Late last year, Science published a bombshell - Lombardi et al's Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. This paper reported the presence of a recently-discovered virus in 67% of the blood samples from 101 people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
The question of whether people with CFS are suffering from an organic illness, or whether their condition is partially or entirely psychological in nature, is the Israel vs. Palestine of modern medicine - as a brief look at the Wikipedia talk pages will show. So when Lombardi et al linked CFS to xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (XMRV), they were hailed as heroes by some, less so by others. For some balanced coverage of this paper, see virology blog. Everyone agreed though that Lombardi et al was, as the saying goes, "important if true"...
But it wasn't, at least not everywhere, ...
