This section will document items of interest in the world of ME/CFS, both nationally and internationally. Please click on a link to browse the relevant data.
 
 

XMRV Not Found in Swedish Patients

The discovery of a retroviral link to ME/CFS, reported in the major journal Science in October 2009 contended that DNA from the XMRV virus could be detected in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of over two-thirds of ME/CFS patients’ samples from the blood bank in the Whittemore Peterson Institute Tissue Respository, but in less than 4% of healthy control samples. Also, the researchers reported that XMRV proteins were being expressed in blood cells from ME/CFS patients at very high levels compared with controls, and that patient-derived XMRV was infectious and transmissible. Independent laboratories across the world attempted to replicate these findings in their own local populations of ME/CFS patients, and since the WPI researchers used samples selected from several regions in the US where "outbreaks of CFS" had been documented, blood samples from patients in other areas or countries might throw up very different results.

Prof Jonas Blomberg of the Research Group of Clinical Virology at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, headed this research project with funding from the Irish ME Trust and ME Research UK. It has been known for some time that this research project in tandem with other similarprojects, has failed to detect XMRV in ME patients and the paper has now been published in Plos One

Read the full report HERE