What is XMRV?
Researchers at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic, have recently discovered the presence of a retrovirus in blood samples from patients diagnosed with chronic ME/ CFS. The human retrovirus, identified as XMRV, has now been found to be in over 95 percent of the patients’ blood samples in this study group. XMRV is a human retrovirus and is similar to HIV and HTLV-1. It was first identified by Dr. Robert Silverman, in prostate cancer tissue of men with a specific genetic defect in their antiviral defense pathway. Prior to the Whittemore Peterson Institute study, XMRV had not been isolated from a human diseased population or been shown to be infectious and transmissible.
