Here is an analysis by the WPI team of the “replication” studies to date. Click on each page to enlarge or download pdf file here.
NP = not performed
NR = not reported
A Comparison of Methods for the Detection and Association of XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
>Ha – and they call these "replication" studies.
WestOzGirl
>The tables speak for themselves. Thanks, very useful.
>That is just shocking! Don't know what else to say …. thanks for posting Jamie, we all need to see this.
>I am speechless.
>Now can people stop trusting the CAA and their spin on this. Cort Johnson should also stop blogging rubbish.
>The final presentation was by Wilfried Bieger (Munich,Germany). He mentioned their earlier studies to detect XMRV, which had been negative. His team had then collaborated with Judy Mikovits and set up a highly sensitive, specific and uncontaminated protocol for virus detection, sequencing of viral DNA and antibody testing with western blot. Viral DNA and RNA were not detected in fresh blood, but after cultivation of PBMCs for 6 weeks under stimulation and using partly co-culture with virus permissive LnCap cells, culture cells turned positive in some patients. Presence of XMRV was confirmed by sequencing XMRV specific DNA. There have been approximately 40% positives so far.
He went on to say that EBV reactivation seems common in ME/CFS. Anti-herpes viral therapy has promise of success.
http://www.investinme.org/IIME%20Con…e%20Report.htm
This is also very interesting since Dr. Bieger wasn't able to find it in the first study. Now he works together with the WPI and finds it.
>I think we all need to use and cite this chart as a counter attack to the negative studies that were piss-poor and deeply flawed. WPI did their nice, clean methodology while the negative studies show very shoddy, dirty, careless work and THAT needs to be made very public for every sick person AND researcher to see. Thanks for posting it so very clearly. Is there some way to turn it into a MS Word document from the PDF? I don't know how to do this and would like to use the chart in rebutting the negative articles instead of just pointing to the PDF file on your blog. Thanks again!!!
>So much for replication…what a crock!
>Sure take every study independently and you can find weaknesses, just like the original science study but taken all of the data out there as a whole and it becomes clear the WPI is most likley wrong on this. The inability for you or the WPI to admit that you could even possible be wrong is so ridiculous at this point, all you do is attack other, like seen in your last post where you attacked Dr. Peterson. Why don't you step back and look at the big picture… that you are most likely wrong or ever accept the face that you could be wrong and that your lab could be contaminated.
>Obviously this is the exact same thing that happened with Elaine de Freitas' work in the 1990s (described in Osler's Web).
No one every did an exact replication of her methods, and finally her project shut down without any resolution one way or the other.
I'm unclear whether folks at the WPI have a sense of whether they are now looking at the same virus that she was pursuing, or whether they think that "her" retrovirus was legitimate.
I'm also perplexed at why this keeps happening in ME/CFS retroviral research.
Has it happened in the search for other sorts of viruses not apparently related to ME/CFS? If not, why not?
Thanks for any insights that folks can provide.
>I thought that the actual final straw for De Freitas was when she herself couldn't distinguish between the positive and negative samples that were sent back to her.
IHMO, Osler's Web is flawed because it's all based on the theory that it HAS to be a retrovirus. But I know I'm in the minority on that one.
>Why not ask for a retraction of these invalid studies which are not true replication studies?
>If some scientist is expousing that their study is a replication of the Science Paper and it is not then I agree perhaps they should be asked to retract their paper.
Now maybe people will see the Cort Johnson/CAA spin for what it is.
>To the best of my knowledge, there is no assertion in Osler's Web that CFS must be from a retrovirus.
There seem to be few other mechanisms that satisfy the evidence, but I don't know of any place where a definite conclusion is rendered.
Professor Howard Urnovits's "retro-elements" seem capable of creating a similar effect.
>The WPI could be wrong and it could be right. Why does Coffin get to decide and why now? I guarantee you that if you ask Mikovits, Lombardi, and Whittemore that they will give you an honest answer while Knox, Levy, Coffin, Stoye and the rest will not confirm that they could be wrong. For all you that believe that Peterson is being neutral why hasn't he confirmed that it wasn't a replication study. More importantly why hasn't he said that the Knox patients are not the Lombardi study patients. He doesn't know their identities or it is a huge IRB violation. Just ask him!
>By the way, why would a reputable journal not require Knox's title to be accurate? They left the impression that all patients in the Knox study were previously identified as XMRV positive. NOT TRUE! There is no data for the first 41 patients, why? I thought that Science required data. The information could be totally made up except for the 29 patients discussed in the second part of the paper. Why does Levy get to say it is a replication study, who reviewed this paper, when did they review it, were there edits to the original manuscript, who made the edits, when were the blood samples drawn, what did Peterson say to the patients and when, what actual work did Levy do, what did Knox do, what did Abbott do….come on ERV pay attention: be a true scientist and not a shill or simply shrill. Can't wait for this one to go to court and see the whining and finger-pointing.
>These charts of test differences should put the nail in Coffin's coffin. But is he listening or reading? I hope Drs. Alter and Lo stick up for us. The issue has never been about patient selection. It has always been about replication. If XMRV is found in healthy people then poor patient selection would have meant fewer positives not NO positives. Furthermore, if you can make monkeys sick with this stuff it is not an endogenous mouse lab contaminant that has been around forever.
>Who even knows if they were the exact patients? Both Knox and Peterson's actions are unethical as well as a huge conflict of interest. They didn't even have knowledge of who the patients were in the original study. There's also the fact that their paper did find a positive with one test but they chose to use the test that also found the same patient negative on all the samples. How convenient. Sounds like a CDC move.
>The Invest in ME conference was held on May 20th in London. This statement is a good example of what happens when the WPI et al study is properly replicated:
"The final presentation was by Wilfried Bieger (Munich,Germany). He mentioned their earlier studies to detect XMRV, which had been negative. His team had then collaborated with Judy Mikovits and set up a highly sensitive, specific and uncontaminated protocol for virus detection, sequencing of viral DNA and antibody testing with western blot. Viral DNA and RNA were not detected in fresh blood, but after cultivation of PBMCs for 6 weeks under stimulation and using partly co-culture with virus permissive LnCap cells, culture cells turned positive in some patients. Presence of XMRV was confirmed by sequencing XMRV specific DNA. There have been approximately 40% positives so far."
Source: http://www.investinme.org/IiME%20Conference%202011/IiME%20International%20ME%20Conference%202011%20Conference%20Report.htm
>"Sure take every study independently and you can find weaknesses, just like the original science study but taken all of the data out there as a whole and it becomes clear the WPI is most likley wrong on this."
Thanks for a laugh, Anonymous! That is probably the stupidest comment of the 21st century, so far.
A hundred wrongs do not make a right. A hundred flawed studies put together make … well, a hundred flawed studies. Multiply the number of those studies by a thousand and you will still get a pile of rubbish.
>I still think people should be very cautious before throwing Dr Peterson off the cliff.
This entire CFS debacle has been so bizarre that it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the reasoning behind his actions ultimately appear to be just as reasonable as anyone elses.
>Peterson has still not spoken out and said that the study Knox et al was flawed. There is no excuse for his behaviour. He has thrown himself off a cliff.
>@ ErikMoldWarrior; Drp saved my life in 87/88. he was a dear trusted friend for many years..this isnt like him.. i have relapsed as of the last 3 yrs and now i am batlling MS as well. bedridden again very ill again .. i think i might know u from back at docs office where we all almost lived at that time . My name was Roberta, Guidos, (Bobbie) a race horse jockey who endend up at dr P's cuz Nancy Kaiser and I were seizuring to death quickly.. ?? can we talk? im on facebook , remarried , bobbie Clarizio thx :) im in a WPI study . Dr P's office has contacted me 4 times to come see him . but im too ill and have no money for it ..