Unfinished Blog-Post: To Pull A Gallo

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

BTW: It is this post I most regred not finishing – it is mainly missing one table in the middle, listing some parallels between the story of "Fictional Gallo" and those who brought us the XMRV fraud. However the so inclined readers might be able to find parallels by themselves.

On Lo/Alter

Once they saw it, many researchers concluded that the Lo-Alter data didn't confirm the Lombardi paper at all. They had found that 86.5% of samples from CFS patients harbored DNA from mouse retroviruses as did 6.8% of healthy controls, but it was not XMRV; the sequences were more closely related to a different, well-known group, the murine leukemia viruses (MLVs). It was as if a new suspect suddenly had been nabbed. Miller says the findings actually argued against Lombardi et al. “If XMRV is everywhere and these guys are doing the same experiment, why didn't they find XMRV?” he asks. Alter now says he regrets asserting that the paper confirmed the XMRV results and that it was “naïve” to show the slide in Zagreb. “That is something I shouldn't have said because we really hadn't found it,” he says. “I somehow got to be the spokesperson for this. I had no idea what it would mean.” Lo agrees that the team didn't find the virus that Mikovits and Lombardi had reported.

The serology for Lombardi et al. 2009 was done at NCI?

Lombardi and Pfost did the PCR bench work, but NCI (Ruscetti and Bagni) did the serology work for the original study. Lombardi and Ruscetti shared first authorship on the Science paper BTW.

Also, Lo did send samples from their 9 retested patients to NCI/Ruscetti and not to WPI (there wasn't enough of the original samples left for subsequent testing BTW). At NCI, Ruscetti/Bagni did find all of these 9 samples positive for XMRV (and not the MLV-related viruses Lo found) using both serology and culturing techniques, so I think we can assume they think they have the necessary know-how to do this.

Posted by: RRM | December 20, 2011 4:42 PM

Shyh-Ching Lo

http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/ebhiv.htm

Every American adult should have a small scar on his upper arm or thigh: a smallpox vaccination. Smallpox once was a deadly scourge-killing millions. Vaccinations have virtually wiped it out. It's an ingenious concept: You introduce a minuscule amount of weakened or dead disease-causing bugs into the human system. The body responds by producing antibodies-a natural antidote that neutralizes the invading bug. Once you have the antibodies, you're immune. So why is it such devastating news when a person tests positive for HIV antibodies?

Shyh-Ching Lo, the researcher in charge of AIDS programs for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, doesn't believe it should be: The presence of the antibodies to HIV-far from being a sign of doom-is proof the body is capable of coping with the virus, Lo contends. Nobody is able to explain how the dormant HIV particles manage to suddenly whip the antibodies.

"There is no good explanation for why and how the virus breaks out of the antibody protection," says Lo. "I'm not saying that HIV plays no role in AIDS-the data shows a clear correlation with disease. But AIDS is much more complicated than HIV."

Lo, an obscure microbiologist, with no grants or establishment support, went looking for a new explanation. In 1986 he announced that he had found it: a previously unknown organism that-together with HIV-caused AIDS.

For nearly three years, his theory was ignored. Shyh-Ching Lo's research was turned down for publication almost a dozen times before the Journal of Tropical Medicine, available in few hospital libraries and on no major electronic databases, agreed to print his findings. His attempts to find funding have failed. Even the presentations he has given at professional meetings have gotten him nowhere; his colleagues don't even show up.

The problem was that Lo was using a complex new research technique he had devised himself to come up with a revolutionary finding. Given the stakes, no one was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And rightly so.

We have fallen in to cranks and deniers.

XMRV is not a human pathogen

Our attempts, through collaborations, to demonstrate antibody in affected patients, to isolate the virus by culture, or to show integration sites in the human genome have failed to support the initial findings.

XMRV as a human pathogen is dead as doornail. I repeat: XMRV does not cause ME/CFS.