A Theory of XMRV Creation

[Guest guest]

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/03/a-theory-of-xmrv-creation.html

 

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

 

It's been said that some of the greatest tragedies happen because those in

charge fail to ask the most basic questions.

Consider the fire which swept the Apollo 1 capsule in 1967, killing all three

astronauts.  A spark ignited the pure oxygen atmosphere in the spacecraft. 

Every high school chemistry student learns pure oxygen is highly flammable. 

After an exhaustive investigation the conclusion was that no engineer had asked

the simple question of whether it was safe to have a pure oxygen environment in

the capsule.

I was reminded of the Apollo disaster when I read a recent post by Dr.

Deckoff- entitled Cover-up and Contamination Theories.  HERE Dr.

Deckoff- is a former emergency room doctor, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME

patient, and is currently the clinical director of the Whittemore-

Institute of the University of Nevada/Reno. However, the blog explicitly states

the opinions expressed are hers alone and do not necessarily represent those of

the Whittemore- Institute.

The simple question Dr. Deckoff- asks in her post is whether the culturing

of viruses for vaccines in certain animal tissues, such as mice, has resulted in

the combination of endogenous human and mouse retroviruses and caused both the

chronic fatigue syndrome/ME and autism epidemics.

Dr. Deckoff- begins by asking how those who claim XMRV (xenotropic murine

leukemia virus-related virus) is a lab contaminant explain that the blood of

chronic fatigue syndrome/ME patients contain antibodies to XMRV.  Anti-bodies

can only be produced in the body, thus any later contamination of the blood in a

lab would not provoke an immune response.  The Whittemore- Institute has

also put out a statement on allegations of contamination.  HERE

I've been interested in XMRV since my daughter and wife have both tested

positive for the retrovirus and are part of an ongoing research program at the

Whittemore- Institute.  I have tested negative for the retrovirus. 

Children with autism share many common clinical symptoms with the chronic

fatigue syndrome/ME population, including immune disregulation, increased

oxidative stress, expression of proinflammatory cytokines, low natural killer

cell functionality, and active microbial infections.

A poster presentation entitled " Detection of Infectious XMRV in Peripheral Blood

of Children "  was made at the 1st International Workshop on XMRV in September of

2010 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, land.  In a small

sample it was found that 14 of 17 children (82%) of the children were positive

for XMRV infection.

The abstract which attracted the attention of Dr. Deckoff-, XMRV Probably

Originated through Recombination between 2 Endogenous Murine Retroviruses during

in vivo Passage of a Human Prostate Cancer Xenograft,  HERE was presented at the

recent 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in

Boston, MA from February 27-March 2.  While the abstract raised many questions,

including that of contamination, to Dr. Deckoff- it raised the strong

likelihood that, " human and mouse endogenous retroviruses recombined through

subsequent passages in vivo (in mouse) to produce a fully replicative xenotropic

exogenous retrovirus, that in fact may prove to be the most infectious human

retrovirus yet. "

The CROI conference also had two other interesting abstracts on XMRV detection

and evolution.  The first was from Quest Diagnostics (which everybody in the

autism community has probably used at one time or another) entitled A Sensitive

Real-Time PCR Assay for the Detection and Quantification of XMRV.   HERE The

background section of the abstract stated, " Xenotropic murine leukemia

virus-related virus (XMRV) was first identified in prostate tissue from prostate

cancer patients.  One study reported detection of XMRV in 67% of patients with

chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), as compared with 3.7% of healthy controls. 

Subsequently, several studies failed to detect XMRV in CFS patients, sparking

controversy in the field.  Therefore, a more sensitive and specific method is

needed to resolve the issue.  To this end, we have developed a sensitive

real-time assay that reliably detects XMRV from CFS patients. "

In short, Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest clinical labs around, thinks

they have an accurate PCR test for XMRV.  It doesn't sound like Quest believes

XMRV to be a lab contaminant.

Probably most surprising for the CFS/ME community was the abstract from the

Centers for Disease Control which has historically viewed the disease as a

psychological disorder without a biological basis.   HERE  In the conclusion of

their abstract entitled Extensive Genetic Recombination in the XMRV Genome they

stated, " Our results suggest that XMRV is a complex mosaic resulting from

multiple recombination events, possibly occuring over a significant period of

time.  More research will be necessary to further investigate the mosaic

structure of XMRV and to determine if recombination occured before or after

crossing into humans.  In addition, caution should be taken when using small

genomic regions for phylogenetic inference of MLV and XMRV tropism since this

analysis may be influenced by viral recombination. "

These abstracts and others may be part of the reason why Dr. Judy Mikovits, lead

researcher on the study linking XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome/ME recently

stated in a public forum that she expected " the politics surrounding XMRV " to

soon go away.

Dr. Deckoff- writes in her blog, " My guess is that passing lots of human

tissue through mice and then culturing in the laboratory for now more than four

decades has produced the conditions to enable a very unlikely event-by giving it

many chances to occur.  A probable place for this to have happened was in the

creation of live attenuated virus vaccines where virus is made less virulent

with multiple passes through animal cells in tissue culture. "   She also notes

that scientists were " fiddling with mouse viruses in the lab in the 1930s. "

The first documented autism patient, T. in Leo Kanner's original

monograph, was born in September of 1933.  The first outbreak of chronic fatigue

syndrome/ME happened at the Los Angeles County Hospital in 1934.

Close to the end of her post she states, " Putting it all together, it seems

quite plausible that batches of vaccines containing retroviruses that are

infectious to humans have been going out for over half a century.  Much of what

I've written here has been known but ignored for a long time.  The assumption

was made that endogenous animal retroviruses couldn't harm people.  It's

becoming clear that this was a very incorrect assumption. "

When Dr. Elaine DeFreitas found evidence of a retrovirus associated with chronic

fatigue syndrome/ME back in 1991  the CDC failed to follow her testing procedure

and as a result her funding was withdrawn.  At the end of her article Dr.

Deckoff- asks if the CDC had acted responsibly at that time whether the

autism epidemic could have been prevented?

It is a question both the chronic fatigue syndrome/ME and autism communities

want to have answered.

(Author's note - Dr. Deckoff- has written a second post on this topic which

is well worth your time.   HERE)

Kent Heckenlively is a Contributing Editor to Age of Autism