Obviously the monkeys are too close to human - they have the same psychosomatic problems, they only think they have a problem with the virus. We really should tell the labworkers not to talk to the animals, and maybe the great British psychiatric/psychosomatic researchers can learn how to treat monkeys too....
I don't know Alex that would be an awful lot of monkeys in one room. I mean how would you tell them apart? I'd been concerned that Dr. Wessley would get locked in with them by mistake. (grins)
Whatever you do, don't allow the monkeys to have Internet access. They will create online forums and use them to reinforce each other's mistaken illness beliefs. Can't have that.
I think the most exciting part is the X-SCA test that measures viral load. If you can measure viral load, you can do clinical trials on anti-retrovirals, since you have an objective measure of whether they're working.
But what's up with Dr. Bagnis comment that
the presence of antibodies doesn't determine if someone has an active infection.[/
How can a retroviral infection not be an active infection? Once you've got it, you've got it, right? I've never heard of someone having an inactive or latent HIV infection. And even with Feline Leukemia Virus (which you could say is closer to XMRV since they're both gammaretroviruses), the cats who don't get sick can still shed live virus and pass it to other cats.
Preliminary evidence for transmission?? Never heard that before. That's when things will start to scare the public, when this gets out. Get ready for a big wave. Maybe...
I doubt if it is based on something very new. It is known that XMRV can be found in semen, and WPI also found infectious XMRV in the plasma.
I think it is based on that and some other similar informations and nothing more - but I don't know.