Car 54 - Where Are You??

"There's a hold-up in the Bronx, Brooklyn's broken out in fights; there's a traffic jam in Harlem that's backed up to Jackson Heights; there's a Scout troop short a child; Khrushchev's due at Idlewild...Car 54 - Where Are You?"

Ahhh There you are!! *cough*CDC*cough*

The CDC has published an article on .gov regarding an XMRV study. Although it does not focus on CFS patients, it does speak to the prevalence of controls, and how it concurs with the results of other studies with respect to a 3.7%'ish infection in controls. It references the WPI,CC,NCI study stating:

"Detection of XMRV in PBMCs and plasma of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome raises the possibility of blood-borne transmission; sexual transmission has also been hypothesized on the basis of indirect evidence"

The study concludes:

"Together with earlier observations on increased XMRV replication in RNase L–deficient cells (1,12), this finding implies that the immune system plays a role in controlling XMRV replication. It remains unknown whether immunosuppression predisposes a patient to secrete infectious XMRV from the respiratory tract or whether presence of virus might be meaningless for epidemiology in a way similar to HIV-1 (15). Future studies should address whether the respiratory tract might serve as a source of XMRV infection or whether immunosuppression might cause an increased risk for primary infection."

This 'could' be Very important in understanding why there were specific CFS related outbreaks.

Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus–related Gammaretrovirus in Respiratory Tract

It's good to see the CDC show up to the party. A bit late, BUT still. I am thinking as they move towards understanding transmission rates, wouldn't their Best bet be to use a CFS XMRV +ve cohort to do so, since the XMRV prevalence is so high in them? Will they include immunoincompetent (ahem HIV) samples inhouse? Have they tested for XMRV against their HIV sampls already?

Stay Tuned for more Car 54 action packed episodes!

EDIT: XMRV in human respiratory tract (From Virology Blog) This article is much easier on the brain to read. It puts it in a context the non-medical professionals can understand.

˙·٠•●♥ ƹ̵̡ӝ̵̨̄ʒ ♥●•٠·˙

NOTE: For those not nearly as old as I am, Car 54 was a TV show in the 1960's that followed the 'madcap' adventures of two police officers stationed at the 53rd precinct in the Bronx.

From Wikipedia: Car 54