Viruses are on the border between living and dead. So are the theories about what some of them cause.
Two studies were published last week that showed no link between xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) and either chronic fatigue syndrome or prostate cancer.
The scientific journals consider the matter settled with these studies. In theirs new sections, Nature and PLoS ONE wrote about “the nail in XMRV’s coffin” and “The Final Chapter on XMRV and Prostate Cancer.”
Umm . . . good luck with that.
Actually, the link between XMRV and prostate cancer may be laid to rest fairly easily. That disease doesn’t seem to engender the same level of emotion about what causes it as CFS does, and certainly, if it’s a made up disease, it is made up by the screening guidelines. No one accuses men of prostate cancer being all in their imaginations.
For the link between XMRV and CFS, I would not be too surprised if rather than dying, it ends up being one of those unfortunate, undead beliefs, like the autism-vaccine link.
Notably, several of the questions at the press conference where W. Ian Lipkin and his team announced the lack of a link between centered on whether the connection might, in fact be there, but in places unseen by the scientists. Could it be in the other organs rather than blood? Could there be an interaction with host genotype? These are exactly the kind of possibilities that vaccine skeptics love to bring up about autism – and that are impossible to truly disprove. There is always some angle you haven’t looked at.
If the team around Lipkin meets with more success with truly laying the notion of a link between XMRV and CFS to rest than the autism–vaccine contingent, it may be not because of the quality of their data. Instead, the key may lie in the study’s second author Judy Mikovits, whose team published the original paper claiming a link.
Judy Mikovits has gone to some lengths to defend her theory and her data; at one point, she spent five days in jail for stealing lab equipment and data. She has lost her position at Whittemore Peterson Institute over her conduct in the aftermath of the study, and her affiliation on the paper is listed as “Mikovits Consulting.”
But unlike Andrew Wakefield, who first championed the link between vaccines and autism and has steadfastly refused to let the facts get in the way of his opinion, Mikovits was willing to rigorously test her own theory, along scientists who disagreed with her – and to let the data convince her that her original idea was wrong.
In one sense, this is what scientists do. But she is doing it well, and she deserves kudos for that.
One Comment
You are probably right about a number of points.
But, I would question the assertion that asking about variables which should be done of every scientific study, is problematic.
Viruses do go latent and reside in places other than the sera. Why is that an unreasonable question? The sera is simply the least invasive place to look in live patients.
Like good scientists, good journalists ask many questions and retain some skepticism. If an obvious question is overlooked and a reporter doesn’t ask then they are not doing their job regardless of the answer.
But, I think the scientists present handled the questions deftly and redirected when they were not germane to the study. (The only time they didn’t was when Martin Enserink apparently joined the webcast late and asked a question that had already been covered.)
In general people hang on to theories even when disproven because they are desperate for answers that make sense to them – that fit with their experiences. That science is a slow process with many missteps doesn’t match up with their expectations or wishes. We don’t do a good job of teaching how good science is done. As Sheldon Cooper notes, science is more than wet lima beans in paper towels.
Dr. Lipkin indicated that the bulk of the funding went toward patients selection and samples and that additional research for biomarkers and other pathogens are already under way.