UK researchers say they can find no proof that a particular virus is the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or ME, contrary to recent claims.
The Imperial College London team say they want to share the findings as some patients are pinning their hopes on drugs to fight the virus called XMRV.
They analysed blood samples from 186 patients with CFS and found none had the virus, PLoS One journal reports. Read the rest of this entry »
The pandemic of swine flu may be hitting a peak in the Northern Hemisphere, global health officials said on Friday, but they cautioned it was far from over.
Officials also said they were investigating several troubling outbreaks of drug-resistant H1N1 but noted they were limited so far and that there were no indications yet the virus was mutating in a sustained way.
The World Health Organization said H1N1 flu was moving eastward across Europe and Asia after appearing to peak in parts of Western Europe and the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
Americans are starting to lose confidence in the government’s ability to prevent a nationwide epidemic of the H1N1 flu, according to a new national poll.
But the Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Tuesday morning, indicates a small majority continue to say that the government and private industry eventually will produce enough of the vaccine for the virus, also known as swine flu, to inoculate everyone who wants it. Read the rest of this entry »
Every feel like you are tired all the time but your doctor can’t seem to find the cause? You may suffer from a syndrome that approximately 10 million Americans have called chronic fatigue syndrome. Recently it has been discovered that a retrovirus is now linked with this syndrome, so treatment may be easier to find.
The virus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related-virus or XMRV, was found in approximately 67 percent of 101 patients that suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome by Vincent C. Lombardi, Ph.D. from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada, and his team. Read the rest of this entry »
The United States and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus that swept into North America a decade ago, a U.S. expert said on Friday.
Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. It also has been detected in Italy, where it has begun to spread locally, as well as France.
“We’re very worried,” Dr. James Diaz of the Louisiana University Health Sciences Center told a meeting on airlines, airports and disease transmission sponsored by the independent U.S. National Research Council. Read the rest of this entry »
Scientists have produced compelling evidence that a virus known to cause cancer in animals is linked to prostate cancer in humans.
The researchers from the University of Utah and Columbia University medical schools found the virus in 27% of the 200 cancerous prostates they looked at.
They say it was associated with more aggressive tumours and found in only 6% of non-cancerous prostates. Read the rest of this entry »
