Retrovirus At The Root Of Multiple Chronic Diseases

[Who Me?]

20 Million Americans Likely Infected With Retrovirus At The Root Of Multiple Chronic Diseases



*The information in this article comes from Dr. Judy Mikovtis and Kent Heckenlively’s book, Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases. For study sources and references, please refer to the book for more detailed information.*

On July 22, 2009, a special meeting was held with twenty-four leading scientists at the National Institutes of Health to discuss early findings that a newly discovered retrovirus was linked to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), prostate cancer, lymphoma, and eventually neurodevelopmental disorders in children.

Dr. Judy Mikovits, PhD, was one of the presenters at the meeting. For thirty years, Mikovits had built a name for herself in cancer and chronic disease research — she had extensive knowledge of immunology, natural products chemistry, epigenetics, virology, and drug development, she was a long-time member of the National Cancer Institute, collaborating with one of the founding fathers of human retrovirology, Dr. Frank Ruscetti, and she was Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI), a chronic fatigue syndrome research organization and clinic in Reno, Nevada.
Mikovits’s passion for chronic disease research began early in life, after watching both her grandfather and stepfather succumb to the perils of cancer. This personal connection to chronic disease would later fuel her with a vigorous empathy to help others suffering from chronic disease.
She worked closely with patients suffering from the mysterious and debilitating symptoms of CFS, treating them like family in most cases and quickly earning herself a well-respected name within the chronic disease communities. She was their knight in shining armour, being one of the few scientists who cared enough to believe, contrary to what most doctors were saying, that their symptoms were not in fact psychosomatic.
Since its initial emergence in medical literature in the mid 20th century, CFS was for many years a conundrum, shrugged off as a “yuppie flu” or “hysterical type A women,” brought about by stress or other emotional factors. But the patients suffering from CFS did not agree with their diagnosis. They knew, from the extent of their excruciating pain and bedridden state, that something else was at play, a knowing that Mikovits was on to as well.

Dr. Judy Mikovits faced persecution from the science community after her discovery that millions of people around the world are infected with a retrovirus causing havoc on our health.
In her presentation at the 2009 meeting, Mikovits revealed her findings from an article published (and later retracted) in the journal Science, which showed that a recently discovered retrovirus, XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus related virus), had been found in67% of CFS patients and at 3.75% in healthy patients.
Mikovits and her research team claimed that 6% of Americans were harbouring this retrovirus, which was appearing in a very high percentage of people with diseases such as prostate cancer, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, autism, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, treatment resistant Lyme’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease.
If Mikovits’s findings held true, it would mean that a substantial portion of the population were harbouring a retrovirus that was secretly wrecking havoc on their bodies. It meant that the millions of people diagnosed with the “psychological” disease CFS were in fact suffering from a disease similar to HIV/AIDS. Even more troublesome, however, was the possibility that this widespread retrovirus was the culprit at the root of today’s most common chronic illnesses.
The next pressing question, then, was how did so many people become infected with this retrovirus? The answer, to Mikovtis’s dismay, would ignite a fire among the scientific community that would change the course of her career forever.
How Did XMRV Get Introduced To The Public?

In the early 20th century, many research labs were deep into cancer and HIV/AIDS research. Some of these facilities also seconded as vaccine manufacturing labs, using genetically engineered mice as their study subjects. The mice were engineered to have immune deficiencies, meaning that they were susceptible to certain diseases when exposed to specific pathogens and toxins.
When researchers injected the GE mice with human viruses in order to attenuate or weaken the virus strain, they did not know that mouse viruses posed a threat to humans.

http://www.collective-evolution.com...rus-at-the-root-of-multiple-chronic-diseases/

 

[Cort]

20 Million Americans Likely Infected With Retrovirus At The Root Of Multiple Chronic Diseases



*The information in this article comes from Dr. Judy Mikovtis and Kent Heckenlively’s book, Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases. For study sources and references, please refer to the book for more detailed information.*


http://www.collective-evolution.com...rus-at-the-root-of-multiple-chronic-diseases/

My problem with Judy is that I don't feel like I can trust her - but nobody ever said she wasn't very, very smart....I guess time will tell. Is Ruscetti - her mentor - still involved? As I remember Frank Rice, I think is, a researcher in San Diego is taking at look at her theory.

 

[Who Me?]

@Cort. That was on FB so I don't know anymore than what is there.

I do think they (anyone) can't keep burying their heads in the sand and ignore the possibility of a RV. Maybe not one we know but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

 

[Strike me lucky]

My problem with Judy is that I don't feel like I can trust her - but nobody ever said she wasn't very, very smart....I guess time will tell. Is Ruscetti - her mentor - still involved? As I remember Frank Rice, I think is, a researcher in San Diego is taking at look at her theory.

I really dont know but i think it seems like shes the meat in the sandwich stuck between egos of other scientists, cdc/nih and wpi.

I do think retroviruses need further investigation . Montoya found RVs in 85% of cfs patients but lipkin says its not an issue. What lipkin says is just his opinion and not scientific at all. It could be looked at as some cover up by just brushing it aside. My thoughts are that with such a high percentage of RVs in cfsers it deserves further research.

A RV cause seems very plausible in that it can reduce immune function and is why we see many viruses that are well controlled in healthy people , reactivate in cfsers.

More funding is needed instead of trying to shut research down in retroviruses in cfs.

 

[loki]

what i know about viruses and the immune system: when a virus lives in the body for a long time and is finally eradicated by either a drug or the immune system, that doesn't mean automatically that all symptoms resolve magically. the immune system has something like a memory and often is out of balance after a long time infection related activity and continues to produce symptoms. especially @Who Me? i don't want to give you advices but i had HCV for 6 years and it compromised my primary immune systems completely, interferon also kicked my ass... i try to adjust my immunity with prednisolone these days, if you have symptoms with valcyte, for example hot flashes in the spine and body, maybe ask your doctor if it's an idea to try low doses of steroids to downregulate the immune system and parallelly check viral titers to see if the valcyte can do most of the work on its own. i don't know if it's a good idea but since i don't have such a special doctor it would be awesome for me to hear his thoughts on this...

 

[Strike me lucky]

what i know about viruses and the immune system: when a virus lives in the body for a long time and is finally eradicated by either a drug or the immune system, that doesn't mean automatically that all symptoms resolve magically. the immune system has something like a memory and often is out of balance after a long time infection related activity and continues to produce symptoms. especially @Who Me? i don't want to give you advices but i had HCV for 6 years and it compromised my primary immune systems completely, interferon also kicked my ass... i try to adjust my immunity with prednisolone these days, if you have symptoms with valcyte, for example hot flashes in the spine and body, maybe ask your doctor if it's an idea to try low doses of steroids to downregulate the immune system and parallelly check viral titers to see if the valcyte can do most of the work on his own. i don't know if it's a good idea but since i don't have such a special doctor it would be awesome for me to hear his thoughts on this...

Hard to know if its inflammation or neuroinflammation from infections themselves or over reaction from the immune system. The increase in inflammation can definitely worsen symptoms and maybe 1 to 3 day course of steroids could help inflammation without lowering immune function too much.

It seems other substances can be more selective of certain inflammatory cytokines than steroids which can be like a hammer. Ldn seems useful for many and i think recent medical cannabis research is pointing at its anti inflammatory effects. Pridgeon protocol of avs and celebrex is another treatment targeting inflammation. Theres a few different substances but they seem very hit and miss for many of us. Also antioxidants can play a part.

 

[loki]

Hard to know if its inflammation or neuroinflammation from infections themselves or over reaction from the immune system. The increase in inflammation can definitely worsen symptoms and maybe 1 to 3 day course of steroids could help inflammation without lowering immune function too much.

It seems other substances can be more selective of certain inflammatory cytokines than steroids which can be like a hammer. Ldn seems useful for many and i think recent medical cannabis research is pointing at its anti inflammatory effects. Pridgeon protocol of avs and celebrex is another treatment targeting inflammation. Theres a few different substances but they seem very hit and miss for many of us. Also antioxidants can play a part.

what about methotrexat? also, what about antibodies that target IFN? you seem to be very smart!! yes, Prednisolone is a hammer drug and i get confused but on the other side i feel better than in the last years combined.. i don't want to get away from prednisolone because it clears the damn brainfog, it just makes confused OH GOD WHY...... ok, well, when that's the right way, these immune adjustments, we just have to find drugs that target cytokines selectively.

the thing is, i am okay with 10-15mg of prednisolone. it stops the damn hot flashes... and i'm happy now, even with this steroid wiredness, it's really hilarious...

i know that i'm virusfree since 2 years. my HCV PCRs were negative the last times. i never had probs with other viruses.


the damn IFN, Interleukins and TNFa cytokines are the problem! They make us weak, they make us wired, they have to get selectively inhibited. the more we get to the root of the problem, the better it's in the long term.

Prednisolone will not be the answer forever, i know that, but it's pointing into the right direction! Methotrexat can be taken for years, it's reliable and cheap. will it show results compareable with Prednisolone?

here some whitespace for you

 

[Strike me lucky]

what about methotrexat? also, what about antibodies that target IFN? you seem to be very smart!! yes, Prednisolone is a hammer drug and i get confused but on the other side i feel better than in the last years combined.. i don't want to get away from prednisolone because it clears the damn brainfog, it just makes confused OH GOD WHY...... ok, well, when that's the right way, these immune adjustments, we just have to find drugs that target cytokines selectively.

the thing is, i am okay with 10-15mg of prednisolone. it stops the damn hot flashes... and i'm happy now, even with this steroid wiredness, it's really hilarious...

i know that i'm virusfree since 2 years. my HCV PCRs were negative the last times. i never had probs with other viruses.


the damn IFN, Interleukins and TNFa cytokines are the problem! They make us weak, they make us wired, they have to get selectively inhibited. the more we get to the root of the problem, the better it's in the long term.

Prednisolone will not be the answer forever, i know that, but it's pointing into the right direction! Methotrexat can be taken for years, it's reliable and cheap. will it show results compareable with Prednisolone?

here some whitespace for you Minx =)

Smart enough to know i dont know everything lol. Looking into inflammation, there are so many pathways to causing and treating inflammation its almost impossible to know whats the cause of the inflammation.

Prednisone is a sledge hammer and smashes many inflammatory pathways and is great short term or for life threatening conditions. Probably more than 5mg is greater than physiological doses so will shut natural cortisol production down and needs to be tapered etc to come off it if need to.

The higher doses can make us feel better but would have to be careful of long term side effects using this drug chronically. Maybe a mixture of physiological doses of hydrocortisone say 10 to 20mg day or 5mg pred with other anti inflammatory substances eg ldn or curcumin, celebrex etc

Theres no way to test it unless you have access to a research lab. All we can do is try something and see.

TNF alpha i remember dhea supplements were said to help lower it.

Interferon i believe has alpha and beta which are anti inflammatory and gamma interferon is pro-inflammatory but i think are all need on proportion to fight infections. Long term might be another story though.

Like i said there are so many pathways. Try hitting a few at once and see what happens,maybe a combo of drug and natural substances? ???

Interesting to hear what others have found helpful?

 

[RuthAnn]

This site has a lot of information about how to deal with HIV. There is nothing like this around for ME/CFS.
http://natural-remedies-hiv-aids.com/complete-program/how-to-strengthen-the-immune-system/

 

[ScottTriGuy]

This site has a lot of information about how to deal with HIV. There is nothing like this around for ME/CFS.
http://natural-remedies-hiv-aids.com/complete-program/how-to-strengthen-the-immune-system/

That page you linked says:

"There is currently no effective standard treatment for AIDS, and none anticipated."

The site is nothing but irresponsible bible-babble.

@RuthAnn Providing that link is not helpful. Potentially harmful and deadly.

 

[RuthAnn]

That page you linked says:

"There is currently no effective standard treatment for AIDS, and none anticipated."

The site is nothing but irresponsible bible-babble.

@RuthAnn Providing that link is not helpful. Potentially harmful and deadly.

That's strange that you should say that as there is a whole list of things that many people have found helpful and some recovery stories.

 

[Who Me?]

@loki. I can't read 99% of your post since you don't use paragraphs.

From what I could pick up here and there Suggesting methotrexate is the worst thing for someone with chronic Infections.

As I say on my signature I'm not interested in unsolicted advice from people who don't know me or my total Health picture

What we do know as @Strike me lucky says is we don't know a lot. What works for one does not work for another. One persons bad response is that. One persons response.

If we didn't try things Inspite if people's bad responses who knows where we'd be. I'd never in a million years use stimulates. I won't tell you not to.

 

[EYAKLLE]

I have met Judy. I trust her.
I am as cured as can be for real/true ME/CFS on antiretrovirals.
The band plays on.
From day ONE she said herself it was not actually xmrv itself so I don't get why teams tried to find xmrv...Pointless..

 

[Remy]

That page you linked says:

"There is currently no effective standard treatment for AIDS, and none anticipated."

The site is nothing but irresponsible bible-babble.

@RuthAnn Providing that link is not helpful. Potentially harmful and deadly.

And yet she goes on to state...

To you the reader, if you have AIDS or know someone with the disease, I can assure you it is NOT a fatal disease if you catch it in time and treat it properly.

Provided, of course, that you recite the proper Bible verses and buy her supplement package.

 

[Who Me?]

@EYAKLLE its great to have this conversation and not be sensored. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Strike me lucky]

I have met Judy. I trust her.
I am as cured as can be for real/true ME/CFS on antiretrovirals.
The band plays on.
From day ONE she said herself it was not actually xmrv itself so I don't get why teams tried to find xmrv...Pointless..

Xmrv like virus? Is that correct.

Theres a few here on arvs so maybe in time we will hear more recovery stories?

 

[EYAKLLE]

Yes it is really sad. It was down to semantics and spellings between xmrv/xmrv like, and what went into the main paper and what got shunned into the appendix/annex of the paper sadly, and the pruning down of the full submissions,though the full submissions are documented. They were pushed/encouraged into calling it xmrv and only to make that visible. But it was xmrv like and not xmrv. Mikovits was always spot on even when she was in the dark with xmrv slvmn and always cautioned it.Mikovits wanted to recalibrate the tests that were being made hastily n make them finer asap honestly n just sort it out. But that was beyond her in the environment she was in then. It must ve dawned on her then why others were so keen just to stick to the force-fed xmrv in the negative papers and the semantics of the original paper. People around her were just messing up.
She did it right.
There is no reason at all not to trust Mikovits.
We are witnessing a total catastrophy as the band plays on. Mikovits and Ruscetti are big names. They know their stuff.
Neither the negative papers nor the Lipkin paper went after the xmrv-like of the Science paper. Pretty incredible stuff really. But if u read the article posted in this thread u start to get the wider picture. There is no conspiracy here. Just a plain to see cover up of an awful n horrific truth pushed as far as it can be pushed. All in all a very old trick.

 

[Who Me?]

For those who don't understand @EYAKLLE 's reference to "and the band played on", here is the wikepedia page for the book of the same name that explains the total BS of politics and egos when AIDS first came on the scene.

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a 1987 book by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts. In it, Shilts chronicles the discovery and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) with a special emphasis on government indifference and political infighting—specifically in the United States—to what was then perceived as a specifically gay disease. Shilts' premise is that AIDS was allowed to happen: while AIDS is caused by a biological agent, incompetence and apathy toward those who were initially affected by AIDS allowed the spread of the disease to become much worse.
The book is an extensive work of investigative journalism, written in the form of an encompassing time line; the events that shaped the epidemic are presented as sequential matter-of-fact summaries. Shilts describes the impact and the politics involved in battling the disease on particular individuals in the gay, medical, and political communities. Shilts begins his discussion in the late 1970s with the then-first confirmed case of AIDS, that of Grethe Rask, a Danish doctor working in Africa. He ends with the announcement by actor Rock Hudson in 1985 that he was dying of AIDS, when international attention on the disease exploded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On

 

[Who Me?]

This is the movie based on the book. It's awesome

 

[IrisRV]

the damn IFN, Interleukins and TNFa cytokines are the problem! They make us weak, they make us wired, they have to get selectively inhibited. the more we get to the root of the problem, the better it's in the long term.

TNF alpha i remember dhea supplements were said to help lower it.

Interferon i believe has alpha and beta which are anti inflammatory and gamma interferon is pro-inflammatory but i think are all need on proportion to fight infections. Long term might be another story though.

For some perspective on the complexity of immune function:

Pro- versus anti-inflammatory cytokines: myth or reality.

Cavaillon JM1.

Abstract

Inflammation is characterized by an interplay between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines are commonly classified in one or the other category: interleukin-1 (IL-1), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), gamma-interferon (IFN-gamma), IL-12, IL-18 and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor are well characterized as pro-inflammatory cytokines whereas IL4, IL-10, IL-13, IFN-alpha and transforming growth factor-beta are recognized as anti-inflammatory cytokines. In this review, we point out that this classification is far too simplistic and we provide numerous examples illustrating that a given cytokine may behave as a pro- as well as an anti-inflammatory cytokine. Indeed, the cytokine amount, the nature of the target cell, the nature of the activating signal, the nature of produced cytokines, the timing, the sequence of cytokine action and even the experimental model are parameters which greatly influence cytokine properties.

[my bolding]

My specialist tests 18 cytokines. Let's start with the ones considered pro-inflammatory:
My IL1b is very low.
My TNFa is high, TNFb is zero, TNF RI is very high, TNF RII is almost zero (where the mean is 899)
My IL-12 is very high

Now the ones considered anti-inflammatory:
IL-4 is very high
IL-10 is very low (approaching zero)
IL-13 is very high

Care to interpret whether that is inflammatory or not?

It goes on and on. But then the article linked above says it's not so simplistic as pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory. There are many complex interactions. You mess with one group, you screw up another one.

Do I want to be messing with this with natural remedies? I have actual data about some of my cytokine levels and it's not at all clear whether a broad-brush natural immune treatment would even be safe for me.

Maybe the inflammatory cytokines are actually doing something, not simply malfunctioning because of some past infection. What then? Do I want to turn them off because I'm guessing they're high for no reason? What if they're all mixed like mine, some very high, some very low? How do you know you're messing with the right ones?

At that only begins to make the tiniest scratch in the surface of immune system interactions. It's not a simple matter of turning up or down Th1 or Th2, or taking anti-inflammatories.

So if you don't even have data about the state of even a few of your cytokines, do you really have the slightest clue what is going on. Is inflammation even really up? Is it up for a reason? Is it a mixed bag like mine? You don't know. It's like shooting a shotgun at the side of a house to kill fly. You might get the fly. You might not. You might screw up a lot more than you fixed.

My point is, it's very risky to tamper with an incredibly complex system when you don't know much about what you're doing and you don't have any data about what's actually going on.

IMO, we should all be allowed to take risks with our own bodies. However, that's predicated on the notion that you fully understand the risks involved.

For me, the risk is too high. The dysfunctions are not at all clear without a lot of data most of us don't have. The tools for altering immune function are much too crude. They are not focussed on a single thing. Instead, it's like taking a sledgehammer to a delicate machine and hoping the blow fixes whatever, if anything, is wrong.

I'm not saying don't take immune-altering products on your own. That's up to you. I'm just saying be aware of the risks.