All Posts Tagged With: "prostate cancer"

Dr. Gordon on infections and oxidative therapies.

Linda comment:  We must all wake up and address the chronic infections…..I love the FIGHT protocol and have been on it for 3 years…..IT ROCKS….go to my file on Webinars and watch all six webinars on the FIGHT protocol…..

 

WE ALL HAVE SOME CHRONIC INFECTIONS; now there is another major breakthrough to prove this.

My Fight program clearly is meant to help us educate our patients that achieving optimal health is a lifetime challenge. With increasing sophistication of lab sciences, we will find many more challenges in every one of my FIGHT categories but with the epidemic of people with chronic fatigue, you now have even more reason to want to learn about Oxidative therapies like OZONE/UVB/SILVER.

However, a unifying approach to enhance our bodies ability to deal with the multifactorial nature of any chronic disease should increase our interest in learning more about Energy medicine. This broad topic includes Homeopathy, Accupunture, Prayer, Microelectric Current therapy, Magnetic Healing, Oxygen, Hyperthermia and much of what is now called Alternative Medicine.

The exerpt below is just one line from the great overview of viral infections and XMRV that is found in Autism and Prostate Cancer and Chronic Fatigue. This area of research is all new this year but we can expect that someone will soon find many more fungi issues or parasites issues. Of course tying impaired health to our toxin load is just beginning to be seriously considered. Do not fail to look for a moment at this article, as when you tell patients they need to deal with the chronic infection component of their current symptom complex, many feel you are off the wall.

Unless they have heard of Candida or Chlamydia, or CMV, or Herpes, or Lyme, they are not attuned to the need to lower their total body burden of pathogens. No one needs to spend the money to chase down which of these infections they have, as no one will test negative for one or more of these infections if adequately tested. So testing for most patients is impractical except to get their attention as to why they must do something about the infection component of my FIGHT program if they are to achieve optimal health.

“XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) is strongly associated with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME. The earlier study published in the journal Science was a joint study by the Cleveland Clinic, the National Cancer Institute, and the Whittemore-Peterson Institute of the University of Nevada with Drs. Vincent Lombardi and Judy Mikovits as lead authors. Here the lead author of the NIH/Harvard/FDA study, Dr. Harvey Alter, noted in a press conference that he considered his study a confirmation of the earlier WPI study, even though they had detected different MLV-related viruses (MRVs), rather than only XMRV. There does seem to be a greater variety of MRVs in chronic fatigue syndrome/ME patients than first understood. The WPI’s original study also showed some evidence of additional MRVs.”
Read more: http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/09/my-wife-my-daughter-and-xmrv.html

Sincerely,

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Prostate cancer test doesn’t cut death risk

Linda’s comment:  EXCELLENT post by Dr Gordon…

Dr. Gordon’s Comments:

Cancer care is different today!  Now we have FDA approval of micro electric treatment for Glioblastoma multiform.

There is so much to consider today and the new developments in oxidative treatment that were revealed for the first time ever during the oxidative workshop at the ACAM/IMOsaic conference. Combining H202 with a modified Calcium based EDTA chelation treatment all in one session was discussed.

Now we have more tools than ever before and we need to motivate patients to take care of themselves before they have the lump/bump stage of so called clinical cancer. It includes better use of the tools we have available that will cause patients to improve their diet and life style and get on good supplements.

I know how to use PSA testing productively, as part of my routine patient screening program, even though this latest Swedish study says it has no value for improving morbidity or mortality. Here is part of this report making is clear that PSA testing, as used by mainstream medicine is a complete failure. 

But a big help in my practice where an abnormal result may lead to doing a better cancer profile, such as www.caprofile.net, and may lead to patients looking at all abnormal lab test results as a way to stimulate interest in optimizing all test results.  It might have been called the anti-aging medicine but modified here for patients who may have more of a cancer concern.

Here is the latest research about PSA that lets you tell patients that PSA testing is a failure unless used as I suggest here, which is how we used the Kobayashi panel of tests in Tokyo to eliminate clinical cancers in 10,000 patients for ten years.

“Screening for prostate cancer did not seem to have a significant effect on mortality,” wrote Gabriel Sandblom of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and colleagues. The study was paid for by the Swedish cancer foundation and other groups. It was published online Thursday in the journal, BMJ.

The American Cancer Society does not recommend routine screening for most men and there is no government screening program in Britain because officials say the PSA test is too unreliable. Two other big papers published in recent years have also failed to show much benefit for screening that includes a large European study that found screening for prostate cancer could pick up cases a decade earlier, but to prevent one death from cancer, 1,410 men would have to be tested and 48 men treated.

False positive tests can cause significant harms, including psychological distress and treatments that can cause impotence and incontinence.”

So let us “first do no harm”, as others with their all too often aggressive treatments are doing. Let us instead use this test as part of a screening test to identify “risk factors” that can be optimized with diet and lifestyle changes! If you start to record all patient visits then you can make it clear during the visit that this often merely reveals chronic infection of the prostate. Since men over a certain age have prostate issues, why not simply use my FIGHT program and add specific therapies to that program, as needed, to improve every test or measurement that found suboptimal levels of anything from fasting glucose to blood pressure.

Remember my Kobayashi program, which you can search on mywww.gordonresearch.com website anytime, has documented that every cancer screening test in his panel of cancer tests always went back to safe ranges when the patient is put on his program of lowering stress, getting more sleep, simplifying the diet and using things like immune support and far infra red saunas to aid detoxification etc. This included his patients who were not thought to have active clinical cancer at the start of the 10,000 person 10 year study.

Of course, today many of us believe that we all have subclinical cancer all the time, but before lump or bump develops (i.e. that 7 year interval that we know cancers require to reach clinical detection size), everyone in his study was able to bring all the cancer screening test to safe levels even if everyone in their family had a history of cancer.

Today, since I have my FIGHT program and I use my PEMF treatment device twice a day for about 10 minutes, I am more confident than ever that in spite of markedly raising levels of toxins and a frightening level of nutritional deficiencies with our SAD diet, that we can predictably eliminate heart disease and cancer and even slow the epidemic of dementia and other mental health issues with the combination. I am convinced that achieving infinite wellness requires the total approach I call my F.I.G.H.T. program and those that follow that program will add pulsed electromagnetic field therapy to things that by itself it could never have done. Since what good can restoring transmembrane potential do, for example, for patients who are not informed that they have serious gluten intolerance. Clearly PEMF will still help but not to the dramatic extent I am seeing when I concurrently address all the issues raised with my FIGHT program.

It is very important to understand that finally the physics of health is beginning to be understood and applied to patients in leading medical centers around the world. For example, a simple Google search about Neurostar will reveal that it is a $60,000 PEMF device that is designed to only permit treatment of the head but it has FDA approval for the treatment of depression. This is used for trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Of course you cannot induce a magnetic field without generating an electric current simultaneously.  The recommended treatments need to be administered over at least a 6 + week interval.

I believe that the evidence will show that since these devices were first approved for treating non-union fractions, where the success has been very high that part of the mechanism involves production of growth factors and leads to increased production of our own stem cells. These devices are now in places like UCLA, Stanford, and Yale, and
doctors there are going way beyond the treatment of depression and evaluating PEMF in conditions like schizophrenia and autism.

Now the news is about using cranial electric stimulation in the treatment of brain cancer! Specifically the device is called the Novo TTF from Novocure and the FDA approved it after only one study because, although as currently used it was not curative, it has far fewer
side effects than the chemo used for Glioblastoma. The patients’ outcome was the same, so just like all the alternative approaches to cancer I advocate and use, the patient has a better quality of life with any of the many alternative modalities I have used and/or taught. 
Now with this first time ever acknowledgement by FDA that physics (electricity) has healing potential for cancer, it is important to remember that PEMF treatments will also always generate micro electric currents that can aid in cell-cell communication. 

I have no doubt that for patients who can afford to walk away from the “free” radiation and chemo that lures them into a false sense of security that the alternative approaches we offer will always lead to a longer survival and a far better quality of life. My prediction is that we all can beat “mainstream” cancer care hands down with very few exceptions, like acute leukemia of childhood.  We used to include testicular cancer here but I am getting skeptical about the superiority of chemo for testicular cancer today since clearly the evidence is accumulating continuously that for all of the more common cancers, 
like prostate, breast, colon and lung, the results are better with properly designed treatment programs that focus more the total health of the patient, as outlined in my FIGHT program along with the some of the better alternative therapies available today.  Of course, there are cases where using just enough chemo to get control of the situation
will clearly be beneficial and with the new DNA testing available in Germany for patients to analyze their tumor that personalized approach will make chemo far more a consideration than the standard of care today of just blindly hitting all patients with the same toxic
concoctions until those fail.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Link: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/story/2011/04/Study-Prostate-cancer-test-doesnt-cut-death-risk—/45658684/1

Excerpt:

Study: Prostate cancer test doesn’t cut death risk 
04/01/2011 2:37 PM

The longest study yet on prostate cancer testing provides more evidence that getting screened doesn’t cut the chances of dying from the disease.
In a 20-year study of more than 9,000 Swedish men, researchers found no difference in the rate of prostate cancer deaths between the men who were periodically screened and those who weren’t.

PSA Rise as Cancer Predictor – with Dr. Gordon’s Comments

Dr. Gordon’s Comments:

PSA level velocity is a red herring; another myth about cancer diagnosis and treatment falls apart. How many men have lived in fear for years and some have had multiple biopsies, which I do not order for my patients because prostate cancer is the easiest of all cancers to treat with natural products.

– the “velocity” of rising PSA has needlessly tripled the biopsy rate providing risk without benefit for patients”

Since biopsies are now known to help spread cancer, the benefit to risk ratio for 2 out of 3 biopsies is  clearly negative. What we need, of course, is something that motivates people to follow a health promoting life style. I have called my life style program F.I.G.H.T. It is based on Dr Kobayashi’s ten years of research where some ten thousand patients avoided death from cancer.

It proved that cancer level in our body invariably diminishes with the simple health promoting steps he developed, which lead to my developing the F.I.G.H.T. program. It is important that these steps are initiated before the lump/bump stage develops. This proves that all cancer tests have some potential benefit to motivate patients to improve their health but only if we can limit the damage that overly aggressive treatment can lead to, including unwarranted biopsies. Cancer is a systemic disease and attacking the prostate or whatever tissue seems to be the focus is not the answer.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Link: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/cancer/story/2011/02/Study-PSA-rise-not-good-prostate-cancer-predictor/44135930/1

Excerpt:

Study: PSA rise not good prostate cancer predictor
Updated Feb 24, 2011 5:58 PM |

A rising PSA level isn’t such a good a predictor of prostate cancer after all, and can lead to many unnecessary biopsies, says a large new study.

Most men over 50 get PSA blood tests, but they’re hugely problematic. Too much PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, only sometimes signals prostate cancer is brewing — it also can mean a benign enlarged prostate or an infection. And screening often detects small tumors that will prove too slow-growing to be deadly. Yet there’s no sure way to tell in advance who needs aggressive therapy.

On the other hand, some men have cancer despite a “normal” PSA count of 4 or below. So for PSAs that are rising, yet still in the normal range, some guidelines urge doctors to consider a biopsy.

How quickly the PSA number rises is something “that patients and doctors worry a lot about,” said Dr. Andrew Vickers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “Men show up here with a PSA of 2 and we say, ‘Why are you here?’ And they say, ‘Well, I used to be a 1 and my doctor’s worried. Am I going to die?'”

So Sloan-Kettering researchers studied whether considering PSA velocity adds value to the biopsy-or-not decision in those otherwise low-risk men — and concluded it doesn’t.
“This is a really important study,” said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, who wasn’t part of the research. “A lot of doctors are going to stop looking at a PSA rise of 1 and ordering biopsies.”

Prostate Cancer with comments by Dr. Gordon

I believe over 90% of all prostate cancer does not need surgery or radiation. Now you have another expert agreeing but he puts the number at 80% did not need surgery.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.comSubject: Holistic urology

Link: www.integrativeurology.org

Excerpt:

Dr Aaron Katz is Director of Holisitic Urology at Columbia University Medical Center in NY. The impact of Oximation on DNA transcription is becoming more evident. Researchers at Stanford,MD Anderson,Johns Hopkins,and Columbia looking at prostate cancer seem to be ahead of other researchers looking at cancer. The upshot is that epidemiologically, what we see work for prostate cancer also works for breast cancer. This article is from the Winter edition of Holistic Primary Care.
There are approximately 200,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed each year. The vast majority are caught at early stages— thanks to concerted screening efforts—and most can be controlled through a comprehensive multimodal holistic approach aimed at reducing inflammation, a key driver of the disease.

Dr. Gordon comments on PSA surveillance

Dr. Gordon’s Comments:

This article can be helpful if you understand how I would use PSA information and what I believe active surveillance should entail. I want to keep my patients away from needless, often repeated, biopsies and other far too aggressive prostate treatments.

I find it useful, as usually we can at least modulate PSA doubling time, as the pomegranate study proved. So I like my patients to have something that helps them focus on staying healthy but to me that is total health not just excess focus on the prostate but even looking at bone density and coronary calcification and/or premature aging etc.

Tests help me to reward patients who follow my FIGHT program, as everything I test should be able to improve overtime even though the patients is getting older. I find patients with some significant health concern that can be retested over time and show subsequent improvement in those repeated tests will really do what I consider to be an adequate LIFELONG health and life style program, as called for with my FIGHT program working on all levels.

At most 12% of all prostate cancers seem to ever become significant threats to the patient’s long term survival. As we age eventually everyone has some prostate cancer, so how to protect the patients so they are not suddenly confronted with metastatic disease and do this without the nonsense of up to eight repeated biopsies over the course of a few years, is where the ART of medicine comes in.

We know that Dr Black at Dartmouth years ago proved that by age 60, autopsies find cancer of the prostate in 60% of all subjects tested. So with elevated PSA test, I like to do other tests such as caprofile.net for $371, as that picks up many cancers and tells you who has elevated anaerobic metabolism going on (Warburg Nobel prize, cancer is anaerobic). Also I like to consider the concept we learn from the Kobayashi Cancer Panel of tests, where he proved that ALL early cancers suggested by tumor tests would normalize with adequate life style based programs. So our goal is to put a program together that will in time invariably lead to normalization of those tests.

The developer of the PSA test now claims it never was intended as a cancer test, but more to detect chronic prostatitis so I believe that infection is a key part of my fIght program and things like local hyperthermia and ACS 200 silver etc should help us overcome this
condition.

But I use any abnormal test as a motivator to improve health and expect all future retesting to improve everything from testosterone levels to liver function tests and levels of toxins in the body. So it comes down to my interpretation of the term active surveillance where I am focused on Anti-aging medicine and helping my patients reach their maximum intended useful lifespan. Any tests that are not optimal I use to encourage patients to adopt any and all modalities including Heparin, Vitamin C, Wobenzym, Quercetin, Ozone/Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation, meditation, diet changes, etc.

I like to do broader testing and I can usually find some other areas in my PSA patient’s work-up needing optimization, i.e. blood flow to heart, brain function, memory, exercise tolerance, glucose control etc. So, for me, PSA testing and follow up fits into a broad program of monitoring, as many things as patients are willing to look at and devising a program for my patients that will optimize everything always. We know that a few cases of prostate cancer can seem very aggressive and lead the patient to their demise. If patients knew the truth however that according to oncology literature in USA, stage 4 cancers have only a 2.1% five year survival with mainstream treatment, but using alternative approaches Doctor Forsythe, an oncologist in Reno, has documented to FDA who went through all his records that he has 500 stage 4 cancer patients that includes all types of cancer – with his 5 year survival being 37.5%.

And, in my experience, with stage 4 wide spread ca of the prostate, it is the easiest one of all to treat for severe widespread mets. I like things like hyperthermia but just using IV Vitamin C and anticancer plants like Laetrile and Enzymes like Wobenzym that I used in my running the Manner Clinic in Tijuana I have always found prostate cancer to be very responsive to non drug therapy at any stage.

Meantime, since with my current age of 75, I should expect that I have a 75% probability of having it, yet the life style program I follow to deal with all of my other issues, like CV disease etc, my prostate is well controlled. Thus always remember my FIGHT program. I am convinced 99% of all patients will do well on this plus non toxic plant based support particularly if we begin my program before we have detectable lump/bump disease or wide-spread mets.

Please note the conclusion of this new research paper that can save thousands of patients who are now  hapless victims of overaggressive prostate treatments widely given in our country all too often I fear for  the benefit of the treating doctor, not for the patient.

“This means that many men with low-risk prostate cancer are receiving aggressive cancer treatment even though active surveillance may be a safer and acceptable alternative for some men with PSA levels below 10 ng/mL.1”

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Link: http://www.nhiondemand.com/HSJArticle.aspx?id=913&utm_source=NHI+OnDemand+Newsletter+List&utm_campaign=a61eed16f7-HSJ_Sep30_2010&utm_medium=email

Excerpt:

Date: 9/28/2010
Over Diagnosis and Overtreatment for Prostate Cancer.
Source: Archives of Internal Medicine

Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize (spread) from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause difficulty urinating, urinary retention, problems during sexual intercourse, or erectile dysfunction. Other symptoms can potentially develop during later stages of the disease such as fatigue, nausea, weakness, back pain, swollen lymph nodes, discomfort in the perineum, hip pain, or weight loss. Blood may be present in the urine. Most prostatic cancers are detected in asymptomatic men who have an elevated PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) level or a nodular or enlarged prostate at the time of examination.

Prostate cancer screening is utilized to detect the tumor while it is localized in the prostate and is most easily and successfully treated. Biopsy of the prostate is essential for establishing the diagnosis and is indicated when an abnormality is detected by palpation or elevated PSA. 

Recent data suggests that prostate cancer screening may lead to over treatment in men who do not actually need any cancer treatment. The study reviewed information from 123,934 men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Researchers found that 14 percent had PSA values below 4 ng/mL, 73.5 percent were between 4.1 and 20 ng/mL and 12.5 percent had levels above 20 ng/mL. Men with screen-detected prostate cancer and PSA values less than 4 ng/mL were 1.49 and 1.39 times more likely to receive radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy, respectively, and were less likely to have high-grade disease than men who had non-screen-detected prostate cancer. This means that many men with low-risk prostate cancer are receiving aggressive cancer treatment even though active surveillance may be a safer and acceptable alternative for some men with PSA levels below 10 ng/mL.1

1 Shao YH, Albertsen PC, Roberts CB, et al. Risk profiles and treatment patterns among men diagnosed as having prostate cancer and a prostate-specific antigen level below 4.0 ng/ml. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(14);1256-61.

XMRV with comments from Linda & Dr. Gordon

Linda’s comment….Folks I have been on this FIGHT program and all I can say is, IT WORKS….There are things coming out of me that would gross you out….however, they are out….with the everyday environmental toxins and pathogens we get from food and the air be believe, you need to seriously think about how to protect your health.   I once fell into the category of I needed to flush something 2 to 3 times yearly.  Well, what about the rest of the days of the years??  Doing a daily lifelong detox program, while replenishing the good things that come out of your body when you detox, is the best way to go…I found this out the hard way. 
 
Go to my my Webinar section and listen to ALL six Webinar’s on FIGHT…you won’t regret it…
Linda
Dr. Gordon’s Comments:

WE ALL HAVE SOME CHRONIC INFECTIONS; now there is another major breakthrough to prove this. My Fight program clearly is meant to help us educate our patients that achieving optimal health is a lifetime challenge. With increasing sophistication of lab sciences, we will find many more challenges in every one of my FIGHT categories but with the epidemic if people with chronic fatigue, you now have even more reason to want to learn about Oxidative therapies like OZONE/UVB/SILVER. However, a unifying approach to enhance our bodies ability to deal with the multifactorial nature of any chronic disease should increase our interest in learning more about Energy medicine. This broad topic includes Homeopathy, Accupunture, Prayer, Microelectric Current therapy, Magnetic Healing, Oxygen, Hyperthermia and much of what is now called Alternative Medicine. 

This is just one line from this great overview of this topic that finds XMRV in Autism and Prostate Cancer and Chronic Fatigue. This area of research is all new this year but we can expect that someone will soon find many more fungi issues or parasites issues. Of course tying impaired health to our toxin load is just beginning to be seriously considered. Do not fail to look for a moment at this article, as when you tell patients they need to deal with the chronic infection  component of their current symptom complex, many feel you are off the wall. 

Unless they have heard of Candida or Chlamydia, or CMV or Lyme, they are not attuned to the need to lower their total body burden of pathogens. No one needs to spend the money to chase down which of these infections they have, as no one will test negative for one or more of these infections if adequately tested. So testing for most patients is impractical except to get their attention as to why they must do something about the infection component of my FIGHT program if they are to achieve optimal health.

“XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) is strongly associated with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME.  The earlier study published in the journal Science was a joint study by the Cleveland Clinic, the National Cancer Institute, and the Whittemore-Peterson Institute of the University of Nevada with Drs. Vincent Lombardi and Judy Mikovits as lead authors. Here the lead author of the NIH/Harvard/FDA study, Dr. Harvey Alter, noted in a press conference that he considered his study a confirmation of the earlier WPI study, even though they had detected different MLV-related viruses (MRVs), rather than only XMRV.  There does seem to be a greater variety of MRVs in chronic fatigue syndrome/ME patients than first understood. The WPI’s original study also showed some evidence of additional MRVs.”

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Excerpt:
September 24, 2010
My Wife, My Daughter, and XMRV
By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

My wife has tested positive for XMRV, otherwise known as the xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus. 
My daughter with autism has also tested positive for XMRV, a new human retrovirus that was recently found to be highly associated with patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME by the Whittemore-Peterson Institute.
What has been discovered and speculated about for chronic fatigue syndrome/ME and XMRV may also hold important information for autism. 
By now many of you are probably aware that in August of 2010 the National Institute of Health, Harvard University, and the Food and Drug Administration published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirming an earlier study showing that XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) is strongly associated with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME.  
The earlier study published in the journal Science was a joint study by the Cleveland Clinic, the National Cancer Institute, and the Whittemore-Peterson Institute of the University of Nevada with Drs. Vincent Lombardi and Judy Mikovits as lead authors. HERE  The lead author of the NIH/Harvard/FDA study, Dr. Harvey Alter, noted in a press conference that he considered his study a confirmation of the earlier WPI study, even though they had detected different MLV-related viruses (MRVs), rather than only XMRV.  There does seem to be a greater variety of MRVs in chronic fatigue syndrome/ME patients than first understood.  The WPI’s original study also showed some evidence of additional MRVs.  Alter is one of the true giants in the field of virology, having been a co-discoverer of the hepatitis C virus, and winning the Lasker Award for medical research, which is often compared to the Nobel Prize in Medicine in terms of its prestige.

XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Excerpt:

June 17, 2010 — Concern that a new human gamma-retrovirus may be transmissible through blood has led one infectious diseases specialist to recommend new steps to protect the US blood supply against possible infection with the virus.

The transfusion medicine organization AABB has formed a task force to study the transmission potential of xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV), which has been linked to familial prostate cancer and, more recently, to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Endogenous retroviruses as potential hazards for vaccines

Excerpt:

Retroviruses are classified as exogenous or endogenous according to their mode of transmission. Generally, endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are not pathogenic in their original hosts; however, some ERVs induce diseases. In humans, a novel gammaretrovirus was discovered in patients with prostate cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome. This virus was closely related to xenotropic murine leukemia virus (X-MLV) and designated as xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV). The origin and transmission route of XMRV are still unknown at present; however, XMRV may be derived from ERVs of rodents because X-MLVs are ERVs of inbred and wild mice. Many live attenuated vaccines for animals are manufactured by using cell lines from animals, which are known to produce infectious ERVs; however, the risks of infection by ERVs from xenospecies through vaccination have been ignored.

Secrets of Novel Retrovirus Unfolding

Videos from the Conference:
http://www.ifarablo g.org/

http://www.medpaget oday.com/ MeetingCoverage/ CROI/18610
CROI: Secrets of Novel Retrovirus Unfolding

By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: February 21, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – The mystery surrounding a retrovirus recently implicated
in prostate cancer and possibly chronic fatigue syndrome is beginning to
yield clues. Continued

Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus is susceptible to AZT

The xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) is a human retrovirus, recently isolated from tissues of prostate cancer patients with impaired RNase L activity.

In this study, we evaluated 10 licensed anti-HIV-1 compounds for their activity against XMRV, including protease inhibitors (PI), nucleoside reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors (NRTI), non-nucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTI) and an integrase inhibitor. Continued