BioRay: Whittemore Peterson Institutes BFF is a woo-factory

Posted by ERV on March 2, 2011
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VIPDx took this down from their website, but this is the internet. The internet remembers everything.

VIP Dx Laboratory is highly regarded in the field of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and neuro immune disease testing. VIP Dx also tests for intestinal gut dysbiosis by means of the Immunobilan test, the same test used in BioRay’s CytoFlora study. The CytoFlora study showed remarkable results with autistic children. Specifically:

Improvement in speech and social interaction
Reduction in abdominal pain and gastro-intestinal symptoms
Until now, antibiotics have been the only recognized treatment for elevated pathogenic bacteria and gastrointestinal inflammation. “We test many Chronic Fatigue patients in our laboratory with elevated IgA and IgM to bacterial antigens and most are put on antibiotics for six to eight months followed by a course of probiotics,” noted Craig Setter of VIP Dx Laboratory. “The CytoFlora results represent the first time I have seen such a significant decrease in IgA and IgM in only a few weeks.”

BioRay will be presenting the results and methodology of the CytoFlora study at Autism One.

Eleven children from BioRay’s Cytoflora study were also tested for XMRV at VIP Dx Labs. Six tested positive for the gammaretrovirus XMRV. Two of these children are siblings whose mother also tested positive for XMRV. Dr. Judy Mikovits, Director of Research at Whittemore Peterson Institute, will be speaking about XMRV at Autism One. We believe this unique and informative presentation will be of interest to doctors and parents in the world of Autism.

VIP Dx licensed the technology for testing XMRV from Whittemore Peterson Institute. Come and speak with Marguerite Ross, Director of Marketing & Client Relations at VIP Dx, and Dr. Vincent Lombardi, PhD, Researcher & Consultant to VIP Dx. The VIP Dx booth is located next to the BioRay booth outside the main auditorium. This is a special opportunity to hear more about testing and on-going research occurring in the world of neuro-immune diseases.

The WPIs BFFs in connecting XMRV to autism, BioRay? Yeah, journalist/ninja Trine Tsouderos decided to give them a little investagoroonie:

“Lost your essence after excessive lovemaking?” BioRay said it has a supplement for you.

Autism? Allergies? Liver problems? BioRay said it can help.

In fact, the supplement company established by Timothy and Stephanie Ray said it has products for just about anything that ails you or your family — from speech delays to weight issues.

It might sound like the world’s best apothecary, but neither Timothy nor Stephanie Ray is a licensed medical doctor or pharmacist. There’s no strong scientific evidence that their products work or that they are safe. In BioRay’s online forum, customers have linked its products to fever, rashes, boils, heart palpitations and more.

LOL. Dont worry– theyve taken their forums down, so you cant read those complaints from users yourself. LOOOOL!

What about that Cytoflora stuff?

Take, for example, BioRay’s statement on its website that CytoFlora can “push pathogens from the gastrointestinal tract,” and “correct microbial imbalances.” CytoFlora, which contains dead bacteria associated with probiotics, sells for $87 for 4 ounces.

“There’s no evidence that dead or parts of dead bacteria have anything to do with proliferation of good bacteria,” said Dr. Allan Walker, a probiotic expert and director of the Mucosal Immunology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. There’s no proof they can push pathogens out or correct microbial imbalances either, he said.

After questioning by the Tribune, BioRay removed these claims from its website.

heeeeehehehe.

Great group of folks they got there at BioRay. Totally not a snake-oil money machine. **WINK!!!**

And yeah, I totally have faith in the critical thinking skills and laboratory abilities of the WPI and their scientists after getting on board with people like this. Totally gonna give them the benefit of the doubt on XMRV and CFS. **WINK!!!**

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Comments

  1. #1 Phytophactor
    March 2, 2011

    Chicago Tribune had an article that dumped on BioRay this AM; very skeptical, very unusual.

  2. #2 ERV
    March 2, 2011

    Phytophactor– Nope, not unusual. Theyve got Trine. Look her up here on SciBlogs. Chick is a NINJA when it comes to getting wooers. NINJA.

  3. #3 the truth has arrived
    March 2, 2011

    Can it be seriously proposed that a random recombination event resulted in the creation of a novel, complete, genetically potent and infectious new retrovirus? Nature proceeds by a process of evolution and not creation. A cohort of Rhesus Macaques monkeys has been exposed to and successfully infected with XMRV. The XMRV viremia was then re-activated after 9 months, confirming the chronicity of the infection. Furthermore (and critically) anti-viral antibody titres were detected soon after infection. This response was further boosted upon reexposure. Contrary to your hypothesis about chronic inflammatory illnesses (such as CFS & arthritis), this antibody response occurs despite there being no acute or chronic inflammation in any of the Rhesus monkey tissues. Nature is complex and the idea that recombination can lead to a potent retrovirus is highly questionable.

  4. #4 W. Kevin Vicklund
    March 3, 2011

    Apparently the truth has arrived has never heard of swine flu…

  5. #5 John
    March 3, 2011

    #3-

    1. Yes it can be seriously proposed and in fact is a quite common occurance in many fields of virology, both retro- and otherwise. This is what Dr. Mikovits’ mentor, Sandra Ruscetti, has spent the majority of her working life investigating- murine retroviruses and their propensity for genetic recombination and in fact Dr. Mikovits herself has brought up this topic many times.

    For a more common example, this is basically the same thing as what happens with the influenza virus when different strains recombine to form new viral strains every single day. This is why if a person gets the flu once they do not have lifelong immunity- because different viruses recombine to form a new infectious virus which will reinfect the host.

    This is also why people are so scared of the ‘bird flu’. Since the H1N5 virus is so pathogenic in birds and people but does not spread in people easily there is concern that it might recombine (see what nature did there?) with/into a more easily transmissible form which retains it’s heightened pathogenicity and be all ‘I’m bird flu! Suck my dick, I’m bird flu!’ on peoples’ asses. The recombination proposed by the 91LB paper* was not a ‘random recombination event’ of random genetic material into a functioning virus, it was the recombination of two preexisting viruses into a new virus. Read the above again if this still doesn’t make sense.

    2. The rhesus macaque study really doesn’t make much difference since no one is saying that XMRV might not be able to infect various organisms. What people are saying (and scientists are basically showing) is that the proposed association between XMRV and prostate cancer and CFS is most likely due to laboratory contamination, as implied by evidence presented at CROI and elsewhere, since how does XMRV cause two different diseases which have existed for a long long time despite it only being ‘recombined’, aka created, sometime between 1993-1996?

    Also (and critically), the antibodies you mention which did occur in rhesus macaque monkeys did not occur in well over a thousand humans tested at random. This is what the Abbot antibody study showed. I think there were like 3? questionables out of over a thousand samples, with these three being discarded since it was deemed they were probably non-specific reactions. Nature is indeed complex and the idea that recombination (of two previously existing and genetically similar viruses) can lead to a (not very potent, ahem) retrovirus (and a multiplicity of other viruses, in fact this blog is written by someone who studies these recombined viruses as her career choice) is borne out day after day after day both in nature as well as in scientific labs across the world.

    *http://www.retroconference.org/2011/Abstracts/42508.htm

  6. #6 autiemum
    March 3, 2011

    I’ve read the retroconference report which you link to John. That surely is the end of XMRV as a world health threat.