http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/5/78/comments The latest comments on the article 'GB virus-C - a virus without a disease: We cannot give it chronic fatigue syndrome' 2007-12-30T00:00:00Z This is an RSS newsfeed from BioMed Central It is intended to be used with an RSS reader. For more information about RSS newsfeeds from BioMed Central, visit http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/rss/ http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/5/78/comments#291583 <p>Not for the first time [1-2], a CDC-funded research team produces a paper on CFS which has a title which mentions a lack of an association with a particular infection[3]. </p><p>It would be good if some of the CDC's (not inconsiderable) CFS research budget could be used to investigate enteroviruses in CFS. Earlier this year a study involving enteroviruses[4] resulted in much excitement in the media on the subject. It found, in a sample of CFS patients who had gastrointestinal symptoms, that 135/165 (82%) biopsies stained positive for VP1 within parietal cells, whereas 7/34 (20%) of the controls stained positive (p=&#60;0.001). Earlier studies have demonstrated circulating antigen of enterovirus, raised antibody titres and viral RNA in the blood and muscle biopsy specimens of patients with CFS[4-8]. John Chia does recognize that other infections could be playing a part in some CFS cases but enteroviruses are by far the most common infection he is finding in his clinic in California[9].</p><p>[1] Gelman JH, Unger ER, Mawle AC, Nisenbaum R, Reeves WC: Chronic fatigue syndrome is not associated with expression of endogenous retroviral p15E. Molec Diagnosis 2000, 5:155-156.</p><p>[2] Vernon SD, Shukla S, Reeves WC: Absence of Mycoplasma species DNA in chronic fatigue syndrome. </p><p>J Med Microbiol 2003, 52:1027-1028.</p><p>[3] Jones JF, Kulkarni PS, Butera ST, Reeves WC: GB virus-C--a virus without a disease: we cannot give it chronic fatigue syndrome. Jones JF, Kulkarni PS, Butera ST, Reeves WC. BMC Infect Dis 2005, 5:78</p><p>[4] Yousef GE, Mann GF, Smith DF, et al: Chronic enterovirus infection in patients with postviral fatigue syndrome. Lancet 1988;1:146-7.</p><p>[5] Cunningham L, Bowles NE, Lane RJM, et al: Persistence of enteroviral RNA in chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with abnormal production of equal amounts of positive and negative strands of enteroviral RNA. J Gen Virol 1990;71:1399-402.</p><p>[6] Galbraith DN, Nairn C, Clements GB: Phylogenetic analysis of short enteroviral sequences from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. J Gen Virol 1995;76:1701-7.</p><p>[7] Lane RJ, Soteriou BA, Zhang H, et al: Enterovirus related metabolic myopathy: a postviral fatigue syndrome. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2003;74:1382-6.</p><p>[8] Douche-Aourik F, Berlier W, Fe&#180;asson L, et al: Detection of enterovirus to human skeletal muscle from patients with chronic inflammatory muscle disease or fibromyalgia and healthy subjects. J Med Virol 2003;71:540-7. </p><p>[9] Chia JK, Chia A: Diverse etiologies for the chronic fatigue syndrome. Clin Infect Dis 2003;36:671-2.</p> Tom Kindlon 2007-12-30T00:00:00Z