This piece by Paula Carnes, called "Testing Negative, Staying Positive" gives a lot of new information about being tested for XMRV. She elaborates on why some people are testing negative, how the disease seems to be working in the body, and some promising leads for treating it. Here are a few highlights:
"-XMRV leaves the blood and hides out elsewhere in the body until you are stimulated with another infection. [This could explain that the early outbreaks at Incline Village, NV, Lyndonville, NY and Raleigh, NC were caused by a secondary contagious infection superimposed on an existing XMRV infection.] Replication of XMRV is stimulated by inflammation and hormones.
-The retrovirus(s) has a high level of sequence diversity or different strains. The NIH (Alter and Lo) found a P (polytropic) MRV strain. This means that if you are infected with the PMRV strain you will currently test negative at The Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI). Mikovits is working to develop more accurate testing for both strains. She hopes to have a test for PMRV by June 1, 2011.
-Possible infections that enable XMRV to multiply would include EBV, HHV6, borrelia, babesia, bartonella, other?
-In chimp studies the virus very quickly left the blood and went into reservoirs, lymph node, spleen, liver – maybe thyroid, sex organs, adrenal glands, salivary glands, brain.
-Stress elevates cortisol levels which would in turn activate XMRV.
-Some patients have a positive culture test but no antibodies. If they are treated and begin to get better antibodies for XMRV will show up.
That article mentions another blog post in which a study is discussed showing evidence that XMRV may be a tick borne disease, here's a quote:
"Recently, a small study has revealed that ticks might be one way XMRV is passed on. The study is being done by Dr. Eva Sapi and Dr. Joe Brewer. The connection was discovered with a sample of chronic lyme disease patients showing 90% infectivity rates with XMRV and MLV's. It is coincidental that the symptoms of Chronic Lyme, and Chronic fatigue syndrome are almost impossible to differentiate. It also explains why despite antibiotic treatments, these patients fail to show improvements. Ticks are already known to carry a form of viral encephalitis."