Part 2 - summary of lecture tape cont.

[Guest guest]

.....

11. Could you explain Epione? Is it synthetic or natural? What's

in it? A lot of us have chemical sensitivities and need to knowthis.

Dr. : No, it would take too long and people are starting to leave.

There's going to be steps and what we want in the end is a safe and

effective therapy.12. So what's in it then?

Dr. : What it is is something inhibitory to the virus in a test

tube. (at this point, some people in the audience got angry and kept

trying to get him to tell them what was in Epione. The tape wasn't

clear enough to type).

The issue is how to procede and to demonstrate that this virus is

implicated in the cause of disease. One way to do this is to

develop an inhibitory substance, give it to people with the illness

and see if they improve. To be honest, we don't know what the

nature of the inhibitor is. Once we can identify it, then the next

step is to find a way to synthesize it.(inaudible question here)

Dr. : The major point I made about that person was not that he

was in the hospital, but that it was very tragic that within a year

after

being admitted here and having known he was not doing well...I didn't

anticipate, no one anticipated, that he would have a severe

exacerbation with seizure activity, develop other problems and die.

My point was that given unlimited resources, one would like to see

some attempt to provide a therapy for that person. We have a viral

culture from him, but we haven't sequenced it yet.(another inaudible

question)

Dr. : I really hope that we will be getting into that arena. When

a person has pneumonia, we don't make a distinction between pneumonia

in the upper lobes, and pneumonia in the left lung, right lung, etc.

It may be that if the concept of a viral encephalopathy is accepted,

then it won't make any difference from a theraputic standpoint

whether the major expression of illness in that person is pain,

fatigue, cognitive dysfunction and so forth. Now, with something

like multiple sclerosis, it may be that there are additional

complications that the treatment of the underlying cause does not

affect the immunologic process that's developed. So the question is

does the initial viral encephalopathy trigger an auto-immune process.

Again, we have the beginning generic concept that there are viruses

that can infect the brain without invoking an inflammatory reaction,

that can evoke a wide variety of symptoms, that ordinarily would not

be apparent in the regular neurologic exam, and that would not be

suspected based on looking for signs of inflammation in brain

tissues. Some of those patients go on to develop CFS: whether all

people who have CFS may have other causes as well remains to belooked

at.

It would be nice to have a complete picture, but we don't have that

yet. A complete picture would be an effective therapy and an

underlying concept that stealth viruses cause CFS. The other thing

we need is an underlying hypothesis that explains all the symptomsof

CFS.

(inaudible question, something about funding):

The answer is yes, one could approach a pharmaceutical company, but

again this is dependent on culturing and sequencing the virus.

We don't have the confidence that companies like Burroughs-Welcome

would have the same perspective we have on this based on our years

of experience with this.(Tape ends here) References: cut

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