A Theory of XMRV Creation
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. Jamie Deckoff-Jones entitled Cover-up and Contamination Theories. HERE Dr. Deckoff-Jones is a former emergency room doctor, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME patient, and is currently the clinical director of the Whittemore-Peterson 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-Peterson Institute.
The simple question Dr. Deckoff-Jones 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-Jones 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-Peterson 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-Peterson 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, Maryland. 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-Jones, 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-Jones 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-Jones 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, Donald 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-Jones 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-Jones 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
a staggering amount of research is represented by this article and many of the comments it generated - i'm getting an education just reading the blogs and comments about xmrv and i offer profound thanks.
Posted by: shelley | June 05, 2011 at 11:52 AM
You are saying what I have been thinking for years!!! And this is why we are up against a brick wall people! I truly believe a lot of CFS cases are caused by vaccines and they (govt, big pharma) don't want us to find out! I, myself got an MMR vax in 1992 at age 18 required for college. The next day I was very ill...turns out I got Mono. Coincidence? I think not, and nobody can tell me otherwise!! I can't even count how many people I've read stories of over the years who also got CFS from a vaccine (and I'm not in VAERS either, so that isn't necessarily reliable). I am no biologist or scientist, just someone who has been sick most her life and now disabled, but I was a gifted student and can put 2+2 together. My theory is that I was already carrying the Mono virus but the vaccine threw my immune system into disarray, and allowed the Mono to take hold and at the same time, who knows what damage the vaccine itself did to my immune system. Dare I even say us CFS (and autism) sufferers are "collateral" damage to the govt and vaccine manufacturers, and in essence we are part of some sick eugenics program. Obviously vaccines don't affect everyone negatively (or we can't see it), so people like us have a certain genetic makeup that cannot withstand this onslaught. Only people who's immune systems can handle vaccines will survive the future. The rest of us are dying off. This is the only explanation in my mind that makes sense as to why no other disease has had to fight so hard for recognition and research. The truth is too damning to the powers that be.
Posted by: curecfs | June 04, 2011 at 10:27 PM
Hi Kent:
After reading all of the XMRV Papers and seeing how WPI paper does have holes to be "sewed up" as they say in science, I was wondering why WPI does not do further XMRV studies immediately. Instead of spending another dime on travel or defense, why not just do another study, adding strength and power? Also, I wanted your take on the fact that HHV-6, EBV, and CMV viruses, a plethora of pathogens such as micoplasma, chlamydia, echovirus, coxsackie, measles and enteroviruses, etc, plus the fact that HHV-6 can/does leave the blood-plasma-spinal fluid and resides in tisue, can now integrate into the chromosomes of the brain and T-cell gene rearrangement is now occurring with this virus. Also, genetic predisposition such as PON1, White Matter Brain abnormalities, Epilepsy, etc are in Autsim/GWI/CFS/Lyme Diseases. These are evidenced based scientific facts that we know right now to be true. Aside from what XMRV might or might not do (jury is still out)...are we neglecting patients by not looking at the evidenced based scientific facts we know right now and treating patients for what we know exists? What is your take on this? No matter what happens with XMRV, these other issues must be treated, correct? Blessings, Julia
Posted by: Slept79744 | June 04, 2011 at 04:52 PM
Out of curiosity, I went to the VAERS database and searched for "chronic fatigue syndrome" and any vaccine. I expected to find a wide assortment of vaccines listed, but my recollection is that anthrax, lyme, Hep A and B and HPV were the primary ones listed. I did the same with "fibromyalgia" and "fatigue" which gave me many of the same listings, but many more as well.
Not that this means that XMRV is in any of these vaccines, or that it's not in others, or even that any of the affected actually have chronic fatigue syndrome proper, but it was interesting.
Posted by: Carol | March 26, 2011 at 12:40 PM
There is yet more, unfortunately ...
Re retroviral contamination of chicken embryo-grown products there were a few studies in the late 90s indicating that there may be a problem. Have a look at this one by the Swiss group
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC191429/?tool=pubmed.
... read the first and second paragraphs of discussion. They detected RT activity in all vaccines, but WHO experts concluded that it poses no danger to humans (!!!!!!!!!!). Then in the next sentence we find out that they haven't a faintest clue what causes that RT activity. But they do suspect retroviruses are involved (!!!!!!!!!). No worries then.
Shortly (very shortly!) after that study there were 3 negative studies, 2 done by CDC, and 1 by FDA, saying there is no problem with retro contamination, everything is hunky dory, nothing to see, go home, book is closed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2631681/?tool=pubmed
http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/full/39/2/675?view=long&pmid=11158127
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/73/7/5843?view=long&pmid=10364336
case closed!
BUT THEN this one comes along in 2008:
Molecular characterization of three recombinant isolates of avian leukosis virus obtained from contaminated Marek's disease vaccines.
Three natural recombinant avian leukosis viruses (ALV; PDRC-1039, PDRC-3246, and PDRC-3249) expressing a subgroup A gp85 envelope protein and containing long terminal repeats (LTR) of endogenous ALV-E viruses were isolated from contaminated commercial Marek's disease vaccines, cloned, and completely sequenced. Their full genomes were analyzed and compared with representative strains of ALV. The proviral DNA of all three isolates displayed 99.3% identity to each other, suggesting a possible common ancestor, even though the contaminating viruses were obtained from three separate vaccine serials produced by two different vaccine manufacturing companies. The contaminating viruses have a genetic organization typical of replication-competent alpharetroviruses. The proviral genomes of PDRC-1039 and PDRC-3246 are 7497 bp long, and the PDRC-3249 is three base pairs shorter because of a deletion of a threonine residue within the gp85 coding region. The LTR, gag, pol, and the transmembrane (TM) region (gp37) of the env gene of all three viruses displayed high identity to endogenous counterpart sequences (>98%). Only the surface (SU) region (gp85) of the env gene displayed high identity with exogenous ALV-A (98.7%). Locus-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis for ALV endogenous sequences (ev loci) in the chicken embryo fibroblasts used to produce the original vaccine vials identified the presence of ev-1, ev-2, ev-3, ev-4, and ev-6 in all three vaccines. Homologous recombination most likely took place to involve the SU region of the env gene because the recombinant viruses only differ in this particular region from the consensus ALV-E. These results suggest that the contaminating ALV isolates PROBABLY EMERGED BY RECOMBINATION OF ALV-A WITH ENDOGENOUS VIRUS SEQUENCES before vaccine preparation. Barbosa T, et al Avian Dis. 2008 Jun;52(2):245-52.
Posted by: Natasa | March 21, 2011 at 05:56 PM
Thanks for covering MLVs in ME and autism- a very important topic. I am a lawyer with ME and this is my first visit to an autism site. I wanted to take a look and see what the autism community was saying about XMRV. I am impressed with your very accurate reporting on the subject.
As you may know, CDC, NIH, a cadre of charlatan UK psychiatrists and the UK govt have waged a quarter-century war on ME science and patients. Their latest attack is CDC's fraudulent study which failed to find MLVs in a hodgepodge of fatigued and depressed people that they lied and claimed had "CFS" (ME). As WPI is doing the best science on ME today, they are under full attack by these charlatans. I would like to ask the autism community to please support WPI as much as you can. WPI is unable to take on most of the worthy scientific and clinical projects it has planned because they are under heavy fire from these frauds. The ME community has rallied to their side, but we are in tatters and impoverished because of the aforementioned persecution.
Again, I am asking the autism community to please support WPI whatever way it can, including financially. If we don't all band together, the retroviral science that could potentially benefit many devastating neuro-immune diseases including autism and ME will be crushed, just as CDC, NIH, etc. have succeeded in halting study of other retroviruses in ME in the past including the DeFreitas retrovirus in 1991. The DeFreitas RV, very closely related to HTLV, was the subject of the Primetime Live piece referred to by NicoleW in her comment. The video is very entertaining and accurate: vimeo.com/13048135.
There are many similarities and connections between ME and autism, which would take forever to get into, but I will note Dr. Garth Nicholson's excellent studies showing that Gulf War Illness (a form of ME) is very highly associated with certain military vaccinations (even among those never deployed to the Gulf) and also with the children of pwGWI developing autism and ME. He suggests that there is a viral infection conveyed by the vaccines which cause ME in older children and adults, while causing autism in younger children.
I can go on and on, as you've noticed, but I'll stop here. Anyone is welcome to contact me- I post on phoenixrising (aboutmecfs.org) as justinreilly. good luck with regaining your or your childrens health, everybody!
Posted by: Justin Reilly, esq. | March 20, 2011 at 10:53 PM
Characterisation of endogenous retrovirus in rodent cell lines used for production of biologicals
J. Shepherd et al, Biologicals, Volume 31, Issue 4, December 2003, Pages 251-260
Rodent cells are used widely to manufacture recombinant proteins for pharmaceutical use in humans and animals. However, all rodent cell lines express endogenous retroviruses that require appropriate testing regimes for identification and characterisation. In this communication we report the results of transmission electron microscopy, reverse transcriptase assay and infectious virus assays for retrovirus in 185 manufacturer cell banks of mouse, rat or hamster origin. The results indicated considerable variability of retroviral expression levels by transmission electron microscopy and reverse transcriptase assay, but nevertheless characteristic features of each cell type were observed. Infectious retrovirus was detected in mouse myeloma and hybridoma cell lines, but not in cell lines of hamster or rat origin….
Rodent cell lines have for many years been used as substrates for production of biological therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines and gene therapy virus vectors. It has long been recognised that such cell lines contain retrovirus elements that may be expressed as particles detectable by electron microscopy. Such particles may be infectious, as in the case of Murine leukaemia virus (MLV), or defective and non-infectious, as in the case of the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell retrovirus.]. Despite the lack of evidence for an association between murine retrovirus and disease in man, the potential contamination of therapeutics with agents associated with oncogenicity and immunosuppression in therapeutic products is a cause of regulatory concern. Detection and characterisation of retrovirus in manufacturer‘s master and end of production cell banks is recommended by regulatory agencies using techniques such as electron microscopy, reverse transcriptase assay and appropriate infectivity or co-cultivation assays. In addition, determination of retrovirus particle load and experimental demonstration of appropriate removal or inactivation of retrovirus during purification is required for each product [ref: Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products. Notes for guidance on quality of biotechnological products: viral safety evaluation of biotechnology products derived from cell lines of human or animal origin (CPMP/ICH/295/95), European Commission, Brussels (1997) – see below
…The study indicated characteristic features of retroviral expression in each cell type tested. All RT-positive cell lines demonstrated preference for manganese-dependent RT, characteristic of the Gammaretroviridae.
Posted by: Natasa | March 20, 2011 at 04:00 PM
Thank you, Kent, for another interesting and informative article.
Patricia Carter
Posted by: Patricia Carter | March 18, 2011 at 09:32 AM
XMRV has been linked to ME/CFS. I as well as my Brother and sister have virally induced sudden onset ME/CFS and now both my children have Autism. I strongly suspect a viral link to my illness as wel as my son's autism. XMRV is a prime suspect of both in my families case. Thanks for following this story.
Posted by: Keith | March 17, 2011 at 06:27 PM
Excellent post, Kent! I sense a gradual evolution in your thinking. In the ongoing gene versus germ versus jab debate, you seem to be coming around to the view that it's the jab, where previously I thought that you considered genetic and/or germ factors to be predominant. Personally, I have always suspected the jabs, the jabs, and the jabs to be the culprits. The terrain is everything. The germ is nothing, without the terrain.
"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."
When did the recombination occur? – before or after inoculation/transfection into human hosts?
If this hypothesis is valid, we should rigorously screen every marketed vaccine for the presence of XMRV, especially since "we are on our own" as far as vaccine safety is concerned, after SCOTUS recent holding. So-called “inactivated” and/or “attenuated” virus vaccines are really just terms of art, hardly an exact “science”.
“Flu viruses have eight gene segments and one of the segments is called the PA gene. Interestingly, all eight dangerous hybrids carried the PA gene belonging to the H1N1 parent virus. The eight hybrid viruses caused severe pneumonia, edema and hemorrhaging in infected mice, the experts wrote.”
“Experts believe that a classic way for hybrid viruses to form is when different viruses meet and “marry” inside a single host, swapping genes. Humans and animals, such as pigs, can be efficient “mixing vessels.” – A. True Ott, PhD
If a vaccine doesn't kill or disable you suddenly, via vaccine-induced acute colloidal instability, abnormal blood flow dynamics, and microvascular ischemic/anoxic effect on multiple organs, it can still kill or disable you subacutely via pathogenic immune complexes or via mimicking membrane attack complexes, or chronically, by means of horizontal gene transfer. Statistically, “slow kill” will predominate over sudden death which makes pattern recognition difficult, but not impossible.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/new_route_for_GM_gene_escape.php
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Viruses_and_Virus_Nucleic_Acid_Contaminate_Vaccines.php
Posted by: patrons99 | March 16, 2011 at 11:53 AM
Thank you Kent. This article is great!!!
Posted by: Marcia Hinds | March 16, 2011 at 08:41 AM
A remarkable book, LIFE: FROM PLANTS TO ANIMALS TO US by Donald W. Scott and Wm. L.C. Scott, covers all these issues and more in a fresh and convincing way. Unfortunately, the book is extremely hard to find. I obtained mine five years ago by writing directly to the authors at CCMRF BOOKS, c/o Executive Services Limited, Box 133, Station B, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada P3E 4N5. Hopefully, their organization is still in existence.
Posted by: Rae N. | March 16, 2011 at 02:30 AM
dr. garth nicolson also found 45% of the hiv virus envelope in cfs/fibro and gulf war illness vets...in my mind there is a massive cover-up and that is the sole reason they downplay this illness because the full truth will bring them back to the creation of the aids epidemic...the truth will be told only through patient private research funding not from the corrupt nih/cdc...sincerely aidan walsh southampton, u.k. god bless all the sick patients and do not ever stop fighting the filth and deceit....remember cfs,fibro,gulf war illness and hiv are not natural occuring pathogens but synthetics created in a military lab....
Posted by: aidan walsh | March 15, 2011 at 08:14 PM
A colleague of mine underwent an experimental treatment for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma about 10 years ago. The treatment was monoclonal antibodies--from mice.
Wonder if they were thinking even back then that non-Hodgkins Lymphoma was related in any way to XMRV?
Posted by: Taximom | March 15, 2011 at 08:02 PM
Great article Kent, I did a YES! when Decker Jones wrote that, finally, the truth. Now, we have to know the treatment and that part is basically not forthcoming. Entire family here is XMRV positive. SPLAINS alot.
Posted by: kathy blanco | March 15, 2011 at 06:57 PM
There is lots of interesting and valuable information in this thread. You may need to register to read all, but worth it as it gets better and better, including official reports on "Limitations of the process to remove infectious viruses from cell lines" etc.
Mouse retrovirus present in cell lines used for production of biologicals
http://forums.aboutmecfs.org/showthread.php?3753-Mouse-retrovirus-present-in-cell-lines-used-for-production-of-biologicals
Posted by: Natasa | March 15, 2011 at 05:41 PM
We now know endogenous retroviruses in humnas like Herv-W can be activated by co-mingling with other viruses to create disease like Multiple Sclerosis. It is quite plausable that animal endogenous retroviruses can recombine to become infectous in humans as well. This may have major health implications, since biologic monolclonal antibody treatments for leukemia, RA, and other disorders are mouse derived in some cases. I think XMRV reserach opened a giant can of worms.
Posted by: ME Patient | March 15, 2011 at 05:09 PM
Here Kent.
Try these for clues:
http://www.pnas.org/content/81/10/3214.short
http://www.pnas.org/content/82/6/1790.short
You can see what the worry was.
There's a huge number of relevant articles for which pdfs are available on google scholar.
Posted by: Hilary Butler. | March 15, 2011 at 04:26 PM
Don't know why my last post didn't make it, but Kent, GREAT article. As I stated before, I actually wept when I read the good doctor's blog. She speaks the Truth -- SO refreshing when that happens these days!
Your piece, the doctor's blog and the National Geographic piece are perhaps THE best pieces I've read to-date, on this subject.
GREAT WORK.
Posted by: Bayareamom | March 15, 2011 at 04:21 PM
Thank you, Kent, for another excellent overview on XMRV research updates. How dismaying that a CFS victim must nudge along this research; she's swimming against the dual currents.
Posted by: nhokkanen | March 15, 2011 at 04:18 PM
Kent, you need to do a google scholar search using these words:
monoclonal antibodies murine retroviruses. You could also add the word "cancer" in, since the abstract book on murine retroviral contamination of cell substrate abstracts that I had, were from a cancer conference over two decades ago...
Another dirty little secret I guess.
It's long been known that the monoclonal antibodies, so freely made and used in cancer patients, have had several murine retroviral contaminants, which are live. Becuase cancer patients excrete them abundantly into the environment, this has long been talked about at cell substrate conferences as a potentially huge problem.
At one point it was talked about behind closed doors, because SV40 is spread via horizontally through blood transfusions, semen etc, and vertically mother to child, so people who never got SV40 contaminated vaccines have ample opportunity to be infected by SV40 as well.
What that means is that anyone exposed to these viruses excreted from patients who have been given contaminated monoclonal antibodies developed from substates with contaminants in them, can pick them up.
It's a huge topic.
And not a simple one though, because Florance Nightingale had what we would now call CFS. But then, they were used to eating bread made from wheat, serially attacked by mice, and mice and humans co-habitted in those days, whether they liked it or not. It wasnt' unusual to have to sort out mice shit from wheat, but in commercial factories they never bothered. They would just grind the whole lot up.
Same with my uncle in a japanese POW camp. Their rice often came with two contaminants. Mice shit and weevils. He used to joke that is was the odd day when they "actually got rice + protein (weevils) mit shit" as they would call it. So there has always been opportunity for exposure to mice viruses in history, but nothing like today.
The discussion about murine - and porcine retroviruses in all sorts of substrates, not just vaccines... - has been going on behind closed doors for decades.
Posted by: Hilary Butler. | March 15, 2011 at 04:13 PM
Very well put together, Kent. Thank you so much.
There's only one way to go: a test that is FDA approved and anyone can get it. Then treatment in Infectious Disease clinics across the country, like HIV patients are entitled to.
Funding, funding, funding for WPI NOW.
Posted by: Kathryn Stephens | March 15, 2011 at 03:35 PM
Great article again, Kent. I agree with every word. Thanks for bringing awareness to our community. It is about time that we wake up.
To answer Sara, you are right that mouse cell lines are not currently used in the US for vaccine production. However, they have been in the past, and still are for research and development.
Also, several articles in the Retrovirology journal have shown that contamination with mouse DNA and mouse viruses is very likely in many labs and many biological products. Some have used these articles to claim that these rampant contamination problems could be tainting research showing links between XMRV and disease, but on the other hand, these articles could also be showing how XMRV is likely spreading in the first place: by contaminating all kinds of biological products, vaccines included.
Since contamination is such a big problem, and retroviral infections are contracted by injections (and sex, and blood transfusions), aren't vaccines a very likely vector for spreading the infection? Or at least, have been at some point in the past? And now we have a new pathogen on the loose in the human population?
Posted by: Karin | March 15, 2011 at 12:46 PM
Google VIPdx. They are the only lab in the US that can accurately test for XMRV
Posted by: Jana Jagoe | March 15, 2011 at 12:45 PM
Kent, who/where can we contact to get an accurate test for XMRV? My daughter has never been tested, but has positive ANA that no one can seem to identify. Would love to have her tested for this!
Posted by: DBender | March 15, 2011 at 12:41 PM
@Sara "but vaccine components are also cultured in mice?"
See "Of mice and men: on the origin of XMRV" van der Kuyl.
http://www.frontiersin.org/virology/10.3389/fmicb.2010.00147/abstract
Posted by: Anonymouse | March 15, 2011 at 12:15 PM
Kent- I find this very interesting. Will you or someone else be presenting on this at A1? Where can I obtain testing? What treatments are being trialed? What are you doing specifically with the information that your AU daughter has this retrovirus? Is she taking anti-virals or what?
Posted by: Kristine | March 15, 2011 at 11:50 AM
Would someone explain the use of mouse tissue in vaccine development? I've gotten used to the idea that we use monkey kidneys and chicken embryos....but vaccine components are also cultured in mice?
Posted by: sara | March 15, 2011 at 06:31 AM
Kent
It is a very good question. In fact, I was thinking about it in relation to Paul Offit just yesterday. Often we reject food because it is visibly rotten or contaminated: it is a judgement we make by sight or smell, although these are by modern standards rudimentary methods of checking. But every industrial product that we inject, or ingest, for medical purposes is done so almost entirely on the basis of trust. But as we know the real basis of trust is by now completely absent for vaccine products at least, and the answer of Offit just to deny everything speaks for itself.
One thing is certain is that liability is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for safety.
John
Posted by: John Stone | March 15, 2011 at 06:19 AM