CFS/ME and Retroviruses

New XMRV Study Not The First To Find a Retroviral Link

© Maija Haavisto Oct 10, 2009

Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is a disabling neurological illness. New study suggests it might be caused by the retrovirus XMRV.

New study, published in the prestigious journal Science, found the retrovirus XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) in 67% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME). Only 3.7% of the studied healthy controls harbored this infection. Later the researchers have reported up to 95% of patients test positive with antibody testing.

XMRV belongs to the group of gammaretroviruses and has previously been associated with prostate cancer. Little is known about most types of human retroviruses, aside from the best known one: HIV.

This is not the first time CFS/ME has been associated with a chronic viral infection - it used to be called "post-viral fatigue syndrome", after all. In studies CFS/ME has been connected with a variety of different viruses, including

• herpesviruses (especially Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus and HHV-6)
• enteroviruses (polioviruses, Coxsackie viruses, echoviruses)
• parainfluenza virus 5 (PIV-5)
• parvovirus B19
• various retroviruses

History of CFS/ME and Retroviruses

The study group of Elaine DeFreitas reported a link between CFS/ME and retroviruses back in 1991. This virus was most closely related to HTLV-2 (human T-lymphotropic virus 2), which belongs to a different group of retroviruses, deltaretroviruses. None of the healthy controls in the study showed evidence of this virus.

Immunovirologist Michael Holmes described retroviral activity in cells of CFS/ME patients as early as 1986. However, he did not elucidate on the type of the retrovirus. Another researcher John Martin reported finding a spumavirus type retrovirus in CFS/ME, also in the early 1990s.

Read more: http://chronic-fatigue-syndrome.suite101.com/article.cfm/cfsme_and_retroviruses#ixzz0TX8EYmAp

Related article: Study links virus to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Study Links Virus to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Posted: October 8, 2009

WASHINGTON—A virus recently linked to prostate cancer is a new suspect in chronic fatigue syndrome. U.S.scientists tested blood from 101 patients and found two-thirds carried it.

That does not mean the virus causes chronic fatigue, stressed the research published Thursday in the journal Science.

The team of scientists from the National Cancer Institute and Nevada's Whittemore Peterson Institute said it was possible the virus, named XMRV, was just "a passenger virus" that catches a ride in patients whose immune systems are weakened by chronic fatigue.

Moreover, the researchers found nearly 4 percent of healthy people carried the virus, too. That raises bigger questions about just what role this recently discovered virus — a relative of viruses that cause cancer in mice — may be playing in overall health.

"This suggests that several million Americans may be infected with a retrovirus of as-yet-unknown pathogenic potential," the researchers concluded.

A retrovirus is a kind of virus that permanently embeds in the body.

Various viruses have been linked to chronic fatigue over the years, only to fall by the wayside as potential culprits in the mysterious illness thought to afflict millions. It is characterized by at least six months of severe fatigue, impaired memory and other symptoms, but there's no test for it — doctors rule out other possible causes — and no specific treatment.

The XMRV virus is related to mouse leukemia viruses. No one knows how it arose or how people become infected. But another research team recently found the virus lurking in about a quarter of 200 prostate tumors — and in about 6 percent of noncancerous prostate samples they used for comparison.

"There is still much that we do not understand," including whether people with either disease just are more prone to infection, cautioned Tufts University microbiologist John Coffin in an accompanying editorial. Still, "further study may reveal XMRV as a cause of more than one well-known 'old' disease."

In Wikipedia you can read the following;

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV), sometimes shortened to Xenotropic MuLV-related virus, is a newly identified and provisionally named gammaretroviruswhich may be involved in the pathology of familial prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome. Its name refers to its similarity to xenotropic murine leukemia viruses, although it does show some substantial differences. It is thought to be linked to both prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome by ribonuclease L (RNase L), part of the cell’s natural defense against viruses. When activated, RNase L destroys RNA in an effort to halt viral gene expression.

Previous research has shown that R462Q mutation that results in a decreased level of RNase L function, was associated with more susceptible XMRV infection in men; however, a later study has found that XMRV infection typically occurred independent of the RNase L gene variation.^[1]

The virus was discovered in cancerous prostate tissues using a microarray containing samples of genetic material from over 1,000 viruses. The screen revealed the presence of a gammaretrovirus in a substantial number of the homozygous R462Q cells, but very few of the heterozygous or wild type cells. An expanded screen showed the virus present in 40% of men homozygous for R462Q and only 1.5% of those not, and also demonstrated that each case showed the same virus.^[2] In another study, the viral genome was reconstructed from prostatemRNA and used to infect prostate tissues in vitro. The researchers were able to show that RNase L deficient lines were more susceptible to infection.^[3] These data do not necessarily show that XMRV causes prostate cancer, but they do show that RNase L deficiency makes prostate tissue more susceptible to the virus. This in turn suggests the possibility of a link between the virus and the disease.

XMRV has been even more strongly implicated in chronic fatigue syndrome: according to a study published in Science people with CFS are 54 times more likely to be infected with XMRV than the average individual.^[4][5]

It has been suggested that XMRV could be sexually transmitted.^[6][7][8]

 

This is an interesting development, especially for me personally. I have battled CFS/ ME for 5 years and have been unable to work, my daily functioning is down by 80%. Before I got ill I worked fulltime, I raced on my bike for hours/ week, and I walked 2 hours/ day. Any news is good news!

David Cameron must fill the leadership vacuum left by Barack Obama

David Cameron must reject the folly of the Obama doctrine and follow the example of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, writes Nile Gardiner.

Published: 5:14PM BST 07 Oct 2009 Telegraph

 

With every major poll pointing to a Conservative victory at the next election, it is highly likely that David Cameron, and not Gordon Brown, will represent British interests on the world stage in eight months’ time. However, as Cameron prepares for power he would do well to look across the Atlantic for a lesson in how not to lead in international affairs.

The Tory leader, like the mayor of London, is unashamedly an admirer of Barack Obama, whom he has described as “incredibly impressive”. It is natural that the relatively youthful and charismatic Cameron seeks to emulate Obama’s electoral success and winning message of “change”. But he must not let his personal enthusiasm for the US president blind him to his considerable failures as a world leader since taking office in January.

Barack Obama’s central failing in foreign policy has been his striking hesitation to project American global power and leadership, which in the eyes of America’s enemies and competitors translates as weakness and vulnerability. He has sacrificed US strength and influence on the altar of international popularity, as though the world were an extension of the stage of American Idol, and not a hugely dangerous place where the United States remains hated and reviled by those who seek its demise.

President Obama has gone out of his way to apologise for his country’s past at almost every opportunity on foreign soil, from Cairo to Prague to Strasbourg. The result has been the humiliation of the United States, and the growing perception of the president as an extremely naïve commander in chief who appears to be sacrificing the national interest to appease international opinion. Obama’s spectacularly awful address last month to the United Nations was rightly met with widespread derision in the US, and was embarrassingly followed by Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi’s admiring call for Obama “to stay forever as the president.”

Barack Obama has also shown a marked willingness to undermine US national sovereignty, with clear signs that he supports an array of supranational UN treaties and conventions, ranging from Law of the Sea to the Treaty of Rome, the statute that established the International Criminal Court. His administration cares little for British sovereignty either, enthusiastically backing further political, military and economic integration in Europe.

In every area, the Obama strategy is undermining American power. The White House’s hugely controversial strategy of engagement with rogue regimes has backfired spectacularly, with Iran and North Korea responding with even greater threats and aggression. Even the French now think Obama is weak in the face of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the menacing Mullahs of Tehran.

While currying favour with America’s enemies and cutting defence spending, Barack Obama has paid scant attention to maintaining or strengthening America’s key alliances, including NATO and the Anglo-American Special Relationship. His recent shameful surrender to Moscow over the installation of Third Site missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic was viewed as an appalling betrayal by key US allies in eastern and central Europe.

It is vital that, as Prime Minister, Mr Cameron is prepared to enhance British power on the world stage, rather than weaken it, as Gordon Brown has consistently done. He should take a fundamentally different approach to that of Barack Obama, based upon an aggressively confident projection of British power, the defence of British sovereignty in Europe, increased spending on the Armed Forces, and the strengthening of transatlantic alliances.

Great Britain may no longer be a superpower, but it remains a world force and a powerful global player, despite the best efforts of the Labour government to gut the military and turn the UK into a province of Brussels. The Conservatives must look beyond the shores of Europe with a forward-looking foreign policy that projects global interests.

The world’s fifth biggest nuclear power, the UK is second only to the United States in terms of conventional military force projection and the ability to deploy thousands of troops on the far side of the world, with greater strategic reach than either China or Russia. The UK has the second largest deployment in Afghanistan, with almost as many personnel deployed as all other major European Union countries combined.

Britain is also a global economic powerhouse, with the City of London continuing to dominate as the world’s biggest financial centre, and UK foreign direct investment (FDI) sitting at number two in world rankings. With a rapidly rising population, the UK is on course to overtake Germany as the most populous country in Western Europe by 2060, with a population of over 75 million.

There is little doubt that David Cameron will seek a close partnership with his US counterpart if he enters Downing Street. This will be good for Britain and the Special Relationship. He must, though, avoid following the Obama foreign policy model, and demonstrate strong British leadership on key issues such as the Iranian nuclear crisis, the war in south Asia, and the fight against Islamist terrorism.

In contrast to the White House’s dithering, Cameron must support an increase in British troop numbers in Afghanistan with a clear-cut strategy to defeat the Taliban. There also has to be a firm commitment to the future of NATO as the guarantor of transatlantic security. A Cameron government should send an unequivocal signal to Moscow that London will back the further eastward expansion of the organization to include Georgia and Ukraine, and will oppose Russian attempts to intimidate its neighbours in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

President Obama’s naïve and weak approach to international affairs threatens to usher in the biggest decline of American global power since the days of Jimmy Carter, and has created a distinct leadership vacuum. In contrast, the next British Prime Minister should seek a resurgence of British power, with a foreign policy that projects pride and confidence in Britain’s great and distinguished past, as well as a firm commitment to the transatlantic alliance. David Cameron must reject the folly of the Obama doctrine and follow the example of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in advancing real international leadership.

Nile Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC

'Iran will blow up the heart of Israel'

By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP Oct 9, 2009 11:44

Article's topics: Iran,  Iranian Nuclear Threat

Iran will "blow up the heart of Israel" if the United States or the Jewish state attacked it first, a top official with Iran's most powerful military force, the Revolutionary Guard, warned Friday.

In this photo released by the Iranian semi-official Mehr News Agency, Revolutionary Guard's Zelzal missile is launched in a drill near the city of Qom, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Teheran, Iran.
Photo: AP

SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region |  World

Cleric Mojtaba Zolnour, who is the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative in the Guard, said that if a US or Israeli missile lands in Iran, Iranian missiles will hit Israel in retaliation.

"Should a single American or Zionist missile land in our country, before the dust settles, Iranian missiles will blow up the heart of Israel," Zolnour was quoted as saying by the state IRNA news agency.

In March, Iran's deputy army chief made similar remarks, warning that his country will eliminate Israel if it attacks the Islamic republic.

"Should Israel take any action against Iran, we will eliminate Israel from the scene of the universe," Gen. Muhammad Reza Ashtiani said at the time in Teheran.

Ashtiani claimed Israel was "very vulnerable" and dismissed allegations that Iran was worried about Israeli maneuvers.

"Due to its special conditions, Israel is very vulnerable in the region," he said. "The aggressors will face a crushing response."

Herb Keinon contributed to this report

Autism Explodes As Childhood Vaccines Increase

Amount of children suffering from brain disorder doubles since last government survey in 2003

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, October 5, 2009

Cases of autism amongst children have doubled since 2003 according to a government survey out today, highlighting once again the direct link between vaccines containing mercury and the brain disorder, as millions more parents give the green light for their kids to be injected with the thimerosal-containing H1N1 shot over the coming weeks.

“While research has suggested that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in American children was about 1 of every 150 children, a new government study estimates that the prevalence is more likely about 1 in every 91 children,” reports U.S. News & World Report.

“The study, which is published in the October issue of Pediatrics, estimated that 110 of every 10,000 U.S. youngsters will be diagnosed at some point in their lives with an autism spectrum disorder. That currently translates to about 673,000 American children with some form of autism, according to the study.”

Claims by the CDC and the Institute of Medicine, following a whitewash study that ignored previously verified evidence, that thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, has no causal relationship to skyrocketing cases of autism have been soundly rejected by top doctors and scientists ever since.

Epidemiologist Tom Verstraeten and Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado, both concluded that thimerosal was responsible for the dramatic rise in cases of autism but their findings were dismissed by the CDC.

Cases of autism in the U.S. have now increased by over 2700 per cent since 1991, which is when vaccines for children doubled, and the number of immunizations is only increasing. Just one in 2,500 children were diagnosed with autism before 1991, whereas one in 91 children now have the disease, up from one in 150 just six years ago.

A peer reviewed study by Dr. Mark Geier which appeared in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons showed that the IOM research was flawed because it was largely based on a Danish study by Anders Peter Hviid, which did not account for the fact that American children have a much higher mercury burden than children in Denmark.

“At the high levels (of thimerosal exposure), it is undeniable there is a causal relationship, and we have gone to high levels. Their studies, therefore are not relevant, I am not saying they are wrong, although there are many criticisms of it. It is just not relative to the US situation,” said Geier.

Geier’s study concludes that there is an increase of neurodevelopment disorders following the use of thimerosal containing vaccines.

Dr. Rashid Buttar, who has pioneered a new treatment for autistic children that removes mercury from their bodies, said the Institute of Medicine’s conclusion that mercury does not cause autism demonstrates the “complete absence of any desire to discover scientific truth at the supposed highest levels of medical academia.”

“When 31 children recover from a devastating disease by a simple transdermal treatment that detoxifies metals, then common sense dictates that perhaps metals are involved,” states Dr. Bob Nash the chairman of the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology (ABCMT) in regard to Dr. Buttar’s treatment.

“In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal, suffered brain damage years later. Studies on thimerosal poisoning also describe tubular necrosis and nervous system injury, including obtundation, coma and death. As a result of these findings, Russia banned thimerosal from children’s vaccines in 1980. Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have also banned the preservative,”writes Dawn Prate.

Mercury is classified by The Department of Defense as a hazardous material that could cause death if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and the EPA is now limiting mercury emissions from factories because the toxin “can damage the brain and nervous system and is especially dangerous to fetuses and small children,” but according to the CDC it’s perfectly safe to inject into your child’s bloodstream.

Despite concerns about thimerosal and mercury, thimerosal is an ingredient of the swine flu vaccine which is currently being rolled out for children all over the country.

“Some of the vaccine will be stored in multi-dose vials containing thimerosal, an antibacterial additive that contains mercury,” reported the Washington Post in an article about which groups will receive the swine flu vaccine first.

Indeed, the swine flu vaccine contains no less than 25,000 per cent the amount of mercuryconsidered safe.

Around 12,000 U.S. children were used as guinea pigs for the experimental swine flu vaccine also known to contain the dangerous ingredient squalene, which has been directly linked with cases of Gulf War Syndrome and a host of other debilitating diseases.

Squalene “contributed to the cascade of reactions called “Gulf War syndrome. (GIs developed) arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphadenopathy, rashes, photosensitive rashes, malar rashes, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, abnormal body hair loss, non-healing skin lesions, aphthous ulcers, dizziness, weakness, memory loss, seizures, mood changes, neuropsychiatric problems, anti-thyroid effects, anaemia, elevated ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, ALS, Raynaud’s phenomenon, Sjorgren’s syndrome, chronic diarrhea, night sweats and low-grade fever,” according to Micropaleontologist Dr. Viera Scheibner.

Pharmaceutical companies can be assured that they won’t face reprisals for the many thousands of injuries and deaths that will inevitably occur as a result of exposing millions to mercury and squalene during a mass vaccination program, because the government has already acted to provide them with blanket immunity from lawsuits.

“Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius,” reported the Associated Press in July.

Watch a CBS News report on the new autism survey below.

 

HOW IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULURALISM DESTROYED DETROIT

By Frosty Wooldridge
October 5, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan. I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.

Tens of thousands and then, hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing and food stamps! With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10 and in once case, one woman birthed 24 kids as reported by the Detroit Free Press—all on American taxpayer dollarss. A new child meant a new car payment, new TV and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society” flourish in Detroit. If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.

Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America, outside of Richard Daley in Chicago, rode Detroit down to its knees. He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence and arrogance. As a black man, he said, “I am the MFIC.” The IC meant ‘in charge’. You can figure out the rest. Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent African-Americans.

As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state. Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000. Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan, but most work in Detroit.

As the Muslims moved in, the whites moved out. As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace. You could cut the racial tension in the air with a knife! Detroit may be one our best examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike and total separation from America.

Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a new American Baghdad with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan, paid for by Saudi Arabia oil money. High school flunk out rates reached 76 percent last June according to NBC’s Brian Williams. Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America. English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing. Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city.

In this week’s Time Magazine October 4, 2009, “The Tragedy of Detroit: How a great city fell and how it can rise again,” I choked on the writer’s description of what happened.

“If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it,” said Daniel Okrent. “If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it — if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice. Top of Form

Bottom of Form

But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making.”

As Coleman Young’s corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kick backs and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city’s death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit.

“By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services,” Okrent said. “The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers' union to reject a philanthropist's offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.”

At the end of Okrent’s report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit, he said, “That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse. It's also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?”

As you read in my book review of Chris Steiner’s book, $20 Per Gallon, the auto industry won’t come back. Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit—thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America. If 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more homegrown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit. Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs. You have already seen it in the Madrid, Spain, London, England and Paris, France with train bombings, subway bombings and riots. As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder. We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying.

Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country and way of life.