The relationship between HIV and AIDS, XMRV and CFS or FM

The million dollar question is - does XMRV cause Fibromyalgia, or Chronic Fatigue syndrome. Here's the spin - just like HIV patients, I theorize that many persons infected with XMRV can live symptom free for years. Many people report an initial onset of illness which causes symptoms reminiscent of a general viral infection like the flu - probably where the virus grows to very high levels, and then drops after the immune system begins to attack the virus, but later the virus damages the immune system where a competent immune response cannot be attained. If you look at the paper published by the Whitemore Peterson Institute in the Journal Science on Oct. 8th, 2009 - the initial findings are no surprise. Almost all CFIDS patients produced antibodies to XMRV - translation: XMRV beyond a reasonable doubt causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. XMRV could be detected in two-thirds of chronic fatigue sufferers - translation: Until a more sensitive assay is developed, the one-third where no virus was detected probably means that viral load was below the limit of detection. XMRV was found in 3.8% of healthy controls - translation: This probably means two things - a small percentage of false positives, and like having HIV doesn't mean you have AIDS, having XMRV does not mean you have chronic fatigue, although at some point in the future you will develop the disease.

A New Era of Hope

This week's publication in the journal Science literally blew me away! Not in the sense that it's just another virus, but in the sense that the findings about XMRV show an eerie resemblance to those made by Dr. Robert Gallo, and Luc Montaignier in 1984. Though the results are still very preliminary, there seems to be an arrow pointing at Chronic Fatigue syndrome, and an even bigger arrow pointing back at XMRV. I think this time we've got our fugitive, and in time he will be found responsible for more than Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. He's already a suspect in Autism.