The perennial problem of trials such as this from ICL and those funded by the Medical Research Council is that they do not use well defined patient cohorts which can negate the research results.

To replicate a research study the patient samples used and the methodology have to be the same and in this case it appears that there are differences in both compared to the study published online 8 October, 2009 by the Science magazine.

The organisations in USA who discovered the XMRV retrovirus used the Canadian Guidelines to select patients for their research and  Invest in ME feel the Canadian Guidelines should be used for all research.

Those who portray ME as a somatoform illness are fully aware that using patients who do not fit strict selection criteria will obviously skew results. We therefore have serious doubts about the the results of the ICL research.

If the correct patient cohorts are not participating in the trials or different methods are used then this will affect the results.

The result of finding no sign of XMRV would point to a different methodology to that used in the research published by the Science magazine in which 3.7% of controls tested positive.

The work performed by the Whittemore-Peterson Institute (WPI) and the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic is of the highest quality and has been validated by Science magazine.

Much more research is underway and the results from the first XMRV replication trials such as these from ICL prove little.

People with ME and their families should expect these “false” results to be publicised early, especially as ME has been ignored by the government and research organisations for generations. However, the new XMRV research has changed the landscape for good and patients and carers can look forward to a new era of ME/CFS research based on the biomedical basis for the illness.

Proper science is now finally being performed.

Those who have delayed or stopped high quality biomedical research into ME from being performed in the past, and those who continue to downplay the significance of the new research from WPI, will not be in a position to continue this denial for much longer.

The WPI have promised more exciting news which we can expect to hear at the forthcoming 5^th Invest in ME International ME/CFS Conference on 24^th May in London.

Invest in ME remain convinced that the WPI research is of monumental importance to the future of research into ME and we look forward to the future and the momentum in biomedical research into ME which the XMRV research has generated.

Invest in ME

The BBC article is available - click here

The PLoS One article is here

A statement from the Whittemore-Peterson Institute - click here

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