Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

[Michael Scally MD]

Study Finds Retroviruses in Chronic Fatigue Sufferers
Study Finds Retroviruses in Chronic Fatigue Sufferers - WSJ.com

[Also, see post: https://thinksteroids.com/community/posts/707228 ]

By AMY DOCKSER MARCUS

Researchers said Monday they have identified a family of retroviruses in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, a finding that is likely to spur patients with the condition to seek treatment with drugs used to fight HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was accompanied by a call for new clinical trials to test HIV drugs in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, which afflicts an estimated one million to four million Americans and as many as 17 million people world-wide.

Although HIV and the newly identified virus group are different, both are retroviruses. Based on other recent research linking CFS to a retrovirus called XMRV, some doctors are already prescribing drugs approved for HIV for CFS patients. The syndrome has no known cause and there aren't any effective treatments.

The group of viruses, called murine leukemia virus-related viruses, or MLV, are known to cause cancer and neurological problems in mice, but whether they cause any diseases in humans isn't known. XMRV is among several different members of the MLV family, researchers said.

In the new study, researchers said they found at least one of four different MLV-like viruses in 32 of 37, or 86.5% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, compared with just three of 44, or 6.8%, of apparently healthy volunteer blood donors.

The paper is the latest in a series of reports about a possible link between CFS and a virus. Previous studies have focused on XMRV and have turned up conflicting evidence. Indeed, the just-published study was held back from publication in June because it was at odds with a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , which found no evidence of XMRV in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

The current paper didn't find XMRV either—one reason it isn't likely to resolve a brewing debate over the role that XMRV may play in the syndrome. But researchers said the variants of MLV-like viruses closely related to XMRV they found in CFS patients was evidence of a link between the virus family and the syndome.

Andrew Mason, a University of Alberta professor, co-wrote the commentary in PNAS calling for trials testing anti-retrovirals in CFS patients who are positive for one of the MLV-related viruses. "If the patients improve, after a certain point you stop debating whether it causes the disease and say the treatment works and we're going to use it,'' said Dr. Mason.

But until further evidence establishing that the virus causes CFS is developed, a large-scale clinical trial testing HIV drugs against the syndrome isn't likely. Norbert Bischofberger, chief scientific officer at Gilead Sciences Inc., the leading maker of HIV drugs, said the company might consider a small pilot trial but would like to see stronger evidence that the viruses cause CFS before launching a large trial. But "I'm very open and this would be a great opportunity,'' he said.

A spokesman for Merck & Co., another major manufacturer of HIV drugs said: "A clinical trial program would be possible to develop only after further substantial evidence of an association with CFS.''

Some doctors and patients are already testing the idea, based in part on a University of Utah and Emory University study in cells. The compounds were tested singly and then in combinations of two at a time and suggested that three anti-retroviral drugs appeared to inhibit infection by XMRV.

Jamie Deckoff-Jones, 56 years old, a doctor and CFS patient in New Mexico, has been blogging about her experiences and those of her 20-year-old daughter. They both tested positive for XMRV and are taking a combination of three anti-retrovirals. Dr. Deckoff-Jones said a year ago she could only get up for short periods during the day. After five months on the drugs, she flew last week to Reno for an XMRV conference. Her daughter was able to go to a party and is enrolling in community college.

"This is all very new and there is no way to know if improvement will continue,'' Dr. Deckoff-Jones wrote in an email, "but we appear to be on an uphill course.''

Joseph Brewer, an infectious disease doctor in Kansas City, Mo., who treats AIDS patients, said he now has 15 patients with CFS in his clinic taking anti-retrovirals. "It's a mixed bag,'' said Dr. Brewer about the results. Patients who have been sick less than two years improve more rapidly, he said, adding that one of the challenges is that there is no reliable way to measure the amount of virus present in patients.


Lo S-C, Pripuzova N, Li B, et al. Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a serious systemic illness of unknown cause. A recent study identified DNA from a xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 68 of 101 patients (67%) by nested PCR, as compared with 8 of 218 (3.7%) healthy controls. However, four subsequent reports failed to detect any murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related virus gene sequences in blood of CFS patients. We examined 41 PBMC-derived DNA samples from 37 patients meeting accepted diagnostic criteria for CFS and found MLV-like virus gag gene sequences in 32 of 37 (86.5%) compared with only 3 of 44 (6.8%) healthy volunteer blood donors. No evidence of mouse DNA contamination was detected in the PCR assay system or the clinical samples. Seven of 8 gag-positive patients tested again positive in a sample obtained nearly 15 y later. In contrast to the reported findings of near-genetic identity of all XMRVs, we identified a genetically diverse group of MLV-related viruses. The gag and env sequences from CFS patients were more closely related to those of polytropic mouse endogenous retroviruses than to those of XMRVs and were even less closely related to those of ecotropic MLVs. Further studies are needed to determine whether the same strong association with MLV-related viruses is found in other groups of patients with CFS, whether these viruses play a causative role in the development of CFS, and whether they represent a threat to the blood supply.

 

[Fowl]

For those of us with CFS thanks for posting this. I was aware of XMRV and the different outcomes of several research studies and decided to put off testing myself. However, I think I will now.

Any ideas on where one can get tested? I know about the lab at UNR and I am a few hours from there but I didn't know if Labcorp or Quest carries those tests.

 

[MetalMX]

New Species of Roundworm parasite Cryptostrongylus pulmoni associated with CFS

Thought i would post this for anyone with Fatigue issues or even CFS like fatigue.

CND: Suspected New Species of Chronic Roundworm Parasite, Cryptostrongylus pulmoni, Associated with CFS in Blinded Trials

This is a link to a study regarding the prevalence of Cryptostrongylus Pulmoni a roundworm parasite and its link to people suffering from CFS. It is basically a hidden lungworm which hides in the lungs and causes all kinds of symptoms.

Cryptostrongylus pulmoni infects a large percentage of CFS patients, estimated at 66 percent in the current study, and is significantly associated with the syndrome.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

More research fails to find evidence of XMRV's supposed link to chronic fatigue syndrome.

The Los Angeles Times (10/13, Tsouderos - New studies find no link between retrovirus and chronic fatigue syndrome - latimes.com ) Booster Shots" blog reported, "This week, an additional...groups are reporting they were unable to find any evidence of XMRV, a retrovirus, in various groups of people, including those diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome." The papers published "in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, come a year after a team of scientists led by Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease reported finding evidence of the retrovirus far more often in people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome than in their healthy peers." Yet, six other teams, "including scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the US Food and Drug Administration," also have "reported in scientific journals that they were unable to find XMRV in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome."

The latest studies were led by three teams at Baylor, Oxford, and Harvard, according to MedPage Today (10/13, Smith - Medical News: Mystery Virus Still Keeping Secrets - in Infectious Disease, General Infectious Disease from MedPage Today ) reported. "The absence of a pattern may be the result of a range of factors, including such things as geographic distribution, patient selection, the type of sample being analyzed, and the way the virus is detected, according to Mary Kearney, PhD, and Frank Maldarelli, MD, PhD, both of the National Institutes of Health." In their accompanying editorial - Chicago Journals - The Journal of Infectious Diseases , the pair stated that the "studies highlight the need for ways to resolve the conflicting reports."

 

[james2012]

Study Finds Retroviruses in Chronic Fatigue Sufferers
Study Finds Retroviruses in Chronic Fatigue Sufferers - WSJ.com

[Also, see post: https://thinksteroids.com/community/posts/707228 ]

By AMY DOCKSER MARCUS

Researchers said Monday they have identified a family of retroviruses in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, a finding that is likely to spur patients with the condition to seek treatment with drugs used to fight HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was accompanied by a call for new clinical trials to test HIV drugs in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, which afflicts an estimated one million to four million Americans and as many as 17 million people world-wide.

Although HIV and the newly identified virus group are different, both are retroviruses. Based on other recent research linking CFS to a retrovirus called XMRV, some doctors are already prescribing drugs approved for HIV for CFS patients. The syndrome has no known cause and there aren't any effective treatments.

The group of viruses, called murine leukemia virus-related viruses, or MLV, are known to cause cancer and neurological problems in mice, but whether they cause any diseases in humans isn't known. XMRV is among several different members of the MLV family, researchers said.

In the new study, researchers said they found at least one of four different MLV-like viruses in 32 of 37, or 86.5% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, compared with just three of 44, or 6.8%, of apparently healthy volunteer blood donors.

The paper is the latest in a series of reports about a possible link between CFS and a virus. Previous studies have focused on XMRV and have turned up conflicting evidence. Indeed, the just-published study was held back from publication in June because it was at odds with a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , which found no evidence of XMRV in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

The current paper didn't find XMRV either—one reason it isn't likely to resolve a brewing debate over the role that XMRV may play in the syndrome. But researchers said the variants of MLV-like viruses closely related to XMRV they found in CFS patients was evidence of a link between the virus family and the syndome.

Andrew Mason, a University of Alberta professor, co-wrote the commentary in PNAS calling for trials testing anti-retrovirals in CFS patients who are positive for one of the MLV-related viruses. "If the patients improve, after a certain point you stop debating whether it causes the disease and say the treatment works and we're going to use it,'' said Dr. Mason.

But until further evidence establishing that the virus causes CFS is developed, a large-scale clinical trial testing HIV drugs against the syndrome isn't likely. Norbert Bischofberger, chief scientific officer at Gilead Sciences Inc., the leading maker of HIV drugs, said the company might consider a small pilot trial but would like to see stronger evidence that the viruses cause CFS before launching a large trial. But "I'm very open and this would be a great opportunity,'' he said.

A spokesman for Merck & Co., another major manufacturer of HIV drugs said: "A clinical trial program would be possible to develop only after further substantial evidence of an association with CFS.''

Some doctors and patients are already testing the idea, based in part on a University of Utah and Emory University study in cells. The compounds were tested singly and then in combinations of two at a time and suggested that three anti-retroviral drugs appeared to inhibit infection by XMRV.

Jamie Deckoff-Jones, 56 years old, a doctor and CFS patient in New Mexico, has been blogging about her experiences and those of her 20-year-old daughter. They both tested positive for XMRV and are taking a combination of three anti-retrovirals. Dr. Deckoff-Jones said a year ago she could only get up for short periods during the day. After five months on the drugs, she flew last week to Reno for an XMRV conference. Her daughter was able to go to a party and is enrolling in community college.

"This is all very new and there is no way to know if improvement will continue,'' Dr. Deckoff-Jones wrote in an email, "but we appear to be on an uphill course.''

Joseph Brewer, an infectious disease doctor in Kansas City, Mo., who treats AIDS patients, said he now has 15 patients with CFS in his clinic taking anti-retrovirals. "It's a mixed bag,'' said Dr. Brewer about the results. Patients who have been sick less than two years improve more rapidly, he said, adding that one of the challenges is that there is no reliable way to measure the amount of virus present in patients.


Lo S-C, Pripuzova N, Li B, et al. Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a serious systemic illness of unknown cause. A recent study identified DNA from a xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 68 of 101 patients (67%) by nested PCR, as compared with 8 of 218 (3.7%) healthy controls. However, four subsequent reports failed to detect any murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related virus gene sequences in blood of CFS patients. We examined 41 PBMC-derived DNA samples from 37 patients meeting accepted diagnostic criteria for CFS and found MLV-like virus gag gene sequences in 32 of 37 (86.5%) compared with only 3 of 44 (6.8%) healthy volunteer blood donors. No evidence of mouse DNA contamination was detected in the PCR assay system or the clinical samples. Seven of 8 gag-positive patients tested again positive in a sample obtained nearly 15 y later. In contrast to the reported findings of near-genetic identity of all XMRVs, we identified a genetically diverse group of MLV-related viruses. The gag and env sequences from CFS patients were more closely related to those of polytropic mouse endogenous retroviruses than to those of XMRVs and were even less closely related to those of ecotropic MLVs. Further studies are needed to determine whether the same strong association with MLV-related viruses is found in other groups of patients with CFS, whether these viruses play a causative role in the development of CFS, and whether they represent a threat to the blood supply.

Very interesting find here. My wife suffered from this for 7 months and we thought she was dying from something nobody could tell us about. Of interest was her cytomegalovirus titres which were off the charts. CMV is a herpes virus and not an MLV virus (at least I don't think it is). The doctors at the time thought it may be causing her symptoms, but one astute physician mentioned that the cause may be from some other more potent virus that resulted in her CMV reacting opportunistically to a weakened immune system. The reason? She had high CMV and Epstein-Barr virus titres before and did not have anything like the symptoms she was experiencing. He felt the culprit was elsewhere but did not have any idea where to look - it was just a hunch. Looks like he may have been right. I'm printing this article out in case the wife experiences this literal hell again. Thanks for the excellent post Dr. Scally. Maybe researches will begin to look for the real source of chronic fatigue and quit concentrating on EB and CMV. There are so many supplements out there that target these viruses (which is total BS to begin with) and claim to "cure" CFS. My wife was desperate and tried everything. Seven months in she just woke up one day and felt well enough to stay awake from more than a hour at a time. The next day it was longer, and within two weeks she could stay up normally. Two and half months later she was back and work and working out again. It was the weirdest experience to watch someone go through this.

 

[Sharpman27]

It's not the virus which is the problem. It is the immune system which
cannot eradicate the virus. The immune system is not working correctly.

One needs to learn why the immune system is dysfunctional.

Sure taking medicine which kills the virus will help, but the dysfunctional
immune system is still there.

For example heavy metals like copper and mercury make your immune
system dysfunctional because the body cannot retain/absorp enough zinc.

Sharpman

 

[Michael Scally MD]

New study casts doubt on retrovirus link to cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome
New study casts doubt on retrovirus link to cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome - latimes.com

A new study casts further doubt on the role of a retrovirus, XMRV, in human disease, adding weight to the possibility that earlier studies finding a link between the virus and cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome may have been wrong.

In the study, researchers from the National Cancer Institute and Johns Hopkins Medicine report being unable to find any evidence of the retrovirus in nearly 800 prostate cancer samples.

"It is possible that XMRV is not actually circulating in the human population," the team wrote in its paper published by the journal Cancer Research last week.

Scientists have been wrestling with XMRV since 2006, when a research team reported finding a link between XMRV and prostate cancer. The finding, if confirmed, would have massive implications for the detection, prevention and treatment of the cancer.

Then, almost exactly one year ago, a team of researchers led by the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease reported a new link — this time between chronic fatigue syndrome and XMRV. That news also caused enormous waves. Patients diagnosed with the syndrome expressed excitement that a potential cause of their illness had finally been found and that effective therapies for the frustrating disorder might be on the horizon.

A commercial lab began selling commercial lab tests to detect XMRV. Some chronic fatigue syndrome patients started taking potent antiretroviral drugs usually used to treat HIV.

But in both prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome, independent teams of researchers have had trouble replicating the findings. No team has published a confirmation of the link between XMRV and CFS. Negative studies have piled up, and there are doubts about the original findings.

This latest study used two techniques -- polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry – to look for evidence of XMRV in nearly 800 samples from prostate tumors. The scientists found no signs of XMRV.

"Over the years, many claims associating viruses with diseases have turned out to be mistaken," they wrote. "It is still possible that XMRV will fall into this category."

Meanwhile, patients in the chronic fatigue syndrome community are clamoring for clinical trials of antiretroviral drugs. Patients in England are organizing a protest Nov. 1 in London. Organizers are encouraging protesters to bring wheelchairs, signs and to make effigies of people they consider villains in the world of their disorder.

 

[BBC3]

A fibromyalgia lovers dream!!!!! Not to discount the well being of anyone, but shit, I could go to bed for aq month or two if given the time. I'm freakin exhausted. Life is a damn bitch these days to cut the mustard.

The point is, how many people have the virus that don't have CFS? And what's the real implication, of both these new viruses as well as whatever the hell else EVERYONE is carrying these days. Try some molescum on the side of yur sac!. Thanks kids, school, and this whole filthy ass world....

 

[Michael Scally MD]

American Red Cross Statement on XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.94aae335470e233f6cf911df43181aa0/?vgnextoid=dc099a02fbcac210VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD

WASHINGTON, Friday, December 03, 2010 — At present, there are no specific federal recommendations regarding deferral of individuals with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or other diseases that have been associated with Murine Leukemia Virus-related virus (XMRV) infection. Nevertheless, in the interest of patient and donor safety, the American Red Cross will defer indefinitely any donor who reveals during the donor interview that they have been diagnosed with CFS.

XMRV infection has been associated in some studies with prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome, but at the present time these disease associations have yet to be confirmed.

There is currently insufficient data to conclude that XMRV is transmitted through blood transfusion. However, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Task force is conducting research to determine the frequency of the virus in the donor population, whether it is transfusion-transmitted, and whether recipients become infected and develop the disease.

An AABB Interorganizational Task Force is charged with reviewing all available data, making recommendations for further action to assess the risk of XMRV transmission through blood transfusion, develop mitigation strategies as needed, and to provide information for blood donors, recipients and the public.

The AABB Taskforce released Association Bulletin #10-03 in June 2010, recommending that blood collecting organizations — through the use of donor education materials available at the donation site — actively discourage potential donors who have ever been diagnosed by a physician with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), from donating blood or blood components. In addition, any donor with symptoms of CFS would be deferred if, on the day of donation, they respond negatively to the question, "Are you feeling well today?"

The Red Cross has implemented the AABB recommendations and has gone further to implement indefinite deferral for donors who reveal a history of a medical diagnosis of CFS.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Mouse Virus Link to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Challenged in Four Studies
Mouse Virus Link to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Challenged in Four Studies - Bloomberg

A mouse virus linked to chronic fatigue syndrome may not be the cause of the disease, according to four studies that cast doubt on the basis of a U.S. move to ban sufferers of the energy-sapping illness from donating blood.

Researchers from the U.S., U.K. and Japan found that previous research linking the virus, XMRV, to chronic fatigue and prostate cancer may have used contaminated specimens and chemicals that led the scientists involved to draw the wrong conclusions. The studies were published yesterday in the journal Retrovirology - Retrovirology .

The American Red Cross, the largest U.S. supplier of blood products, said Dec. 3 it would no longer allow donors with chronic fatigue syndrome, based on results of a study published last year that was the first to link the condition to XMRV. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering banning blood donors with the illness.

“Our conclusion is quite simple: XMRV is not the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome,” Greg Towers, who led one of the four new studies at University College London, said in a statement. “We are not saying chronic fatigue syndrome does not have a virus cause -- we cannot answer that yet -- but we know it is not this virus,” Towers said.

The U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand have decided to defer blood donations from people with chronic fatigue syndrome, according to the FDA.

Mouse Material

XMRV, or xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, is present in mouse DNA and can infect mice and humans. Mouse DNA is “ubiquitous” in laboratory specimens, creating potentially misleading experiment results, according to researchers led by Mark Robinson at Imperial College London, who wrote one of the studies.

XMRV was first identified in 2006 in tissue specimens from men with prostate cancer, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was linked to chronic fatigue syndrome in October last year by a study in the journal Science that found it in two-thirds of people with the disease. CDC researchers failed to find a viral link to the illness in a separatestudy published in July.

Chronic fatigue syndrome affects more than 1 million Americans, mainly women, according to the CDC in Atlanta. The illness, marked by exhaustion, joint and muscle pain, lacks a widely accepted cure or approved treatments.

Doubts Cast

Since the October 2009 study was published, some researchers studying chronic-fatigue patients found genetic material from mouse viruses not including XMRV, raising questions about whether XMRV was really the cause, Robert Smith, a research assistant professor of pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a commentary accompanying the studies.

In the latest four papers, two found trace elements of mouse DNA in prostate tissue samples and blood from patients with chronic fatigue, based on a more sensitive test than that used in the original research. That suggests the specimens were contaminated with mouse DNA in the laboratory, Smith wrote.

The third study identified viral DNA in a chemical used to conduct experiments, and the fourth found that tests used to detect XMRV can also detect related viruses that only infect mice, suggesting mouse DNA can contaminate human samples.

“It is premature to rule out XMRV or related viruses as factors in prostate cancer or” chronic fatigue syndrome, said Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who wasn’t involved in the research.

While the latest research highlights the hazards of contamination, rigorous trials are needed to prove or disprove the link between XMRV and the diseases, Lipkin said in an e- mail. The U.S. National Institutes of Health is conducting such a study, he said.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

XMRV: Study Shows Virus Can Cause ‘Persistent Infection’ in Monkeys
XMRV: Study Shows Virus Can Cause ‘Persistent Infection’ in Monkeys - Health Blog - WSJ

By Amy Dockser Marcus

The debate over what XMRV may do to humans continues. But at least in a small group of monkeys, one thing is clear, according to a new study.

“The virus causes chronic, persistent infection,” says Robert Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic, a co-author of the paper, which was published online yesterday in the Journal of Virology. Moreover, the new research suggests that in these monkeys, at least, the virus can be difficult to detect in blood, even though it’s taken root in the body.

This is a tantalizing finding because it raises the prospect that someone could be infected with XMRV but show no clinical symptoms of disease until years, possibly decades, later.

The study involved five macaque monkeys who were infected intravenously with XMRV. Researchers were studying the monkeys for a variety of reasons. Abbott Labs — which helped fund the study and whose scientists were among the researchers — is one of a number of companies developing tests that could potentially be used to screen the blood supply for XMRV. Abbott scientists have used the XMRV-positive monkey blood in their test development process.

Researchers looking at what happens after XMRV infection in people also needed an animal model and monkeys are “about as close as we can get to what happens in humans,” says Eric Klein, a Cleveland Clinic prostate-cancer surgeon who was also involved in the study.

There has been concern about the possible risks XMRV poses to blood supply since a paper published in Science in 2009 reported finding the virus in 68% of chronic-fatigue syndrome patients as well as 4% of the healthy people studied. The discovery raised the possibility that people who show no apparent signs of ill health may be infected with the virus. The Science paper has also generated controversy over whether XMRV is tied to CFS or causes the disease.

The new monkey study illustrated some of the challenges that continue to perplex scientists. The animals showed signs of the virus in their blood right after being infected, but very soon afterward, those signs disappeared, making detection very tough. When monkeys were autopsied, however, organs including the spleen, lungs, and prostate contained XMRV-infected cells.

Klein, who specializes in prostate cancer, tells the Health Blog that the study showed that the gland is a “early target for XMRV,” which sets up a “genuine chronic infection” within a week. He adds that that this finding does not prove that XMRV causes prostate cancer, but it does raise important questions about the long-term consequences of XMRV infection.

Additional primate studies are underway that will explore other routes of infection, among other issues. “We know XMRV likes to live in the prostate,” Klein says. “Now we want to know what it is doing there.”


Onlamoon N, Das Gupta J, Sharma P, et al. Infection, viral dissemination and antibody responses of Rhesus macaques exposed to the human gammaretrovirus XMRV. J Virol:JVI.02411-10. Infection, viral dissemination and antibody responses of Rhesus macaques exposed to the human gammaretrovirus XMRV -- Onlamoon et al., 10.1128/JVI.02411-10 -- The Journal of Virology

XMRV was identified in association with human prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome. To examine the infection potential, kinetics, and tissue distribution of XMRV in an animal model, we inoculated 5 macaques with XMRV intravenously. XMRV established a persistent chronic disseminated infection, with low transient viremia and provirus in blood lymphocytes during acute infection. Although undetectable in blood after about a month, XMRV viremia was reactivated at 9 month confirming the chronicity of the infection. Furthermore, XMRV gag was detected in tissues throughout, with wide dissemination throughout the entire period of monitoring. Surprisingly, XMRV infection showed organ specific cell tropism: CD4 T cells in lymphoid organs including the gastrointestinal lamina propria, alveolar macrophages in lung, and epithelial/interstitial cells in other organs, including the reproductive tract. Of note, in spite of the intravenous inoculation, extensive XMRV replication was noted in prostate during acute but not chronic infection, even though infected cells were still detectable by FISH in prostate at 5 and 9 months post infection. Marked lymphocyte activation occurred immediately post infection, but antigen specific cellular responses were undetectable. Antibody responses were elicited and boosted upon reexposure, but titers decreased rapidly suggesting low antigen stimulation over time. Our findings establish a nonhuman primate model to study XMRV replication/dissemination, transmission, pathogenesis, immune responses and potential future therapies.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Psychotherapy Eases Chronic Fatigue, Study Finds
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/health/research/18fatigue.html?_r=1

By DAVID TULLER
Published: February 17, 2011

A new study suggests that psychotherapy and a gradual increase in exercise can significantly benefit patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.

While this may sound like good news, the findings — published Thursday in The Lancet — are certain to displease many patients and to intensify a fierce, long-running debate about what causes the illness and how to treat it.

Many patients, citing two recent high-profile studies, believe the syndrome may be caused by viruses related to mouse leukemia viruses, and they are clamoring for access to antiretroviral drugs used to treat the virus that causes AIDS. That treatment is very expensive and would be expected to continue indefinitely, and health insurers are not generally willing to pay for untested drug regimens.

The new study, conducted at clinics in Britain and financed by that country’s government, is expected to lend ammunition to those who think the disease is primarily psychological or related to stress.

The authors note that the goal of cognitive behavioral therapy, the type of psychotherapy tested in the study, is to change the psychological factors “assumed to be responsible for perpetuation of the participant’s symptoms and disability.”

In the long-awaited study, patients who were randomly assigned to receive cognitive behavioral therapy or exercise therapy, in combination with specialized medical care, reported reduced fatigue levels and greater improvement in physical functioning than those receiving the medical care alone — or getting the medical care along with training in how to recognize the onset of fatigue and to adjust their activities accordingly.

The cognitive and behavioral interventions outlined in the new study are a series of sessions continuing for several months. The researchers are expected to address the cost-effectiveness of the treatments in another report. (Several of the study’s authors reported financial ties to the insurance industry.)

By contrast, the idea that a viral infection is responsible for chronic fatigue syndrome, also called myalgic encephalomyelitis, has been proposed at least since early outbreaks were investigated in the mid-1980s in the United States. Although studies have shown that many patients with the disease have elevated antibody levels for several viruses, no causal role has been proved for any of them. Health officials in the United States are coordinating studies to determine why the mouse leukemia viruses were found in patients in two studies but not in several others.

A major difficulty with conducting studies on the syndrome is that there are several different ways of defining and identifying the illness. These variations have led to a wide range of estimates of its prevalence.

Patient groups and some researchers have challenged the criteria used by the British investigators as likely to include many people with depression, which often causes severe fatigue. They also note that the study excluded patients who could not get to treatment centers, most likely ruling out some of the sickest patients. And at least one survey has found that exercise therapy can significantly worsen many patients’ symptoms.


White PD, Goldsmith KA, Johnson AL, et al. Comparison of adaptive pacing therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, graded exercise therapy, and specialist medical care for chronic fatigue syndrome (PACE): a randomised trial. The Lancet. Comparison of adaptive pacing therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, graded exercise therapy, and specialist medical care for chronic fatigue syndrome (PACE): a randomised trial : The Lancet

Background - Trial findings show cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) can be effective treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome, but patients' organisations have reported that these treatments can be harmful and favour pacing and specialist health care. We aimed to assess effectiveness and safety of all four treatments.

Methods - In our parallel-group randomised trial, patients meeting Oxford criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome were recruited from six secondary-care clinics in the UK and randomly allocated by computer-generated sequence to receive specialist medical care (SMC) alone or with adaptive pacing therapy (APT), CBT, or GET. Primary outcomes were fatigue (measured by Chalder fatigue questionnaire score) and physical function (measured by short form-36 subscale score) up to 52 weeks after randomisation, and safety was assessed primarily by recording all serious adverse events, including serious adverse reactions to trial treatments. Primary outcomes were rated by participants, who were necessarily unmasked to treatment assignment; the statistician was masked to treatment assignment for the analysis of primary outcomes. We used longitudinal regression models to compare SMC alone with other treatments, APT with CBT, and APT with GET. The final analysis included all participants for whom we had data for primary outcomes. This trial is registered at ISRCTN, number ISRCTN54285094.

Findings - We recruited 641 eligible patients, of whom 160 were assigned to the APT group, 161 to the CBT group, 160 to the GET group, and 160 to the SMC-alone group. Compared with SMC alone, mean fatigue scores at 52 weeks were 3•4 (95% CI 1•8 to 5•0) points lower for CBT (p=0•0001) and 3•2 (1•7 to 4•8) points lower for GET (p=0•0003), but did not differ for APT (0•7 [?0•9 to 2•3] points lower; p=0•38). Compared with SMC alone, mean physical function scores were 7•1 (2•0 to 12•1) points higher for CBT (p=0•0068) and 9•4 (4•4 to 14•4) points higher for GET (p=0•0005), but did not differ for APT (3•4 [?1•6 to 8•4] points lower; p=0•18). Compared with APT, CBT and GET were associated with less fatigue (CBT p=0•0027; GET p=0•0059) and better physical function (CBT p=0•0002; GET p<0•0001). Subgroup analysis of 427 participants meeting international criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and 329 participants meeting London criteria for myalgic encephalomyelitis yielded equivalent results. Serious adverse reactions were recorded in two (1%) of 159 participants in the APT group, three (2%) of 161 in the CBT group, two (1%) of 160 in the GET group, and two (1%) of 160 in the SMC-alone group.

Interpretation - CBT and GET can safely be added to SMC to moderately improve outcomes for chronic fatigue syndrome, but APT is not an effective addition.

Funding - UK Medical Research Council, Department of Health for England, Scottish Chief Scientist Office, Department for Work and Pensions.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

To address the possibility that Chronic Fatigue (CFS) and Neurologic Post Treatment Lyme disease (nPTLS) could be distinguished from one another and healthy subjects, researchers searched for distinguishing protein marker profiles by applying advanced proteomics strategy to characterize the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteomes from well described CFS and nPTLS patients. They performed comparative whole CSF proteome analyses between CFS, nPTLS, and healthy normal controls, and complemented these findings with label-free quantitative analysis of individual subject samples. In addition, they performed a preliminary pathway analysis using these data, to examine the feasibility of this type of tool for future investigations to probe for clues to the pathogenetic mechanisms behind these diseases.


Schutzer SE, Angel TE, Liu T, et al. Distinct Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomes Differentiate Post-Treatment Lyme Disease from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. PLoS ONE;6(2):e17287. PLoS ONE: Distinct Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomes Differentiate Post-Treatment Lyme Disease from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Background - Neurologic Post Treatment Lyme disease (nPTLS) and Chronic Fatigue (CFS) are syndromes of unknown etiology. They share features of fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, making it difficult to differentiate them. Unresolved is whether nPTLS is a subset of CFS.

Methods and Principal Findings - Pooled cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from nPTLS patients, CFS patients, and healthy volunteers were comprehensively analyzed using high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS), coupled with immunoaffinity depletion methods to reduce protein-masking by abundant proteins. Individual patient and healthy control CSF samples were analyzed directly employing a MS-based label-free quantitative proteomics approach. We found that both groups, and individuals within the groups, could be distinguished from each other and normals based on their specific CSF proteins (p<0.01).CFS (n = 43) had 2,783 non-redundant proteins, nPTLS (n = 25) contained 2,768 proteins, and healthy normals had 2,630 proteins. Preliminary pathway analysis demonstrated that the data could be useful for hypothesis generation on the pathogenetic mechanisms underlying these two related syndromes.

Conclusions - nPTLS and CFS have distinguishing CSF protein complements. Each condition has a number of CSF proteins that can be useful in providing candidates for future validation studies and insights on the respective mechanisms of pathogenesis. Distinguishing nPTLS and CFS permits more focused study of each condition, and can lead to novel diagnostics and therapeutic interventions.

 

[Crazy Crew]

By AP Feb 24th 2011 10:37AM

Categories: News

Scientists have discovered proteins in spinal fluid that can distinguish people with two mysterious illnesses that mimic each other - chronic fatigue syndrome and a kind of chronic Lyme disease.

Wednesday's study is small and needs verification. But specialists called it a promising start at clearing some of the confusion surrounding two illnesses with similar symptoms and no good means of diagnosis.

"It's a very important first step," said Dr. Suzanne Vernon of the Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS) Association of America.

Lyme disease usually is cured with antibiotics, but some patients report pain, fatigue and memory or other neurologic problems that linger for months or years after treatment ends. This post-treatment Lyme disease shares symptoms that characterize chronic fatigue syndrome.

Related Stories
Lyme disease rises, but early tests still not available What Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and What Causes It? Lyme disease difficult to diagnose The new study analyzed spinal fluid from 25 of those chronic Lyme patients, 43 people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and 11 healthy people. Using a special high-powered technology, researchers detected more than 2,500 proteins in each group.

More important, they found clear sets of proteins - hundreds each - unique to each disease, said Dr. Steven Schutzer of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who led the work.

The next step is to study more people to see if certain protein abnormalities might serve as a signature, a way to better diagnose patients, Schutzer said. He also plans to see if they could be found in blood, which would be easier to test than spinal fluid.

Much more work is needed, cautioned Dr. Joseph Breen, a Lyme specialist at the National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the work. But this pool of new clues also might eventually help scientists figure out the underlying biology of these diseases and how they harm, he added.

 

[hammer12]

I just want to reply to the people that say others with cfs should just get over it, everyone is tired and i could lie in bed for 3 months if i wanted too. Firstly try lie in bed for 3 months, u will go around the twist well before then. Secondly people with genuine cfs hate the name as it trivializes the condition to think people are tired, fatigue is but one symptom, cfsers feel sick not just fatigue from a normal hard days work but a fatigue like when u get a really bad flu, not a cold but a flu with headaches, aches and pains, breathlessness from any exertion etc. Then theres the myth that cfsers sleep all the time, there are some that do but most actually cant sleep unless medicated, they dont reach stage 4 deep sleep so sleep is light and crappy sleep with frequent awakenings. Some say that they use cfs to get sympathy and social security, try telling others u have cfs and see what sympathy u get, then apply for social security saying u have cfs, u will get absolutely know where. Its not something u would be game to tell others as they will judge u as a bludger or yuppie etc. Then theres the other myth where they say cfsers are detrained and need to exercise, its crap, alot of cfsers were regular exercises until cfs struck and they keep trying to exercise but keep crashing, its a lesson thats hard to learn ie pace yourself, being to physical can make u sicker.

Now i believe there is an underlying immune dysfunction which is already mentioned, this makes cfsers prone to varies viruses reactivating, so some can have cmv or ebv reactivate because of this, some have other infections reactivate. XMRV is a retrovirus like hiv and could be the cause of immune dysfunction, now some say people with hiv die, u dont die from cfs, well thats not correct, theres a higher risk of most cancers in cfs which ultimately cause death. Immune dysfunction is what causes this increased risk of cancers.

As for the negative studies on xmrv and cfs, these seem to be done by psychologist who are interested in proving cfs is a psych condition, especially in the UK where they earn alot of money attempting to treat cfsers, badly and refuse to test them for viral and immune problems, so there trying to save their bacon. Also the studies are done using the wrong techniques which were used in the initial study that found was found in cfsers. This initial study was replicated by another scientist. The negative studies also selectively pick patients who are depressed and dont have viral/immune symptoms, so they dont find any evidence of xmrv at all, now xmrv is suppose to be found in something like 1%?? of the population so they should have found some evidence of xmrv, so this just proves that they dont know how to test for xmrv. Theres still more proper testing needed but for some reason the governments dont want to spend any money on this. The testing done now is from a private organisation that is funded by donations from cfs sufferers. Conspiracy is rife as the governments in many countries have stuffed up for years and now they are covering up this huge blunder.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Troubles of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Start With Defining It
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/health/research/08fatigue.html

By DAVID TULLER
Published: March 4, 2011

When reports emerged 30 years ago that young gay men were suffering from rare forms of pneumonia and cancer, public health investigators scrambled to understand what appeared to be a deadly immune disorder: What were the symptoms? Who was most susceptible? What kinds of infections were markers of the disease?

They were seeking the epidemiologist’s most essential tool — an accurate case definition, a set of criteria that simultaneously include people with the illness and exclude those without it. With AIDS, investigators soon recognized that injection-drug users, hemophiliacs and other demographic groups were also at risk, and the case definition evolved over time to incorporate lab evidence of immune dysfunction and other refinements based on scientific advances.

“If you recognize something is happening, you need a case definition so you can count it,” said Andrew Moss, an emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and an early AIDS investigator. “You need to know whether the numbers are going up or down, or whether treatment and prevention work. And if you have a bad case definition, then it’s very difficult to figure out what’s going on.”

Once a disease can be diagnosed reliably through lab tests, creating an accurate case definition becomes easier. But when an ailment has no known cause and its symptoms are subjective — as with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and other diseases whose characteristics and even existence have been contested — competing case definitions are almost inevitable.

Now a new study of chronic fatigue syndrome has highlighted how competing case definitions can lead to an epidemiologic “Rashomon” — what you see depends on who’s doing the looking — and has stoked a fierce debate among researchers and patient advocates on both sides of the Atlantic.

The study, published last month in The Lancet, reported that exercise and cognitive-behavioral therapy could help people with the illness. Advocates and some leading experts dismissed the findings and said the authors’ case definition was largely to blame.

The British scientists who conducted the research identified study participants based largely on a single symptom: disabling and unexplained fatigue lasting at least six months. But many researchers, especially in the United States, say that definition takes in many patients whose real illness is not the syndrome but depression — which can often be eased with psychotherapy and exercise.

The Lancet authors “have written their case definition to include both people with major depressive disorders and patients who clearly have received an insult to their immune systems and are depressed because they can no longer do things that they used to,” said Dr. Andreas Kogelnik, an infectious disease specialist in Mountain View, Calif., who treats many people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

In studying the condition, he and other researchers exclude patients whose only symptom is fatigue, however disabling, and instead rely on a case definition that includes other cognitive, neurological and physiological symptoms. Those symptoms, they believe, indicate a complex immune system disorder possibly caused by a virus or another agent.

Since 2009, studies have produced contradictory results over whether viruses related to mouse leukemia are associated with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is also called myalgic encephalomyelitis. A recent study found that people with the illness have distinct proteins in their spinal fluid, raising hope that a diagnostic test can someday be developed.

No case definition is perfect; every disease has outliers. But whether a definition is broadly or narrowly drawn can profoundly affect the statistics vital for public health planning.

A recent study of workers, for example, found that 2.5 percent to 11 percent suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome, depending on whether the case definition required reported symptoms, a physical exam, a nerve test or a combination of the three. Another study found that rates of acute gastroenteritis doubled when a looser case definition was used. If researchers filter their perceptions through different lenses — that is, case definitions that generate study populations varying in size and characteristics — it is hard to know whether they are studying the same phenomenon, overlapping ones or completely unrelated ailments. Determining whether findings from one study can be extrapolated to other patients becomes difficult at best.

“You have to really define the characteristics, and everybody has to use the same criteria, because otherwise you’re calling something an apple and someone else is really looking at a peach and calling it an apple,” said Dr. Anita Belman, a neurologist at Stony Brook University who conducts research on pediatric multiple sclerosis.

No one disputes that many people with chronic fatigue syndrome also suffer from depression. The question is which came first. Are patients depressed because a terrible disease has robbed them of their lives, or is the illness itself a somatic expression of an underlying depression?

To researchers who believe that chronic fatigue syndrome is merely a psychological condition, that distinction may not seem important. But it matters deeply to those convinced it is a viral disease, who say the exercise therapy advised by the Lancet study can cause major relapses in people with chronic fatigue syndrome — a claim supported by some patient surveys.

The single-symptom case definition used by the Lancet authors, known as the Oxford criteria, was developed in Britain in 1991. Like the team that conducted the current study, the 1991 group included prominent mental health professionals.

But many scientists and clinicians view a multisymptom case definition published in 1994 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States as the international standard.

In addition to six months of unexplained, disabling fatigue, the C.D.C. definition requires at least four of eight common symptoms: cognitive problems, sleep disorders, muscle pain, joint pain, headaches, tender lymph nodes, sore throat and what is called “postexertional malaise”— a relapse that occurs after even minimal activity.

In 2005, the agency unveiled an “empirical” case definition that recommended specific screening questionnaires and cutoff scores for measuring fatigue, physical dysfunction and other symptoms. Critics challenged these newer guidelines on the same grounds as the Oxford criteria, arguing that the questionnaires and scoring methods were too ambiguous.

In contrast, a 2003 case definition from Canada is considered the most restrictive and is preferred by many patients. It elevates postexertional malaise to a central role in the illness and requires a range of neurological, cognitive, endocrine or immunological symptoms. In 2009, researchers from DePaul University in Chicago reported that 38 percent of patients in a study sample suffering from depression alone were given misdiagnoses of chronic fatigue syndrome using the C.D.C. screening tools but not the narrower Canadian definition.

The study suggests that the disease centers’ “empirical case definition has broadened the criteria such that some individuals with a purely psychiatric illness will be inappropriately diagnosed” with chronic fatigue syndrome, wrote Leonard A. Jason, a professor of community psychology at DePaul, and his colleagues. The authors also noted that using the new screening tools, the C.D.C. had greatly increased its estimate of the prevalence of the illness, to 2.5 percent of the population, or four million Americans.

So the question remains: can therapy and exercise help patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, as the Lancet study reported?

Yes, apparently — if the illness is identified with a case definition relying on fatigue alone. But does the evidence from that study prove that these strategies would help patients identified as having chronic fatigue syndrome through very different criteria? That is a much tougher argument to make.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Absence Of XMRV And Other MLV Related Viruses In Patients With CFS

Chronic fatigue syndrome, a disorder characterized by severe debilitating fatigue along with variable presence of post-exertion malaise, joint and muscle aches, headache, sore throat, tender lymph nodes, unrefreshing sleep and cognitive deficits, has had an uncertain etiology since its recognition. An estimated 0.4 to 4% of the US population suffers from this disease. While a series of infectious agents and environmental toxins have been proposed to be linked with CFS, none have been universally associated.

In late 2009, XMRV, a recently discovered retrovirus was detected in the blood of 68% of patients with CFS. More recently, another study detected sequences related to XMRV, viz. those belonging to a polytropic murine leukemia virus (PMV) in 86.5% of CFS patients and in only 6.8% of healthy controls. There have also been studies that failed to detect XMRV in CFS patients in the US, in Europe and in China.

However, there were several confounding factors with many of these studies including differences in patient characterization, differences in geographical locations of patients vs. controls, differences in samples (whole blood vs. leukocytes vs. plasma), and many differences in methods used to detect virus. For example, both studies that found a retroviral association in CFS selected their patients and controls from completely different geographical regions. This approach could result in a spurious association if regional differences among prevailing viruses result in detection of virus from one region but not from another. Control populations were often small, as few as 43 in one study, and patient and control samples were often collected at different times, sometimes several years apart, leaving open the possibility that patient samples might have been handled more – and thus possibly contaminated more easily than controls. Furthermore, in all except a subset of samples from one study, investigators were not blinded to the identity of samples.

In all but two studies that failed to detect virus in association with CFS, only PCR-66 based assays were used, thus relying heavily on conservation of retroviral sequences. The limits of detection, reproducibility and precision of the assays used in different studies were not known, making it difficult to distinguish the lack of ability to detect XMRV from a genuine absence of XMRV from samples. Furthermore, tests that had resulted in more frequent detection of XMRV, such as growth of virus in cultured cells, were not used in subsequent studies. Adequate controls for each step of the analysis, such as controls that would flag contamination occurring during the nucleic acid extraction process, were mostly lacking. Furthermore, the number of negative controls should equal or exceed the expected prevalence of the virus in the control population. It is not clear if any of the studies employed more than one negative control per experiment, which would be important for the detection of a low incidence of sample contamination. Finally, none of the studies tested samples from the same patients that were found to be positive in the original study by Lombardi et al.

In line with their own recommendations for an accurate study researchers incorporated all of these factors in the design of the investigation reported here, and have performed what they believe is the most comprehensive study to date on the proposed association of XMRV and other related viruses with CFS.


Shin CH, Bateman L, Schlaberg R, et al. Absence of XMRV and other MLV-related viruses in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. J Virol:JVI.00693-11. Absence of XMRV and other MLV-related viruses in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome -- Shin et al., 10.1128/JVI.00693-11 -- The Journal of Virology / Absence of XMRV and other MLV-related viruses in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome -- Shin et al., 10.1128/JVI.00693-11 -- The Journal of Virology

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a multi-system disorder characterized by prolonged and severe fatigue that is not relieved by rest. Attempts to treat CFS have been largely ineffective primarily because the etiology of the disorder is unknown. Recently CFS has been associated with xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) as well as other murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related viruses, though not all studies have found these associations. We collected blood samples from 100 CFS patients and 200 self-reported healthy volunteers from the same geographical area. We analyzed these in a blinded manner using molecular, serological and viral replication assays. We also analyzed samples from patients in the original study that reported XMRV in CFS. We did not find XMRV or related MLVs, either as viral sequences or infectious virus, nor did we find antibodies to these viruses in any of the patient samples, including those from the original study. We show that at least some of the discrepancy with previous studies is due to the presence of trace amounts of mouse DNA in the Taq polymerase enzymes used in these previous studies.

Our findings do not support an association between CFS and MLV-related viruses including XMRV and off-label use of antiretrovirals for the treatment of CFS does not seem justified at present.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?
Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper? Retraction Watch

If past experience is any indication, billions of pixels will be spilled in the coming days as scientists and advocates debate the latest twist in the story of XMRV, or xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Today’s news is that Science is partially retracting a 2009 paper by Judy Mikovits and colleagues, including Vincent Lombardi, purporting to show a link between the virus and the syndrome — a paper about which they issued an Expression of Concern in May. The retraction is of a table and a figure — more on that in a bit.

In an excellent blow-by-blow account in Science of the nearly 20-year-long saga, also out today, Jon Cohen and Martin Enserink review the unusual circumstances of that Expression of Concern.

Science asks authors to retract XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper; when they refuse, issue Expression of Concern
Science asks authors to retract XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper; when they refuse, issue Expression of Concern Retraction Watch

 

[Michael Scally MD]

How a collapsing scientific hypothesis led to a lawsuit and arrest
How a collapsing scientific hypothesis led to a lawsuit and arrest

In 2006, scientists announced a provocative finding: a retrovirus called XMRV, closely related to a known virus from mice, was associated with cases of prostate cancer. But other labs, using different sets of patients, found no evidence of a viral infection. Before the controversy could be sorted out, another research group published a 2009 paper containing an even more intriguing claim. XMRV, it said, was associated with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a disorder that some had claimed was purely psychosomatic.

Reaction came quickly. The CFS community, viewing a viral cause as a validation of their malady, embraced the finding. One author of the XMRV/CFS paper, Judy Mikovits, landed a position as research director of a private foundation dedicated to CFS. A company associated with the foundation started offering tests for infections.

Then the story took a strange turn. A long chain of events led not only to the collapse of the XMRV hypothesis, but it landed Mikovits in jail—and brought death threats upon some of the researchers who debunked her ideas.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Journal Retracts Paper on Fatigue Syndrome
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/h...-retracts-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-paper.html

The journal Science on Thursday fully retracted a controversial study that had linked a mouse leukemia retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome, a disabling illness affecting an estimated one million people in the United States.