Interview with Judy Mikovits and Annette Whittemore about XMRV
This interview transcript was taken from a broadcast on the US television News channel “Nevada Newsmakers” on the 8th October 2009 with Presenter Sam Shad.
Presenter:
I cant think of a more exciting programme I’ve done because what were about to talk about is world shattering news. I want to read if I could just the first paragraph of your press release. The Whittemore Peterson Institute Scientists discover a significant link between XMRV and ME/CFS which we’ll go into in a moment. A recently identified Retrovirus called XMRV has been linked to a debilitating Nero Immune Disease that effects more than a million people in the united states scientists from the Whittemore Peterson Institute located at the University of Nevada, Reno, and their collaborators from the National Cancer Institute and Cleveland Clinic have discovered a Retroviral link to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. They recently published their groundbreaking findings in the Journal of Science one of the worlds leading Journals of original scientific research global news and commentary. The paper entitled “Detection of infectious Retrovirus XMRV in the blood cells of CFS patients”, is a major breakthrough in the origins of this disease. Lets start out with the most basic which is, what is a Retrovirus?
Judy Mikovits:
There are only 2 other human Retrovirus known, Human T Call Leukaemia Virus and HIV, the Retrovirus that causes AIDS. Both of these viruses cause Cancers, Neurological Diseases, Immune deficiencies and Inflammatory Disorders in man. XMRV is only the third human infectious Retrovirus shown and that’s what our work just did.
Presenter:
What made you look for this because this was originally discovered in Prostate Cancer tissue of men with specific genetic immune system defect by Dr. Silverman of the Clevland Clinic. Why did you put that over to CFS and ME?
Judy Mikovits:
That genetic link was the Hereditary Prostate Cancer gene number one is an antiviral enzyme which is also a hallmark of the abnormalities of ME/CFS patients so we reasoned that if this virus is infecting men with this immune defect in causing Prostate Cancer that it might indeed be the culprit in CFS.
Presenter:
What were your thoughts when you first started going down this road?
Annette Whittemore:
Well I knew that the one thing we had to do was look for the answers and I believed all along that we were going to find an underlying pathogen, it just didn’t make sense that so many different viruses had been claimed to cause this disorder. So I was absolutely thrilled, this is exactly what we started out to do.
Presenter:
One of the things that has been so frustrating for sufferers of Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia related illnesses is that for a long time Doctors thought that they were crazy. That symptoms coming up in one place and then showing up in another place and there was no way to track it.
Annette Whittemore:
Absolutely. Its really been very interesting and the exciting thing is Judy can tell you how the Virus works and every one of the symptoms makes sense because of that. So it’s wonderful to be able to have this puzzle, just all the pieces come together suddenly and fit so well.
Presenter:
Specifically let’s relate it to women. A lot of the problems that woman have suffered with this you have now been able to track down in incredible detective work.
Judy Mikovits:
Correct. It’s a simple retrovirus which means its expression, the On or Off, is controlled by, and we’ve just learned this, its unpublished data, by just 3 things, the response to Hormones, the response to Inflammatory Cytokines, its called an NF-Kapa B element. So Cortisol, the Stress Hormone turns on the Virus very rapidly and continues to have it expressed. So do Inflammatory events as caused by other Pathogens and so do Hormones like Androgens and Progestins also make sense with regard to Inflammatory Prostate Cancer and the disease being more prevalent in women.
Presenter:
One of the things that is common here is that it’s not an airborne disease which is something people had potentially though about. I mean this is something that is all over the world and is just stunning but it’s actually fluids and blood that are being considered.
Annette Whittemore:
That is correct. We are obviously looking into that and describing that more fully but in the history of those Viruses that’s what they have discovered, not airborne thank goodness.
The Full Interview can be watched here:
View Video Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzIdpMUunHE
View Video Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOdnwPCh-yw