Gcmaf - The Promise and The Pitfalls

Young Adult Patients with ME CFS, Chronic Lyme, Fibromyalgia etc
Written by Joey:

Gcmaf is one of the most promising, if not the most promising drug for ME/CFS this side of ampligen and far cheaper than ampligen. Dr. Cheney, Dr. Kenny de meirleir's and others are running small-scale studies with this compound which was found by its proprietor, Dr. Yamamoto to eradicate HIV.

Dr. De Meirleir recently announced that the combo of gcmaf and nexavir (an immune modulator) converted a patient from XMRV sero-positive to -negative. I have been in contact with multiple patients, including one XMRV-pos whom has improved significantly from this natural compound which stimulates macrophage activity.

The questions that remain are: 1) which source out of the three (Yamamoto, Dr De Meirleir, BGLI in the Netherlands) has the most potency and contains 100% human derived material - this question can only be answered by a truly independent lab.

2) what is the true role of VDR status in predicting treatment outcome and which lab has the accurate results (currently redlabs Belgium seems to produce conflicting results with Amy Yasko's lab)

3) what role will the FDA play? Currently shipments of BGLI gcmaf are being held up at customs, yet patients are biting the bullet and ordering in hopes their shipment will slip through the cracks. As if patients haven't been skewered financially enough.

In my own opinion, this drug holds so much promise not only in terms of results but in terms of method of action. It triggers innate immunity so it is unlikely to lead to viral resistance, superbugs, or the viral biofilms that were announced in sciencedaily this morning. Bacterial biofilms developed theoretically due to rampant antibiotic use. Life will find a way, and therapeutically we have a choice to try to beat the bug into submission with WMDs like ARVs or bolster our own immunity. However, the caveat is, Ampligen theoretically was supposed to stimulate our immunity to enable us to win the war, and patients inevitably always relapsed once they stopped the drug.

With that said, perhaps a combination of both routes can cover the gamut, which may be why some high-profile XMRV researchers are discussing testing terrain therapies such as peptide T, gcmaf, nexavir, and even stem cells in combination with HAART.

With XMRV, it is far more likely than with HIV, that reservoirs are a primary issue because it is slow-replicating. Therapies such as interleukins have been used to draw HIV out of latency with varying success. XMRV researchers will likely need to consider the problem of drawing virus out of latency (ie stem cells since stem cell division equals viral replication) as well as cutting the provirus (the viral DNA integrated into our human DNA) with methods that mimic restriction enzyme systems which remove foreign viral DNA from our own DNA. Leave the provirus in there and it may trigger oncogenes, which may be why XMRV has been found in prostate and breast cancer.

A somewhat overlooked risk with gcmaf is that XMRV and HIV have been found in macrophages, so taking a macrophage-stimulator is in theory a bit like giving your crippled bodyguard steroids to take on the guy that did the crippling. A logical fallacy if you will, but results speak louder than funny-looking bodyguards. Another thing is macrophages have been found in the temporal lobes, so triggering latent retroviruses in the brain may be a recipe for disaster.

In the end, gcmaf is but one way to attack the virus. I just hope we get to find out what it can really do before the powers that be decide to intervene because its an unpatentable substance that happens to achieve what billions of dollars of research into HIV drugs has failed to achieve.