New antiretroviral findings to be presented January 17th

New findings will be presented by Dr. Judy Mikovits on January 17th, at a medical conference in Santa Rosa titled "The XMRV Retrovirus and its association with cancer and neuroinflammatory diseases: The latest on research, detection, and treatment".  Also, findings with antiretrovirals will be presented:  the good news: almost all CFS patients showed remarkable improvements after receiving antiretrovirals - the group that received Viread and Isentress faired out best - probably owing to some of AZT's toxic side effects, the group given AZT had higher fatigue scores than those receiving Viread and Isentress.  Dr. Deckoff Jones, and her daughter report that they are 75-80% better at this time.

EBV and XMRV - a new disease model

An unpublished Spanish study reveals what could possibly unlock the mysteries of CFS.  EBV is a common herpesvirus that almost 95% of the population carries by adulthood according to the CDC, however it seldom produces disease.  In a percentage of the population it causes infectious mononucleosis, but afterwards remains dormant in immune system cells.  It brings the question - Could EBV or another herpesvirus be the key that unlocks the door for XMRV - quite possibly.  Once XMRV enters a cell, it could quite conceivably create an immune dysfunction that allows EBV to reactivate at a low level, fuelling a vicious cycle - through EBV producing a gene that downregulates APOBEC3, somewhat like the HIV vif protein does.

Ampligen "Death Blow" Another Tragedy for CFS Sufferers

In a shocking move, the FDA yesterday refused to approved Hemispherx's drug Ampligen.  It represents a devastating blow for Hemispherx who have in vain attempted to garner approval for Ampligen for over 20 years.  In their response letter, the FDA essentially demands that Hemispherx begin their clinical trials from scratch.  They site initial clinical trials fail to convince the review panel of Ampligen's efficacy, and that new clinical trials be conducted testing different doses for at least six months, on at least 300 patients, compared to the previous study which enrolled just 230 patients.  The FDA also goes on to cite unresolved manufacturing problems.  Considering that the previous study took 6 years to complete, approval doesn't appear likely any time soon, and likely won't be approved in other jurisdictions, as other nations have followed the guidance of the FDA, with a handful of exceptions of drugs that have gained approval by the European Medicines Agency before FDA approval is granted.

For persons suffering from ME/CFS, FMS, and Gulf War Syndrome it shows that government agencies continue to recognize these conditions as a real illness.  And research dollars earmarked for CFS/ME research gets misappropriated by CDC bureaucrats as a slush fund, where not one meaningful study has come out of it.  And it appears recent developments have not shifted the groupthink mentality of the CDC - but it will come a time when they will find themselves standing pretty well alone if replication studies on XMRV are in line with those of the Whittemore-Peterson institute, which I have reason to believe will be.

I believe that psychologically Ampligen represents a huge setback, but in the end it will amount to no more than a bump in the road.  Tests on antiretrovirals are going ahead full steam in pharmaceutical labs as we speak, and I've dug up a couple of other compounds that have demonstrated activity against other retroviruses: Lamivudine and emtricitabine - both have a far greater safety profile than Zidovudine (AZT), posing a low risk of anemia, nephrotoxicity, hepatoxicity, and pancreatitis.  I'm not particularly fond of Non-nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase inhibitors, due to their unfavorable side effect profile - distressing rash in as much as 20% of patients, and severe liver damage seen with Nevirapine and Etravirine - making patient compliance and adherance to treatment an issue in itself.  I also don't favor a single drug regiment - I would like to see a combination pill of either Lamivudine or Emtricitabine with raltegravir.

Is it time for CFS/FM/Gulf War Syndrome patients to wage a legal battle?

The cat is out of the bag: it can be said with reasonable certainty that XMRV is the single agent that sets the wheel in motion for the immune disturbances associated with XMRV.  According to a CDC insider which I have spoken to, the CDC long knew back in the late 1980's that a single viral agent would be capable of causing the perturberences seen in ME/CFS.  I've also heard from a patient in Toronto, Ontario who developed CFS 3 months after receiving a blood transfusion after a motor vehicle accident in 1994 - it's more than a co-incidence.  More information keeps surfacing each and every day about the CDC hanky-panky.

For patients, there is enough there to start looking at litigation against the CDC and other parties.  This would not come at a small price - going against the CDC would require hiring a law firm that specializes in high stakes litigation.  The CDC would not be the only defendant - the Social Security Administration and the American Red Cross likely share some liability.  How much is at stake - Billions.  Each CFS/ME/FM/Gulf War Syndrome patient costs $35,000 a year in lost productivity - that's $595 Billion!  It's also $595 Billion that the Social Security Administration does not have to pay out in disability costs, HMO's and PPO's don't have to pay in drug treatments, and that pension plans don't have to pay out!

Such a lawsuit is perhaps what is needed to "Stimulate" the CDC into recognizing that these disease have an infectious etiology, that they are not some idiopathic fire of unknown origin like they want us lemmings to believe.  They will be forced to admit that CFS/ME/FM/Gulf War Syndrome is another acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and that they've been covering up this silent pandemic for just too long.  Likely if a judgment was won, it would be an egg in the face of the CDC, but they would exhaust all appeals.  Likely other lawsuits would follow in other countries.  Perhaps even a movie by the name of Osler's Web, done with an A list director and Cast might embarrass the CDC enough to change  their ways.