Chronic Fatigue and Prostate Cancer: A Retroviral Connection - more details

[Guest guest]

more details on the story

" ...transmission can occur via bodily fluids, including saliva... " if

something like this the case in autism, it would explain the clustering

of cases amongst staff in that autism school... It would also be easily

passed through placenta? - explaining mums with CFS and kids developing

ASD after vaccination (immune stressors reactivate retroviruses)

Chronic Fatigue and Prostate Cancer: A Retroviral Connection? Sam Kean

As if chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) hasn't caused enough brawls, a new

study published online by Science

(www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1179052

<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1179052> ) links the

disease to a possibly contagious rodent retrovirus, XMRV, which has also

been implicated in an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Related work

by the authors also suggests that CFS might best be treated with AIDS

drugs. Even the lead author, Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore

Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nevada, says she understands

why linking CFS to a retrovirus and to prostate cancer has already drawn

skepticism.

In 2006, an unrelated paper found an association between XMRV, which

originated in mice, and a deadly prostate cancer exacerbated by a

deficient enzyme. Mikovits and colleagues had seen the same deficiency

in CFS cases. When they investigated further, the team discovered XMRV

in the white blood cells of two-thirds of CFS patients but only 4% of

control subjects. Intriguingly, Mikovits says XMRV does major damage in

natural killer (NK) blood cells, which attack tumor cells and cells

infected by viruses, and other studies suggest people with CFS suffer

from high rates of cancer. Unpublished work, Mikovits adds, has found

blood serum antibodies for XMRV in 95% of CFS patients.

[Figure 1]

<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5950/215-a/F1>

Controversial link. A study of chronic fatigue syndrome points to a

retrovirus found in cancerous prostate cells (magnified in inset).

CREDIT: ROBERT SCHLABERG AND HARSH THAKER

[Larger version of this image]

<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5950/215-a/F1>

All previous attempts to nail down a cause for CFS—including many

links to viral infections—have foundered or been retracted, and many

doctors remain doubtful that it's a coherent disease. Mikovits says her

work " proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that CFS is a real disease. " But

some of her peers find the report of a viral link premature.

ph DeRisi, a molecular biologist at the University of California,

San Francisco, who co-discovered XMRV, was not satisfied with details in

the paper: He wanted to know more about the viral load in CFS patients

and how the demographics of the control group matched that of CFS

patients. And the Mikovits team didn't do enough to rule out

contamination, he says. " One has to be very careful about making claims

about such a sensitive and emotionally charged issue as CFS, where many

claims have been made in the past. " At the least, a double-blind study

where a third-party lab searches for XMRV in CFS patients and in

controls is vital, he says.

Other CFS specialists, including Kerr at St. 's

University of London, are convinced that the Mikovits team discovered

something important. " The fact that the virus was actually grown from

the blood cells of CFS patients strongly suggests some sort of role in

the pathogenesis of the disease. " But exactly what they discovered

remains unclear, given that the group is not claiming to have identified

a cause.

Coffin, a molecular biologist at Tufts University in Boston,

analyzed the Mikovits paper in a separate " Perspective " also published

online by Science (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1181349

<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1181349> ). Coffin was

highly skeptical of the paper at first, but the team found enough

independent lines of evidence for XMRV to convert him. " They will be

celebrating in the clinics where these people [with CFS] are being

treated, " he now says.

Even if the finding of a link to XMRV holds up, treatment suggestions

are bound to attract controversy. No one knows how easily XMRV spreads,

although Mikovits says transmission can occur via bodily fluids,

including saliva. Mikovits also says unpublished preclinical data hints

that scientists can treat XMRV with AIDS drugs such as AZT, although AZT

itself might prove too toxic. Kerr remained cautious about this: " With

present public knowledge—what is described in this paper—further

work would be necessary before antiretroviral drugs could be

recommended. "