I tossed this out before, but I hope someone in CFIDS/ME/{other subgroup} activist circles is keeping in mind that research on one or more virii and research on how to cure us may not be the same thing. Whatever's wrong could have set off a dysfunction which doesn't resolve itself if the pathogen circulating in blood can be controlled, or even if the pathogen hiding in some organs can be flushed out. It could be that the state of a complex system is disrupted and become stable in the new, malfunctioning state. e.g. : virus could be treated, but an autoimmune disease remains. It can still be cured, but it requires a deeper insight into how and why it is broken.
I agree with your thoughts HowToEscape... Sometimes I prefer to stay optimistic about the future and think about the positive possibilities rather than the negative possibilities... but i think that a good deal of realism is also helpful.
But, yes, even if they can stop the virus replicating, that doesn't mean a cure. But maybe it might ease the symptoms over time, and stop us from getting worse or having relapses. It might even give the body a chance to purge itself of the virus, if no further viruses are being created.
There's a lot of questions to be answered, and a lot of research to be done.
Once they start doing some anti-retroviral trials, then we might start getting some answers.
We also need a bigger study, on MLV-related viruses, to show how much of the ME population is actually infected with MLV-related viruses.
So far, a lot of people on the forum are testing negative for XMRV... So this retroviral research might not be relevant to a large number of us (I haven't been tested yet, so I don't know my status). But it might be possible that some people, who have tested negative to XMRV, would test positive for Alter's polytropic viruses rather than XMRV...
Judy Mikovits has now detected more than one type of XMRV, and also polytropic MLV-related viruses (can we call them PMRV's?) since the initial Science publication, so the evidence for retrovirus infection is increasing and getting stronger all the time.