XMRV was first discovered in prostate cancer patients in 2006, and a recent study found XMRV genes in 6% of prostate cancers compared to just 2% of healthy prostates. The virus’s proteins were more starkly linked to cancerous prostates and overall, these tissues were 5 times more likely to carry the virus than their healthy counterparts. Now Vincent Lombardi and Francis Ruscetti have discovered that the XMRV is also over 50 times more common in CFS patients than in the general healthy population.

The idea of a virus as the culprit behind chronic fatigue syndrome isn’t far-fetched. People who have the condition have abnormal immune systems that seem to be permanently activated, but that lack the normal complement of defensive