It’s not absolutely clear yet whether infection for CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME/CFS) will be proven to come from XMRV or MLV (s) (Murine Leukemia viruses; also called MULV), from both or a combination of some sort. The recent research work (e.g. the Alter/Lo study) that was published in the PNAS report and other reports go a long way toward proving a definite link between these viruses/ retroviruses in test subjects, however the findings only answer some questions, while posing other more puzzling and curious ones.
Here is a description of one of the lead researchers in the PNAS study, courtesy of the Phoenix Rising newsletter, plus more information and opinions:
Who is Dr. Harvey Alter? Possibly the most influential researcher ever to publish on ME/CFS. Dr. Harvey Alter is currently the chief of the infectious disease division of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the NIH.
More detailed research work is needed. Folks, we’re getting into the big questions and we don’t have all the answers yet, but at least we’re asking the right questions. Surely the answers will come!
Per Cort Johnson, the publisher of the Phoenix Rising Newsletter: 
The Alter study provided a strong boost to the WPI’s finding of retroviral infection in ME/CFS. Many questions remain to be resolved including what types of MLV’s are present in ME/CFS and in what types of patients and all the researchers agreed that the Alter/Lo study indicated the need for much more extensive research. All looked to the DHHS Blood Working Group to resolve the essential questions about the virus and we await Dr. Vernon’s and Dr. Racaniello’s take on this fascinating study. More positive studies are reportedly on the way.
Today’s dilemma (per Cort):
i) Do CFS patients have XMRV + multiple MULV’s? (All patients) No data on this thanks to Alter/Lo not replicating Lombardi group’s methods in addition to their MULV findings which they should have done.
ii) Do CFS patients have XMRV or multiple MULV’s (As you are thinking Alter/Lo’s paper alludes to, except it doesn’t when one learns Alter/Lo didn’t replicate Lombardi group’s methods)
This is the big question over CFS…… Unless researchers replicate each others methods, we simply cannot know.
Stay tuned to find out the answers. I believe Cort Johnson has his finger on the pulse of this issue: does XMRV or MLV cause CFS. Hopefully… we will out find out sooner rather than “much” later.
Please leave your comments below.
Thanks, Cinda Crawford
Host of the Health Matters Show
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Joanne Drayson 08.29.10 at 4:32 am
What an excellent site I am so pleased I found it especially at this exciting time of research developments with XMRV, MLV being found in ME/CFS patients.
I have taken an interest in ME/CFS since my own diagnosis which eventually was found to be Lyme Disease as is the case for many other people.
It has been interesting to see that Lyme Doctors have already being considering the possibility of their patients also being infected with XMRV and indeed I know that several have been found to have both infections.
One thing I feel confident is that this will be reasearch properly by the Lyme community and if there is a link between XMRV/MLV and Lyme Disease they will find it with or without our National Health organisations.
Exciting times!
Cinda Crawford 08.29.10 at 3:27 pm
Joanne, yes, these are exciting times. In addition to what is posted here at the Health Matters Show, I encourage you to check out Get Well Health, where I will be addressing Lyme Disease specifically. Thanks, Cinda
Patricia Carter 09.04.10 at 1:53 am
The debate about whether people with ME/CFS have both XMRV and MLV’s might be interesting to someone such as Cort Johnson, but they are irrelevant to someone such as me because I have already tested culture positive to XMRV, and the same therapies are being used for XMRV (which is a MLV) and other MLV’s, at present. Hopefully, better therapies will be developed and, yes, those might target individual MLV’s, just as separate therapies are now being used for the various strains of HIV. But to act as though a connection between XMRV/MLV’s and ME/CFS has not been proven at this point is simply wrong. Before they published the report of their research in the prestigious journal SCIENCE in Oct 2009, the Whittemore Peterson Institute confirmed their research with both the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic. People such as Cort Johnson who are not suffering severely may enjoy doubting what has been proven, but people such as me, who need help NOW for severe ME/CFS for 24 years, do not have time to dally with irrelevant discussions.
We need help NOW and WPI is showing the way, in spite of doubters such as Cort Johnson.
If you want real answers, see http://www.mecfsforums.com
Patricia Carter
http://www.mecfsforums.com
Gerwyn 09.04.10 at 4:51 am
MuLV viruses show an almost incredible genetic diversity.Therefore calibrating an assay and designing probes and primers around their ability to detect in vitro levels of a synthetic cloned human MLV gammaretroviruses fully explains the negative studies.The workers who failed to find a MuLV virus were offered a known positive blood sample but,inexplicably,refused to do so. The study of Lombardi et al was actually three seperate but interrelated experiments.Crucially,Lo/Atler used the Lombardi probes primers and reagents which had a proven ability to detect a family of human MLV viruses.The fact that the Lombardi paper had actually isolated a range of different Mulvs was reported in a meeting in May of this year.Atler/Lo also designed their own probes and primers to take account of the probability that there was an even greater range of genetic diversity in the human mlv population than found in the lombardi paper as would be expected according to the research evidence available on genetic diversity of MLV viruses infecting other species.The fact that Atler /Lo found such high levels in samples which had not been biologically amplified is truly alarming given the ability of these viruses to induce such serious pathology in other species.It has thus far not been proven that humman gammaretroviruses cause ME/cfs in humans but they do cause exactly the same pathology in other species.The neuroimmune endocrine symptoms which are a hallmark of ME,cfs and the underlying abnormalities which are at least capable of inducing such abnormalities are found in all species infected by MLV viruses. Thus for these viruses to not cause ME/cfs would be “Bucking the trend”.Lo /Atler used good science to confirm the findings of Lombardi et all based on the widely available research available relating to MLV class viruses. The people who failed to find the virus did not and instead chose to base their assays on the ability to detect an artificial form of “XMRV” in a spiked sample either in water or in a sample of a healthy persons blood. The whole point of scientific papers having a detailed section on methodology is to allow others to replicate the findings. The people who could not find the family of human gammaretroviruses made no attempt to replicate the methodology in any way whatsoever. That is a total departure from the scientific method. Mr Johnson is therefore innacurate in his observations. Replicating results in science involves a comittment to replicating methodology otherwise the work of other scientists cannot be built upon and scientific progress grinds to a halt. Atler/Lo using the scientific method built upon the work of Lombardi et al and by doing so advanced the frontiers of science. It is just the same that the people who were unable to find the virus did not behave as good scientists should .
oerganix 09.04.10 at 11:03 am
If Dr Alter were the most “influential” researcher on CFS, it would be because he has the financial and political backing of one of the federal health organizations that should have done this kind of research long ago. The only reason Alter/Lo did this research is that Dr Judy Mikovits and WPI forced the issue into the scientific and political arena with their groundbreaking study last year. In the meantime, WPI has also found those MLVs that Alter/Lo/Komaroff found and they will be discussed at the 1st National Workshop on XMRV Sept. 7-8, where Dr Mikovits will present on CFS. Dr Meirleir will also show that XMRV is found all over Europe, so the “geographical” argument isnt’ valid either. That won’t stop the denialists from saying it is, just as plenty of proof that there isn’t and never was lab contamination won’t stop them from trying to muddy the waters with that diversionary tactic.
The fact is, we would not be at this exciting point in the discovery of the causes and treatments of ME/CFS without the work done by Mikovits, Lombardi and the WPI, despite the repeated attempts of some, like Cort and the CAA, to diminish and disparage their contributions, past and present. Hopefully the Alter/Lo/Komaroff paper will put an end to that campaign. Cort’s contention that only one of them can be correct is not correct. Alter went out of his way to say his work supports the findings of WPI.
As for “Cort’s” statement of the dilemma: That was actually posted by Sunshine in comments and was not part of the article. She also gave an excellent explanation of why the Alter/Lo/Komaroff paper did not come out strongly against the fake research of the CDC: politics. The government will have to gently ease itself out of the CDC camp and back into real science, little by little.
When CDC fills the post vacated by Reeves, for which applications closed yesterday, we will find out whether they will be helping or hampering in the search for the biomedical causes of CFS. Since acting-director Unger has her name on many papers, along with Vernon of CAA and Reeves of CDC, purporting to show CFS is primarily a mental illness, patients all over the world are hoping someone from outside the agency will take the reins of that organization and get it back on track doing virus research.
Of course the WPI paper and the Alter/Lo/Komaroff paper have generated more questions. That’s the nature of scientific research. Thanks to WPI, Mikovits and Lombardi, there can no going back. Thanks to Alter and Lo for not being intimidated by the CDC and its supporters. Dr Komaroff has been researching CFS for decades so his participation in this study is logical, for a change. Using samples from clinics actually treating CFS patients for decades is also logical. Finally we get some research, funded by the government, that is examining the biomedical facts of CFS.
These are indeed exciting times!
akrasia 09.04.10 at 1:30 pm
There is much less controversy than Cort is suggesting. The results of the Alter/Lo paper extended the findings of Lombardi et. al. In fact, VIP DX, the commercial lab associated with the Whittemore-Peterson Institute, released a test for XMRV and related MLVs to coincide with the publication of the PNAS paper.
And while the Alter/Lo paper did not replicate the Lombardi paper, it did validate its findings. In the NIH teleconference following the lifting of the embargo, both Alter and Lo attributed their success at confirming the results from the WPI as deriving from a well chosen cohort as well as other factors.
As Oerganix wrote, all solid science papers spawn new avenues of inquiry and critique. There Is nothing unusual about this. What distinguishes this ostensible controversy is that Judy Mikovits practices what she calls “translational research.” That means that she explores paths that can engender effective treatment. Mikovits maintains in the current CFIDS Link that the results of the Science paper have been unfairly targeted by what was framed by Frank Ruscetti,one of the paper’s co-authors, as a “whispering campaign” alleging contamination. As a consequence of this, funds for treatment trials have been held back. In other words, we’ve lost a year to demonstrate the efficacy of potential therapies. This is tragic and wasteful and needn’t have occurred if the negative studies had been undertaken in good faith.
Akrasia 09.04.10 at 7:10 pm
There is much less controversy than Cort is suggesting. The results of the Alter/Lo paper extended the findings of Lombardi et. al. In fact, VIP DX, the commercial lab associated with the Whittemore-Peterson Institute, released a test for XMRV and related MLVs to coincide with the publication of the PNAS paper.
And while the Alter/Lo paper did not replicate the Lombardi paper, it did validate its findings. In the NIH teleconference following the lifting of the embargo, both Alter and Lo attributed their success at confirming the results from the WPI as deriving from a well chosen cohort as well as other factors.
As Oerganix wrote, all solid science papers spawn new avenues of inquiry and critique. There Is nothing unusual about this. What distinguishes this ostensible controversy is that Judy Mikovits practices what she calls “translational research.” That means that she explores paths that can engender effective treatment. Mikovits maintains in the current CFIDS Link that the results of the Science paper have been unfairly targeted by what was framed by Frank Ruscetti,one of the paper’s co-authors, as a “whispering campaign” alleging contamination. As a consequence of this, funds for treatment trials have been held back. In other words, we’ve lost a year to demonstrate the efficacy of potential therapies. This is tragic and wasteful and needn’t have occurred if the negative studies had been undertaken in good faith.
Cannon 09.11.10 at 9:47 am
Cort wasn’t asking these questions the other day, until someone pointed out he had got numerous facts wrong in his ‘paper’, as he called it. I think people would be better off getting their information from science journals rather than from him.
There are now 2 published studies to support the association, and 4 more where presented at the XMRV International conference this last week. This family of retroviruses are associated with CFS.