FDA/Lo used the wrong assay from Lo et al. and instead used the one that could not detect positives.?
Response: Lo et al. used their own criteria to decide on which assay(s) to use, but it is clear that both primer sets in their paper are equally capable of amplifying diverse polytropic murine leukemia viruses (MLVs), so it is not obvious that one would be better that the other at detecting positives.

9. The NCI did no PCR and could not use their clinically validated serology and culture assays.
Response: NCI felt that they were not sufficiently experienced at PCR to participate in the study. They did perform their serology and culture assays just as performed in Lombardi et al.

10. All the SRWG labs optimized their assays to VP62. VP62 does not exist in nature and Lombardi et al. is now known to have discovered HGRVs. Does your study include HGRVs? Or how do HGRVs relate to XMRV?
Response: As demonstrated in an earlier slide, although this study was initiated after Lombardi et al. as a study of XMRV, as soon as Lo et al. was published the mission of the study was broadened to include all MLV-like viruses. Thus, almost all of the assays were designed to perform against MLVs in general and were optimized and tested as such. As our study has demonstrated there is no such thing as an independently validated clinically positive sample against which to test. Currently there is no such thing as human gammaretroviruses (HGRV). No published virus has been isolated, cloned or sequenced from a human.

http://www.research1st.com/2011/10/14/xmrv-updates/
 

JT1024

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
Massachusetts
IMHO, the BWG appears to have been poorly designed and poorly run. There were way too many variables allowed so essentially it proved nothing.

The wording of the answers to questions posted (provided by Esther12) is not only sad but misleading given the significance of infectious retroviruses and the reputations of the scientists in involved.

I have worked in clinical labs for many years where laboratory procedures and testing methodologies have been approved by the FDA. Test manufacturers determine a test's performance capabilities, procedural steps that MUST be followed as well as substances and testing conditions that interfere with the assay. Quality Control, Specificity, Sensitivity, Accuracy, and Precision, are provided with every testing
methodology used by clinical labs unless it is clearly stated that the test is for research purposes only.

At this point in time, very few labs have the ability to consistently run an assay for the accurate detection of human gamma retroviruses. If researchers don't have the specifics of what they are looking for and they don't even have an accurate positive control, they cannot state that something does not exist.

Dr. Mikovits, Dr. Ruscetti, Dr. Lo, and Dr. Alter are seasoned researchers and this is not some minor discovery. The discovery certainly scares the $#it out of researchers because it has the potential of shutting down research labs due to actual contamination (previously unknown) and the risk of transmission of "new" retroviruses to lab staff and the general public.
 

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Hi JT1024,

Couldnt agree more.

I am not competent to discuss the details of the BWG protocol, but even to me, it seems they introduced far too many variables.

I've just watched Judy Mikovits talk on the Invest in ME DVD and I am amazed by her expertise and knowledge of her subject. This discovery is so much more that it is portrayed as being to the public.

She has gone way beyond just finding the virus, but is analysing in depth interactions between the virus and the immune reaction and finding parallels with the way other retroviral infections distort biological processes.

I remember Frank Ruscetti said last year that he was going to move on from just isolating the virus to studying pathogenesis. There is lots in this talk to suggest they have made great progress in doing just that.

Fascinating and humbling to watch.

I believe a retraction of the Lombardi paper would be a disaster.

I really would advise everyone to get themselves a copy. Inform yourselves so that you can make your own judgements and are not reliant on spin.

www.investinme.org
6th International ME/CFS Conference 2011

Would you believe I was actually present at this talk. I was so brain dead and tired at the time, (it was afternoon before JM's talk,) I couldn't take it in.
 

Esther12

Senior Member
Messages
13,774
At this point in time, very few labs have the ability to consistently run an assay for the accurate detection of human gamma retroviruses. If researchers don't have the specifics of what they are looking for and they don't even have an accurate positive control, they cannot state that something does not exist.

Dr. Mikovits, Dr. Ruscetti, Dr. Lo, and Dr. Alter are seasoned researchers and this is not some minor discovery. The discovery certainly scares the $#it out of researchers because it has the potential of shutting down research labs due to actual contamination (previously unknown) and the risk of transmission of "new" retroviruses to lab staff and the general public.

Surely any threat to research staff would mean that they would be extra careful about this? This issue was taken very seriously, but now it seems likely that the initial findings were the result of poor blinding, contamination, and unreliable tests, there is much less concern.

Mikovits, Ruscetti and Lo/Alter were all able to run whatever assays they wanted. They were not told the specifics of what to look for because they're the ones who said that they had found something - the BWG was set up to see if this could be done consistently under independently blinded conditions. It could not.

I don't think that anyone from the BWG has said that anything does not exist, they've just said that the current tests for XMRV/HGRV/whatever do not seem to be able to distinguish samples from previously positive and previously negative individuals - that the Mikovits and Ruscetti got 'positive' results scattered across both, that their positives did not correlate with one another, and did not seem repeatable.

It may be that something went wrong with the BWG, or it could be that there is an undetectable virus there, however it seems likely that the WPI's claim that they had found a virus which was significantly more common in CFS patients than healthy controls was based upon an unreliable test.
 

Sam Carter

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435
...

At this point in time, very few labs have the ability to consistently run an assay for the accurate detection of human gamma retroviruses. ...

Is it possible to name even one lab that has the ability to consistently run an assay for the accurate detection of human gamma retroviruses?

And if not, on what basis is the claim that HGRVs exist being made?
 

JT1024

Senior Member
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582
Location
Massachusetts
Surely any threat to research staff would mean that they would be extra careful about this? This issue was taken very seriously, but now it seems likely that the initial findings were the result of poor blinding, contamination, and unreliable tests, there is much less concern.

JT: I disagree.... I guarantee those performing assays are being extremely careful to prevent contamination of susceptible cell lines and to prevent a LAI (Lab Acquired Infection).

Mikovits, Ruscetti and Lo/Alter were all able to run whatever assays they wanted. They were not told the specifics of what to look for because they're the ones who said that they had found something - the BWG was set up to see if this could be done consistently under independently blinded conditions. It could not.

JT: Given what recently transpired at the WPI, I suspect there was a lot more going on to disrupt "normal" research operations. So that is my take on WPI. I personally need to review more of the BWG information to determine what happened with Ruscetti and Lo. From what I understand, there is more to the story than what was presented. Regardless of what people think, IMHO, this is not going away.

I don't think that anyone from the BWG has said that anything does not exist, they've just said that the current tests for XMRV/HGRV/whatever do not seem to be able to distinguish samples from previously positive and previously negative individuals - that the Mikovits and Ruscetti got 'positive' results scattered across both, that their positives did not correlate with one another, and did not seem repeatable.

It may be that something went wrong with the BWG, or it could be that there is an undetectable virus there, however it seems likely that the WPI's claim that they had found a virus which was significantly more common in CFS patients than healthy controls was based upon an unreliable test.

Over time, testing will improve. However, while many researchers want to be the next winner of a Nobel, the risks associated with all the genetic manipulation that has occurred in the last 30+ years has
become more apparent. Sad to say but money seems to be more important than risks to the general population and to even the researchers themselves.
 
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