Dr Jose Montoya – who will be speaking at the Invest in ME International Conference on ME in London on May 20 – is seen discussing CFS and current research on diagnosis and treatment at a conference held at Stanford University's alumni centre in California on 3 March 2011.
Quote from the lecture:
Hopefully one day, my dream is that our medical community will produce a formal apology to the patients that – not having believed them all these years – they are facing a real illness.
Dr Montoya is associate professor of medicine, infectious diseases, at the Stanford University Medical Center. He has already studied the use of an antiviral drug called valganciclovir – marketed by Roche Pharmaceuticals as Valcyte – on patients with CFS. The ME Association followed the progress of this work closely in 2007 and 2008; at one stage, we met with the managing director of Roche in the UK to offer to help facilitate a UK trial of this drug if the company was minded to widen the scope of the trial beyond the study at Stanford.
‘The Times' on Dr Montoya's valganciclovir/Valcyte testing on patients with CFS, 11 January 2007
Speaking personally, this is brilliant to hear.
I think my family needed to hear this many years ago too.
Might even tie my GP and others to a chair and force them to listen! 🙂
This guy puts doctors in the UK to shame.
Hi JT,
Be interested to hear your thoughts about what he said re: XMRV.
Around about the 40 minute mark I recall.
He said quite a bit. Could you be more specific?
Sure:
That colleagues in the field should be more realistic and less prone to jump the gun with potentially damaging headlines etc. was my favourite I think.
He said that it was simply too early to be claiming anything conclusive one way or the other at this point.
That XMRV could be limited to the United States or specific geographic areas, which would be in-line with other viral epidemics.
That Stanford are stepping up to the plate and also testing for XMRV in patients.
That long-term persistent MLV-like viruses have been reported in some people with symtomatic CFS for as long as 15 years.
That this retrovirus (which is much simpler than HTLV or HIV) definitely originated in mice.
That it is the first ‘agent in its’ class’ to be identified in humans.
That there are many ways to measure the virus and that may be part of the problem with all the reported research results.
Sorry, I was asked to summarise for someone else so had some notes to hand.
As I said, that is obviously my own interpretation, and I may have misinterpreted – it was a long talk and I had to do it in sections over the day and night.
Fire
I agree with him, and it is those who have produced negative studies and failed to use a proven method that have jumped the gun.
Lo et al confirmed the original findings, they found the same virus. The UK study (still to be published) from the NCI/WPI shows that it is in the UK. They are finding it in independent labs in Belgium, Germany (published) and Spain. It does not need a passport.
I’m not sure what Stanford are doing yet with their testing. Are are they using a proven assay, or a new one.
Ok. Now I hate to say it again, but the PACE trial did not, I repeat, did not, conclude what was reported in those damn headlines.
It may take more professionals like Dr Montoya to shout it out loud, it shouldn’t, it was in the paper all the damn time.
I read it and so did others.
These interventions are only moderately effective.
More research is needed into more effective treatments.
‘The effectiveness of CBT in the PACE trial does not imply that the condition is psychological in nature.’
That PACE study can and should be used positively. It was in that respect a ‘good’ study.
The headlines and those comments posted earlier on this website were the sole cause of people’s despair.
The SMC should be lined up against a wall and summarily executed, and each and every sufferer should be given a bullet.
How refreshing to hear Dr Montoya speak ands so knowledgeably about ME. I could not listen to the whole video but will go back to it. It is Doctors like him that give me hope and I can only hope he can educate others to his high level of understanding.
I listened to the first 20 mins and the bit about XMRV. He was spot on when he pointed out how unhelpful it is for scientists to become dogmatic about their positions regarding XMRV.
My personal and probally totally unscientific take on XMRV is that up to 10% of the population carry XMRV without knowing but if one of these people become ill with one of the other illnesses associated with ME they then activate the xmrv virus. Hence why a percentage of the Australian follow up patients with glandular fever go on to develop ME and I have seen similair figures for other infectious illnesses associated with ME. (Of course I cant remember more details.). But whether XMRV is the answer to ME or not, we need more doctors like Dr Montoya
The virus is most likely activating the diseases, not the other way around. It will be interesting to see what percentage of those who get the virus develop disease. With HTLV it is 10% of those infected, with HIV 99%. It may be that all do, but it could be over decades.
What I would draw from ths presentation is that XMRV is a red herring and so is the PACE trial; the former because if it is causative it is by no means unique and if the latter because palliative treatments do not lead to a cure of a pathological disorder.
It is quite clear what Dr Montoya’s position is which is that the causative factors for CFS are heterogenous but the mechanism for maintenance of the disease if initially caused by a virus may not be.
http://chronicfatigue.stanford.edu/overview/
http://chronicfatigue.stanford.edu/infections/herpes-experts.html
This presentation was not one from which anyone should be drawing conclusions about XMRV / MLV related retroviruses involvement in ME/cfs.
Before making any such judgements you need to see and read all of the evidence that has been presented by Judy Mikovits first.
What JUST by Dr Mikovits Dio? How come she is the only one?
I don’t mean it as a poke, but as a serious question.
Why is it only the WPI and Mikovits doing the talking?
I just don’t get it. And please spare the conspiracy theories – I haven’t got the time or energy anymore.