however regardless of the source quoted and who they are associated
with, all are working forward toward increasingly rigorous research in
studying ME/CFS and finding answers in an area where limited
biomedical funding and multiple definitions may have served as a drag
on progress.
Virus As The Cause Of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Shot Down, Again
by JOANNE SILBERNER
03:56 pm
September 22, 2011
A theory that a virus is the culprit for the mysterious chronic
fatigue syndrome has just suffered another serious blow. But some
patient advocates are standing by it, saying more research is needed.
Researchers from nine different labs looked for the XMRV virus in the
blood of 15 people with the condition and 15 healthy people. Only two
labs found the virus, and even then, they found it at the same rate in
the patients as in the healthy folks. The study appears in the online
version of the journal Science.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is by all accounts a difficult illness =96
there's no known cause and consequently no test to detect it. There's
also no cure. People can suffer the intermittent bouts of crushing
fatigue and pain for a few months or for decades. One woman in Seattle
who says she's had it for two decades went 15 months without having a
"good" day.
Many causes have been suggested over the years, including the virus
that causes mononucleosis, a member of the herpes virus family, and a
bacterium or two. All of them were eventually shot down. That it's
been so difficult to ferret out the cause is discouraging for patients
since finding a culpable microbe would help make a diagnosis and
suggest ways to treat the condition.
In 2009, hope came in the form of XMRV, a retrovirus originally found
in mice. In a study, researchers looked at 101 people with chronic
fatigue syndrome, and 218 healthy people. They found the virus in 67
percent of the patients, compared to 4 percent of the others.
But XMRV's status has been short-lived. This past May, two studies
quashed the initial link, and said the virus was a laboratory
contaminant.
Now there's the new report, with 23 authors, including some of the
original researchers from the hopeful 2009 study. One of the other
authors is Anthony Komaroff, professor of medicine at Harvard
University.
He says the XMRV claim is on "very shaky ground. There does not appear
to be an association between mouse retroviruses and chronic fatigue
syndrome."
Also in this week's issue of Science, the authors of the original 2009
study partially retracted their findings, saying one of the three
tests they used did not yield accurate results.
And Kim McCleary, head of the CFIDS Association, an advocacy group for
people with chronic fatigue syndrome, says it's time to look for
something else. "There are many other solid leads that merit the same
rigorous follow-up as XMRV has received over the past two years," she
says.
But some of the original authors are not backing down. The Whittemore
Peterson Institute released a statement saying its initial work
"continues to warrant additional investigations." And Judy Mikovits,
the lead researcher at the institute, told two reporters from the news
section of Science that maybe the virus is hiding in tissue, or maybe
it's different from what they thought it was. "I'm not going to stop
studying it," she told them.
Meanwhile, a lab at Columbia University is going to give one more go
at XMRV. You can follow the studies at Research1st, the research arm
of CFIDS.
---------------------------------------------
Send posts to CO-CURE@listserv.nodak.edu
Unsubscribe at http://www.co-cure.org/unsub.htm
Too much mail? Try a digest version. See http://www.co-cure.org/digest.htm
---------------------------------------------
Co-Cure's purpose is to provide information from across the spectrum of
opinion concerning medical, research and political aspects of ME/CFS and/or
FMS. We take no position on the validity of any specific scientific or
political opinion expressed in Co-Cure posts, and we urge readers to
research the various opinions available before assuming any one
interpretation is definitive. The Co-Cure website <www.co-cure.org> has a
link to our complete archive of posts as well as articles of central
importance to the issues of our community.
---------------------------------------------
