XMRV research: no one has the funding to explore what’s hiding in lymph or elsewhere

Deborah Waroff wrote, 8:59 pm May 4, 2011:

One applauds WSJ and Ms.Marcus for their very professional news coverage of this life-and-death important work. I second ixchelkali’s applause, but want to add that the XMRV research so far only covers blood samples. What’s hiding in lymph or elsewhere no one has the funding to explore.

Readers should keep in mind, meanwhile, that this silly little name, “chronic fatigue syndrome,” dreamed up by a committee of the CDC to replace the international moniker “myalgic encephalomyelitis,” hides a great human tragedy costing the United States some $20 billion annually in direct expense and lost productivity.

Doctors who cover both have found it as deadly and horrific as AIDs. It similarly destroys immune systems, and also ravages nerves and endocrine. Yet the CDC slammed the door on retroviral research in ME/CFS 20 years ago, and the one million Americans suffering from it — many of them pauperized and helpless — merit only a dribble of federal spending annually, many, many times less than virtually any other disease.