The Elephant In The Room

The arrogance continues with the latest “contribution” from our government at work:

Curr Opin Virol. 2012 Jul 17. [Epub ahead of print]

Recombinant origin, contamination, and de-discovery of XMRV.

Delviks-Frankenberry K, Cingöz O, Coffin JM, Pathak VK.

Viral Mutation Section, NCI, HIV DRP, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD, United States.

Abstract

The discovery and de-discovery of the xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) has been a tumultuous roller-coaster ride for scientists and patients. The initial associations of XMRV with chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer, while providing much hope and optimism, have now been discredited and/or retracted following overwhelming evidence that (1) numerous patient cohorts from around the world areXMRV-negative, (2) the initial reports of XMRV-positive patients were due to contamination with mouse DNA, XMRV plasmid DNA, or virus from the 22Rv1 cell line and (3) XMRV is a laboratory-derived virus generated in the mid 1990s through recombination during passage of a prostate tumor xenograft in immuno-compromised mice. While these developments are disappointing to scientists and patients, they provide a valuable road map of potential pitfalls to the would-be microbe hunters.

Game. Set. Match. Everyone can take a sigh of relief. The human race is safe, as they’ve said all along. Scientists in a power postition at the NIH have closed their minds to retroviruses other than HIV and HTLV contributing to human disease. Is this really a scientific assessment of all the available data? Or a ploy to keep the blinders on a while longer? Baffle ’em with bullshit.

There’s a giant elephant in the room. Several elephants actually. What if there’s more than this one virus that they acknowledge they created in the early 90’s? It seems likely that it’s happened more than once, given how many chances there have been to recombine and infect human cells? But they only infect human cells in tissue culture they say, not in vivo because we have restriction factors.

Here’s an experiment with human lymphoid tissue concluding we are safe:

Susceptibility of Human Lymphoid Tissue Cultured ex vivo to Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus-Related Virus (XMRV) Infection. Curriu et al.

Abstract

Background: Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) was generated after a recombination event between two endogenous murine leukemia viruses during the production of a prostate cancer cell line. Although the associations of the XMRV infection with human diseases appear unlikely, the XMRV is a retrovirus of undefined pathogenic potential, able to replicate in human cells in vitro. Since recent studies using animal models for infection have yielded conflicting results, we set out an ex vivo model for XMRV infection of human tonsillar tissue to determine whether XMRV produced by 22Rv1 cells is able to replicate in human lymphoid organs. Tonsil blocks were infected and infection kinetics and its pathogenic effects were monitored

Results: XMRV, though restricted by APOBEC, enters and integrates into the tissue cells. The infection did not result in changes of T or B-cells, immune activation, nor inflammatory chemokines. Infectious viruses could be recovered from supernatants of infected tonsils by reinfecting DERSE XMRV indicator cell line, although these supernatants could not establish a new infection in fresh tonsil culture, indicating that in our model, the viral replication is controlled by innate antiviral restriction factors.

Conclusions: Overall, the replication-competent retrovirus XMRV, present in a high number of laboratories, is able to infect human lymphoid tissue and produce infectious viruses, even though they were unable to establish a new infection in fresh tonsillar tissue. Hereby, laboratories working with cell lines producing XMRV should have knowledge and understanding of the potential biological biohazardous risks of this virus.

So maybe they’ll take a few extra biohazard precautions for themselves, since they are working directly with these lab anomalies, but nothing to worry about for the general public. Never mind the millions of human canaries illuminating the destructive path we are on. Never mind that this could explain the observed increase in neuroimmune diseases, autoimmunity and cancer. Never mind that we’ve been mainlining attenuated viruses cultured in animal cells which express exogenous retroviruses for eighty years now. Never mind that these viruses cause similar diseases in other mammals to that which we are observing in humans. Never mind all the clinical evidence that several large patient cohorts, ME/CFS, ASD, GWI, chronic Lyme Disease, PANDAS, RRMS are related and contagious diseases. Leave it in the realm of genetic weaknesses for now. Better to be an ostrich for a while longer since the cat is so out of the bag. Let’s remain in denial for as long as we possibly can, which I guess will be until Quest has a DNA sequencing test that insurance will pay for. They are allowed to be literal and have limited vision in the name of science.

Comparing PreXMRV-2 gag sequence diversity in laboratory and wild mice using deep sequencing. Mayer et al.

Abstract

It has recently been reported that the xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) derives from a laboratory recombinant. However, sequences with characteristics of the 5′ half of XMRV (termed PreXMRV-2) have been identified in several laboratory mouse genomes and cell lines suggesting parts of the XMRV genome exist as naturally occurring retroviruses in mice. We compare here PreXMRV-2 gag sequence diversity in mice to that of reported XMRV-like sequences by testing a panel of wild mouse and common inbred laboratory mouse strain genomic DNAs and by using high throughput amplicon sequencing. Sequences with features typical of previously reported PreXMRV-2 sequences, among them a 24 nt deletion, were repeatedly identified in different wild mice and inbred mouse strains within a high background of non-XMRV-like sequences. However, Sanger sequencing of clones from amplicons failed to retrieve such sequences effectively. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that PreXMRV-2 gag sequences from mice, cell lines and patient samples belong to the same evolutionarily young clade and that such sequences are diverse and widespread within Mus musculus domesticus and laboratory mice derived from this species. No evidence of PreXMRV-2 like gag sequences could be obtained outside of the M. musculus lineage. The results suggest that accurate determination of presence, absence and relationships of specific murine retroviral strains benefit greatly from deep sequencing analysis.

Meaning that most of the work that has been done so far has been a meaningless waste of time, energy and money… More from this paper:

… in both the Sanger sequencing and high- throughput datasets, PreXMRV-2 like gag sequences were not majority sequences in any mouse DNA sample, even when account- ing for possible clonal artifacts due to PCR or emulsion PCR before GS FLX deep sequencing preferentially amplifying one sequence over another in a complex mixture. Thus, and also in the light of an often unknown sequence heterogeneity provided by mouse ERVs, we feel that high-throughput sequencing should generally be applied when attempting to detect relatively rare sequences such as PreXMRV-2 from complex retroviral mixtures. High-throughput sequencing is a common strategy used for identifying rare human immunodeficiency virus 1 variants and may need to be employed more broadly.

Here’s a paper that shows that mixing XMRV with Maloney MuLV produces a more dangerous virus. Simple animal retroviruses recombine and one can “rescue” another by providing missing pieces that evolution has silenced with mutations to protect us.

Moloney murine leukemia virus glyco-gag facilitates xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus replication through human APOBEC3-independent mechanism. Nitta et al.

Abstract Background

One of the unique features of gammaretroviruses is that they contain an additional extended form of Gag, glyco-gag, which initiates in the leader sequence. MuLV glyco-gag, gPr80Gag, promotes retrovirus replication and disease progression. Although virtually all infectious MuLVs encode glyco-gag, XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) lacks the classical gPr80Gag sequence. We examined XMRV to determine if its leader sequence contains glyco-gag activity, whether the presence of conventional gPr80Gag affects replication of XMRV, and we describe the evolution of glyco-gag-deficient MuLVs in Mus.

Results

We introduced several mutations disrupting two putative but noncanonical glyco-gag proteins in the leader sequence region in XMRV and found that those mutations did not affect virus

release nor susceptibility to the antiviral activity of hA3G (human APOBEC3G). A chimeric XMRV encoding the Moloney MuLV (M-MuLV) leader sequence (MXMRV) demonstrated that M-MuLV glyco-gag facilitated MXMRV release and increased infectivity. Infectivity assays with several cell lines showed that glyco-gag increases XMRV infectivity in all cell lines tested, but the level of this increase varies in different cell lines. Because MuLV glyco- gag counteracts mouse APOBEC3, we investigated whether M-MuLV glyco-gag enhances XMRV infection by counteracting human APOBEC3. Comparison of hAPOBEC3 isoforms expressed in different cell lines indicated that hA3B was the most likely candidate for a restrictive hA3. However over-expression of hA3B showed no enhanced restriction of infection by XMRV compared to MXMRV. Endogenous MuLVs in the sequenced mouse genome were screened for canonical glyco-gag, which was identified in two clades of xenotropic MuLVs (X-MuLVs) and ecotropic MuLVs, but not in other X-MuLVs or in any polytropic MuLVs.

Conclusions

M-MuLV glyco-gag facilitates XMRV replication, and the leader sequence region in XMRV does not encode proteins equivalent to M-MuLV glyco-gag. The fact that the ability of glyco- gag to enhance XMRV infection varies in different cell lines suggests a glyco-gag sensitive restrictive factor that further reduces XMRV infectivity. The M-MuLV glyco-gag enhancement for XMRV replication is through a hAPOBEC3 independent mechanism. The absence of glyco-gag in MuLVs carried by western European mice suggests that loss of this sequence is a relatively recent event with limited subspecies distribution.

While the decades long coffee break continues at the CDC, I’m trying to be well enough to work, in order to care for members of the most medically underserved population I’ve ever taken care of, including medical school in the Bronx and 10 years in the ED at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, the county hospital in San Jose, CA, where the patients are a composite of third world misery. Those patients had nothing on this group in terms of lack of informed care; almost every patient I have has received abysmal care, due to ignorance and a lack of compassion because they have an invisible disease. Benign neglect is as good as it gets.

The last blog was the least controversial I’ve ever written judging from the comments. I have received many expressions of concern for Andrew that the ball was dropped. I would like to reassure everyone that I forwarded my findings and recommendations to Andrew’s doctor in Northern Ireland. Andrew has been seen twice since he returned home and is reportedly much better than before his trip. So the most important thing happened. Taking it all at face value, Andrew improved with oxygen and Deplin. He received about 30 hours of oxygen. In hyperbaric practice, I used to do a series of 40 hours and expect it to last for at least several months if the response was robust. I only hope that if it fades, he will be able to access more oxygen and L-methylfolate, available over the counter, as explained in my last blog.

I tremendously appreciate all of the expressions of support from friends around the world. I did hear back channel from a few people who were upset that I said that some ME/CFS patients are difficult from a physician’s perspective. I almost didn’t leave it in after I wrote it, but decided to, because it is important grist for the mill. There are several perversions that have befallen us, by virtue of being seen as lazy, crazy and faking. One is the need to refute that therapy could be useful for us in some way, since it is being forced down throats by the same people who say there is no physical basis. Therapy with people trying to talk you out of what is real isn’t very useful, but in the context of being believed, it might do a lot of good. Same goes for exercise. It is the context that is the problem. Another perversion is the need to be good if we ever want to be seen as sick or worthy of help. Well, Alzheimer’s Disease doesn’t make most patients particularly nice, but the disease still gets studied, and not only by psychiatrists. Neuroinflammation has behaviorial consequences, just as cardiac inflammation produces palpitations and GI inflammation causes diarrhea. It is a lack of compassion on the part of the medical profession to blame this on the patients. It could never have happened except that the disease doesn’t cause true dementia even when very long standing. It happened because doctors blame patients for what they fear and don’t understand, pure and simple.

The need to reaffirm one’s illness all the time leads to a further distortion, oft repeated in the patient group, the view that ME/CFS is the worst disease in the world. This is far from the truth, but the degree of injustice makes for a need to catastrophize, that word used all the time to accuse us of making too much of our little nuisance complaints.

All chronic illness is superimposed on preexisting personality. When it comes to inflammation of the brain, dysfunction impacts thought content. My experiences treating brain injury and developmental disorders with EEG biofeedback and oxygen taught me that strong emotions are not unlike other types of paroxysmal brain activity and similar therapeutic interventions are effective across the board for patients living with unstable brain states. People with a lot of fear who get this disease are prone to recurrent or persistent panic states. PTSD is another manifestation of cortisol exacerbated neuroinflammation which shows up often in the patient group. It is organic. Difficult brain states make for tricky management from a doctor’s point of view. The word encephalomyelitis means inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. Of course there are behavioral consequences.

The truth is that it is not the worst disease in the world by any stretch of the imagination. It has the potential to become a living hell due to ignorance of what it is or what to do about it. The safest things we have at our disposal are oxygen, improved methylation, stress reduction and various antiinflammatory strategies, including addressing insulin problems and doing whatever possible to heal the leaky gut, a key factor. My early practice experience with a small number of patients is that these strategies are effective for reducing the degree of suffering.

Speaking of gut inflammation, our family is working on our diet. Patients who have tried everything for many years are often resistant to changing diet. It is so much more work than just about any other therapeutic intervention you can come up with. Physical work is a problem for the patient group and eating well is more work. Also the results of dietary interventions are usually slow. Food is gratification when everything else goes to hell. But you are what you eat. I advocate a whole foods, unprocessed, organic, if possible, diet that restricts sugar. Wash any sprayed produce carefully. Avoid chemicals, especially the excitotoxins MSG and aspartame. I tell my patients to read ingredient lists and don’t buy it if there are things in it that you don’t know what a handful of it looks like. The average American consumes pounds of chemicals a year. Whether there is a retrovirus or not, the disease doesn’t kill directly, life can go on for a very long time and the quality of life of human beings is dependent upon what they put in their mouths.

A member of my husband’s family brought my attention to a film called Forks Over Knives, available on instant Netflix. It proposes a vegan diet as the way to health. I was a vegan for a few years when I was young, and whether it is or isn’t a healthy lifestyle, the premise put forth in Diet For A Small Planet in 1971, which seemed true to me way back when, is still a good argument for not eating animals, but ethical considerations and attempts to save the planet aside, the movie doesn’t draw the correct conclusions from it’s own observations in my opinion, or at least it doesn’t prove it’s premise. It is just as likely that the avoidance of the sugar, chemicals, hormones and antibiotics involved in the eating of meat and processed foods in our culture is at the bottom of the adverse health consequences of our modern diet, not meat in and of itself. Still the movie is worth watching if you are thinking about food, and the review found here: “Forks Over Knives”: Is the Science Legit? is also worth a look.

I had a Crohn’s diagnosis at one point and spent a summer on TPN (total parenteral nutrition) before being saved by a surgeon. Afterwards, the diet that facilitated healing most was the SCD or Specific Carbohydrate Diet. It is based on the premise that the inflamed gut is harmed by exposure to disaccharides and polysaccharides, contributing to dysbiosis. It allows some simple sugars. It eliminates grains and dairy products, except for hard cheese and SCD yogurt, superfermented for 24 hours to break down the lactose. SCD yogurt is an excellent probiotic, unless you are cassein sensitive. The list of SCD legal/illegal foods is here. My family is cheating with brown and wild rice. It’s tough for me to keep weight on and I am grateful to my daughters for supporting this now, since I have a hard time doing the right things for myself. It has much to do with the many years of ritual abuse involved in becoming and being a doctor. I was trained to overlook the needs of my own body and carry on no matter what, relying on magical thinking to keep going:). It isn’t working too well for me now. A bit late in the game for repatterning, but I guess it’s never too late to learn, or at least I hope not.

 

Today’s song: Doubting Thomas by Nickel Creek

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24 thoughts on “The Elephant In The Room

  1. Thanks for the blog Jamie.

    Having an elephant in a lab would be sure to scare away any mouse contamination. Logical isn’t it. Really can’t understand why they don’t try this.

    On a serious note, the last time a group of retrovirologists clubbed together to form a consensus opinion against those with data, they said retroviruses could not infect humans at all. This dominance lasted for 35 years, ending with Ruscetti’s discovery of HTLV and Montagniers HIV.

    Take this issue with host restriction factors. They inhibit HTLV and HIV, but both have ways to get around this. Also MuLV glycogag protects against APOBEC. APOBEC is also inactive in mitotic cells and MuLVs integrate into B cells to evade APOBEC.

    The paper on XMRV infection of human tonsillar tissue was studying the virus in 22Rv1 cells and how that infects fresh tonsil tissue. But this virus has no env gene in Genbank. There is no evidence it is XMRV without that env gene. What if that gene shows it to be a mouse virus, not the viruses found in humans. In vitro isn’t in vivo anyway. They are building a consensus on top of an assumption which is built on an another assumption. This isn’t science.

  2. What a phenomenally, superbly precious and important post. Pity so few are able or willing to recognize it as such. Do not fret Dr. DJ; The arrogant bastards will soon be humbled and silenced. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come and the time to recognize that we are constantly being infected with stealth viral pathogens that cause chronic, life-altering disease is way the hell overdue. Soon, the “skeptics” will be suffering from the same ailments as us….and even if they are fortunate enough to escape the misery, their kids won’t be so lucky! That’s a certainty!!! The only thing worse than misery is seeing people you love and care about go through that same misery. Yet this is exactly what will happen to them. And when it is too late and the “smartest guys in the room” finally realize that we are all on the Titanic, then it – their fucking ARROGANCE – will finally hit them and wake them up from their own intellectually dishonest, lazy, reductionist presumptions. And when they and their families and their friends are all sick, then, they will finally say, “I’m sorry, we have erred.” “We should have LISTENED to you.” We should have tried harder to SEE what you were trying to tell us.” .

  3. Dr. Jamie,

    Thank you for yet another interesting and informative blog. As always, we are grateful that you openly share your knowledge and observations.

    I have successfully used one of the treatments you mention, EEG biofeedback, for almost ten years. It is one of the few therapies that has given me any benefit over 18 years of severe illness. Because I’m mainly homebound due to the severity of my ME, I train at home on a EEG machine hooked up to my laptop computer. The neurofeedback improves my cognition and sleep; in fact, thanks to neurofeedback, I was able to gradually taper off long-term benzodiazapines, which had been prescribed for insomonia.

    I look forward to trying some of the other treatments you suggest, such as oxygen. The fact that several patients have publicly posted about their improvements with oxygen, Deplin, etc., gives me hope they will work for me.

    I wish the best for you, and for Andrew. Please take care of your health.

  4. Hi Jamie,

    You wrote, “Baffle ’em with bullshit.” Thank you! that really made me laugh and felt terrific because it seems to me that is most of what we have been hearing and continue to get. I have seen through the bullshit but that hasn’t helped a lot, it is just as frustrating. Anyway, it was wonderful to have my feelings put so succinctly.

    Like you I always pushed my body to do the things I wanted to do and while that seemed to work for most of my life, it no longer does and I have recently changed to living within the limits that ME/CFS imposes in an attempt to avoid a relapse which I finally realized would undo any healing I accomplished in between. So far so good. What must be done can be done.

    I have recently started LDN and along with the other things I am doing, the protocol from Dr Enlander in NYC and pacing the LDN seems to have made a big positive difference. Hurray! However, treatments are not cures and it seems to me that unless the cause is acknowledged the cure will not be forthcoming. May we all live to see it!

  5. For the first time since I started this blog, I have decided to take down a couple of comments and block someone who is threatening me. Bizarrely, this person has apparently befriended Andrew’s mother and I hear they are intent on libeling me and the members of Little Acorns. I have only commented on this case (since the blog encouraged by the mother) to the extent that I had to in order to ensure that correct medical information has gone out from here and that no one has been misled.

    I have decided not to give it a forum, not because I am concerned about their lies in any way, but because they seek to stop me from sharing my medical ideas. Everything I did is well documented and I am ashamed of nothing other than my mistake in not prescreening properly. Anything that was out of the ordinary with this case was done to spare Andrew’s energy or accommodate my own illness and it was all perfectly legal. The medicine was impeccable. Andrew was improving by the mother’s own report when she inexplicably removed him from treatment. That a complete stranger would spend this kind of energy on it because of an ideological vendetta against me is bizarre and twisted.

    It is the nature of the internet to have to deal with situations such as this. Although it goes against the grain, I’m not going to allow it to play out here and distract everybody. We have bigger fish to fry, such as the papers I just posted. We need to be thinking about why we are sick and what we can do about it now, not in ten years. I will not be threatened into not offering my knowledge here for free and I will not let the message be subverted. I can only help a few in practice. It is not easy to be in practice and be as public as I am, but writing publicly may be the most important thing I am doing. The ideas are what matter, not my personality or who does or doesn’t like me.

    This blog is an open house, but it is my living room and I’ve decided to show the toxic elements the door.

  6. It’s important that this space remains as somewhere that your ideas and research are shared and where people can gain knowledge and have positive interchanges with you. It is entirely inappropriate for people to vent their spleen here or use it as a way to launch personal attacks. This space is very clearly what you state it to be – somewhere you (Dr J) share thoughts and ideas and results. That is all. Sure people comment, but if it is non-contributory and either vindictive or for personal gain, then it is entirely inappropriate.

  7. Coming from a family who had an 8 year old child die, I know my parents would have done anything possible to try to save him. And they did but there was no hope. His life could not even be extended. He was gone within a year of his leukemia diagnosis. I find it very commendable that a group of very sick people and a doctor were willing to try to alleviate someone else’s suffering. I know my parents would have gone to the end of the earth to help my brother. I find all of this really sad.

    Thank you for trying to help Jamie.

    • Very sorry to hear that Robyn, I too lost a brother and I know my parents would have done anything in their power to keep him alive. My parents always put us children ahead of themselves and looking back I realise how very hard it was for them.
      Even now my Father wishes he could take my illness from me and carry it himself.
      That is heartbreaking for me, no way would I ever give this willingly to a loved one. Bless you Robyn.

  8. Considering recent publications concerning Apobec and MRVs I thought it might be useful if a more complete explanation was presented so that patients could be better informed
    Apobec comes in two isomers one active one not.In resting cells the active form predominates but in deviding cells the reverse applies.Hence by infecting replicating cells Apobec becomes irrelevant.In similar vein MLvs evade the compliment system by invading B and T cells.They actually use the energy of the opsinization process to drive this entry.The message is that invitro results do not extrapolate into in vivo conditions.If I start posting your blog will attract every troll in creation.If I can help with anything please let me know.The other point of course is that for 35 years the consensus position in retrovirology was that retroviruses could not possibly infect humans,At that time HTLV viruses had been infecting humans for 50 000 years!!!.They then decided that junk DNA could not possibly consist of retroviral DNA!!!.This is what happens when a paragidm consensus becomes driven by personalities and not by data
    The recent paper showing that the virus in 22rv1 seems incapable of producing mature virions is further evidence that the gammaretrovirus or viruses detected in patients with ME/cfs is in no way connected to the virus in the 22rv1 cell line. There is also no env gene uploaded for the 22rv1 virus and the sequence presented is truncated.Thus this cell line virus has not been completely sequenced and this matter needs to be revisited
    Finally for now it has been known for decades that glycogag is not essential for MULV infection or replication.The recent study which tried to imply that it was is not correct.They did show however that apobec has no effect whatsoever on the replication of an XMRV like virus.The most pathogenic of all mulv viruses are those with deletions in gag and hence are replication defective.The truncated gag proteins transcribed act as superantigens and stimulate polyclonal expansion of B cells and hence increase the number of cells available for infection.These authors chose not to look for this antigen.Why? Given the size of the deletion in GAG the chances of VP-35 XMRV being replication competent are minimal and anyone who knows anything about MLVs would be looking for the presence of helper viruses so why aren,t they?

  9. Yes, we are in a very sorry state of affairs. Just had yet another publication from the UK gov’t telling us that CBT and GET are the most cost effective way of ‘treating’ M.E. If you didn’t laugh you’d cry. A walk and a talk might well be the cheapo’s option of dealing with a chronic complex neuroimmune disease but we all know it sure as hell ain’t going to work!

    No-one is going to care about us unless we start jumping up and down about this being an INFECTIOUS disease that ANYONE could get. The public don’t care about diseases unless they think they might be at risk of getting them. We need to bang on about the outbreaks of M.E., the life-long blood and tissue bans and the need for the 2 sets of Secret Files that we have on this illness in the UK. The name CFS was chosen deliberately so the public would not worry about it being an infectious disease We need SOME public panic, or at least concern, to get this thing moving or I really do fear for our futures. Our illness isn’t even on the general publics radar, let alone on the agenda and so will never be a priority for the government.

    Oh, and we desperately need a celebrity to start advocating for us too. After all, the public seem to have become ‘celebricised’ and de-politicised over the past 10-15 years unfortunately.

    • Maisie,

      Please say more about the two sets of UK secret files on ME. How do you know of them? Who’s got them? etc., etc. Thanks for any and all details.

  10. Yes, there are 2 sets of secret files from the Medical Research Council (MRC)that we KNOW of (may well be more…) relating to ME/CFS.

    They cannot be opened for 73 years which is an extraordinarily long time considering documents relating to issues of National Security can be opened after 30 years. They were started in 1988 which is around the time the UK gov’t started to dismiss M.E. as a real and serious infectious illness. As one puzzled M.E. sufferer said on learning about the existence of these files:
    “Why on earth have a 73 year embargo on these documents on an illness where a load of neurotic people, mostly women, wrongly think they are physically ill?”

    See ‘www.meaction.org.uk/the mrc secret files on me/cfs’ and type in the key words: ‘Another secret file on me/cfs comes to light’ for more info.

    Hope this helps.

  11. From a medical/scientific perspective there was nothing wrong in JDJ,s treatment approach.The science is complex.I would not be able to explain it to someone like A,s mother with absolutely no medical or scientific background.The way I read the interview/contrived statement is that the mother has completely misunderstood what was said to her.An example is that she thought that js preparations were to raise the boy,s oxygen levels.In fact the treatments ameliorate the levels of cellular oxidative stress an entirely different scientific concept.The interview is littered with such misconceptions.J s nanopack based therapy changes the redox balance in cells.HBOT does the same in a far more potent manner and also increases SOD levels improving electron chain transport efficiency within mitochondria.The approach would be to minimise oxidative stress as quickly as possible to raise mitochondrial function enough for A to be able to tolerate the oral prep because mitochondrial function enables the proper functioning of the P450 enzyme system.This is probably why most of us are so drug sensitive .without a properly functioning cytochrome P 450 system we cant detoxify xenobiotics( drugs) and develop extreme side effects. JDJ has also self trialed immunomodulators ( actos) and extolled the virtues of the Myers cocktail.Without the latter I would probably be dead. I make no apologies for this post.These are complex matters and the treatment is pioneering. This post could be a lot more detailed and complex than this!!. Is there any realistic possibility that the mother involved would comprehend it?

  12. I thought this might be of interest

    Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2010 Jun;1197:178-83.
    Hyperbaric oxygen treatment induces antioxidant gene expression.
    Godman CA, Joshi R, Giardina C, Perdrizet G, Hightower LE.
    Source

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA.
    Abstract

    Although the underlying molecular causes of aging are not entirely clear, hormetic agents like exercise, heat, and calorie restriction may generate a mild pro-oxidant stress that induces cell protective responses to promote healthy aging. As an individual ages, many cellular and physiological processes decline, including wound healing and reparative angiogenesis. This is particularly critical in patients with chronic non-healing wounds who tend to be older. We are interested in the potential beneficial effects of hyperbaric oxygen as a mild hormetic stress on human microvascular endothelial cells. We analyzed global gene expression changes in human endothelial cells following a hyperbaric exposure comparable to a clinical treatment. Our analysis revealed an upregulation of antioxidant, cytoprotective, and immediate early genes. This increase coincided with an increased resistance to a lethal oxidative stress. Our data indicate that hyperbaric oxygen can induce protection against oxidative insults in endothelial cells

  13. It states in the article:
    However, sequences with characteristics of the 5′ half of XMRV (termed PreXMRV-2) have been identified in several laboratory mouse genomes and cell lines suggesting parts of the XMRV genome exist as naturally occurring retroviruses in mice.

    I believe this is the case. If one read Dr Mary’s Monkey by Edward T Haslam. In 1964 hundreds of mice that were being illegally experimented on by Dr Mary Sherman in New Orleans but she died in mysterious circumstances and her lab shut down but what happened to the mice?’ Where they just let free?
    Fasinating book that shows the corruption that can go on with scientists.

    • MRVs have probably jumped species naturally, but there is that possibility some didn’t. When you consider that MLVs are passed in saliva or that a small knick is all that is needed to pass on other retroviruses. If they have been creating viruses capable of infecting human tissue, but haven’t been able to detect them, you only need one lab assistant to leave a lab carrying a virus. But as you say there are instances where mice have been set free.

      There was a big fire back in the 90s at Jackson labs. Wonder if any mice escaped?

      • You stated :But as you say there are instances where mice have been set free. There was a big fire back in the 90s at Jackson labs. Wonder if any mice escaped.

        Have you read Dr Mary’s Monkey by Edward T Haslam? There was doctor Mary Sheerman that in 1964 was doing secret experiments but she ‘accidentley’ died in mysterious circumstances. She had a lot of mice and was introducing cancer cells into them. She used radiation to mutate cancer-causing monkey viruses. I think that the mice were all let free. Contaminated polio vaccines were also involved

  14. Both retroviruses, how could the contagion factor of XMRV be different or far more reaching than HIV?

    Not even HIV (the most well-funded retrovirus in history) ever claimed an infect:harm relationship to extended family members that you hear about with countless CFS & ME cases.

    It has never been proven that a retrovirus (e.g., HIV) can cause harm. To top that, now we’re supposed to believe that a retrovirus (e.g., XMRV) is aerosoled? Or saliva-based?

    It doesn’t add up, and I don’t subscribe to any of it.

    Why would our allied government be covering-up our illnesses caused by a yet-to-be-discovered pathogen?

    Isn’t it far more logical that they are hiding a KNOWN pathogen from the past?

    Likely tied to something *political*?

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