XMRV in Monkeys

XMRV International Workshop Abstracts Part I:

"Monkeys - Five Rhesus macaques were infected with XMRV; two of them were sacrificed quickly and the others several months later. Creating only low levels of antibodies, the immune system did not react strongly to the virus possibly because it was able to quickly remove the virus from the bloodstream.

This apparently suggested to the investigators that the virus showed low infectivity and virulence, but low and behold when they opened the animals up, they were surprised to find that the virus had infected many organs and they were able to detect evidence of ongoing replication.

Interestingly, the virus hung out in the lymphoid organs – which give it a clear pathway to the bloodstream. (Dr. Mikovits has suggested that the lymphoid organs could be a tissue reservoir for the virus).

They found that XMRV was also replicating in all the sexual glands – which, of course, suggests that sexual transmission is a distinct possibility."