EiR Blog

Since Thursday of last week when news of research linking the XMRV retrovirus  to chronic fatigue syndrome hit the headlines many patients (and I suspect their doctors) have been wondering what exactly this finding means. The amount of media attention this discovery by the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) generated in the press was unprecedented. After having the WPI press release delivered to my email inbox, the next day my mum handed me a copy of The Independent (one of the major "serious" national newspapers in the UK) with a front page article asking 'Has science found the cause of ME?' There was also an editorial piece coming down squarely on the side of us much maligned chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients and concluding that it was about time we were taken seriously. It is rare to find any ME/CFS news in the mainstream media but the story was the same across...