Virus associated with chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

After years of research, the link between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and exposure to a virus may finally be solidifying. A certain retrovirus appears to be present in extremely large numbers of people diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome , compared with control groups. The media coverage and commentary about these findings, however, reveals a prevalent misconception about the nature of illness in general. "It's just psychological," many people have complained, dismissing the condition altogether. Every illness that involves changes in mental functioning, emotion or behavior by definition does have a psychological component — and that's pretty much everything.

Tina Tidmore is one of an estimated 1 million to 4 million Americans who have chronic fatigue syndrome, a variety of symptoms with the hallmark of extreme lack of energy.

So Tidmore was very interested in results announced this week in Washington -- that a team of scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration have found evidence of genes from murine leukemia viruses in the blood of 87 percent of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients tested. Will further tests confirm an association between this family of viruses, which can infect humans as well as mice?

The researchers on Monday cautioned that the finding of the virus in many blood samples of "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" patients does nothing to show that the virus is involved in the disease.

"It's a dramatic association, but is not causality," said Dr. Harvey Alter, chief of clinical studies in the department of transfusion medicine at the NIH Clinical Center.

But an association of the virus with the syndrome would raise questions about the safety of donated blood.
And since the murine leukemia viruses are retroviruses -- a type of RNA viruses that includes HIV, the cause of AIDS -- it would raise the question of whether anti-retroviral therapies that are so successful for AIDS patients might also be beneficial for "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" patients.

Bridges said researchers have looked for years -- without success -- to find an infectious cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, as well infectious causes of the diseases rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.
The blood samples that were tested for Monday's report had been collected from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients 15 years ago to test for a possible infection by mycoplasma. Lane Collins of Camden, an Internet friend of Tidmore's, has had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome since 1989, with its fatigue and muscle pain.