Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Researchers to Speak Today on Campus

Two of the researchers who recently announced that a retrovirus may be linked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome will be on campus Monday, Oct. 26 to discuss their findings. The event will have limited seating and is open to the first 50 people who reserve a space by e-mailing rwolf@pacific.edu. The discussion will start at 2:30 p.m. in the President's Room on the Stockton Campus of University of the Pacific.

Vincent Lombardi, Ph.D., the lead author of the research and Judy Mikovitz, Ph.D., Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, will discuss their paper and take questions from faculty and students.

Mikovits and Lombardi's paper appeared in the Oct. 8 issue of "Science" magazine.  The authors found traces of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV, in the vast majority of patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. XMRV has previously been linked to prostate cancer and is a distant relative to the virus that can cause AIDS.

The finding is significant because it's estimated that one million people in the United States has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Symptoms of the Syndrome include extreme fatigue, muscle and joint pain, sleep problems, difficulty concentrating and other symptoms. The symptoms can last for years and there has been no treatment discovered. More about the illness can be found online athttp://www.wpinstitute.org or lhttp://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/CFSxmrv.