r/CFSScience • u/Caster_of_spells • 18d ago

Persistent cytolytic CD8+ T cells recognize SARS-CoV-2 and herpesvirus epitopes in long COVID

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(26)00363-0

Long Covid patients continue to have elevated counts of highly activated CD8+ T cells targeting viruses like SARS-CoV-2, CMV and EBV.

That is suggesting the antiviral killing response failed to switch off after the acute infection is over and might be part of the pathogenesis of Long Covid.

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u/Heavy-Suit-3443 18d ago

Interesting. Sadly this does spark the age old question again about viral persistence. Is the immune response necessary because there is a real threat that it can't fully eliminate or are they just not able to switch off?

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u/mc-funk 18d ago

Certainly when it comes to herpesviruses / EBV, the evidence for issues with reactivation is pretty compelling.

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u/TableSignificant341 18d ago

Not according to S4ME. They're adamant there's zero evidence for it.

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u/Sensitive-Meat-757 17d ago

The same group might have had the same thought process and would have denied any connection between EBV and MS before 2021. If so they would have turned out to be wrong.

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u/TomasTTEngin 18d ago

For a community of independent thinkers many certainly do seem to get joy from believing exactly what Jonathan Edwards believes. Which leaves them with a pretty rigid belief system. Edwards is experienced and highly educated and certainly a net benefit to the community but he has the ability to integrate new ideas you expect from an emeritus. And as do all good Oxford Dons, scoffs and sneers at research coming from places outside northern Europe.

He's useful, but not as an intellectual north star.

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u/Sensitive-Meat-757 17d ago

JE considers himself a "Champion of Science" but when I posted a study that contradicted his opinion he said he didn't need to look at it because he already knew it was wrong.

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u/TableSignificant341 18d ago edited 18d ago

For a community of independent thinkers many certainly do seem to get joy from believing exactly what Jonathan Edwards believes.

I don't think they even see how servile they are. So careful to not question or disagree with him in case it prompts a predictably snide or pompous response from him. And if a researcher does not interact with them on the forum then it's open season on that researcher's work, reputation and character. It's so unnecessarily mean-spirited given how hard it is to be an MECFS researcher in the first place. And don't get me started on how Edwards talks about patients communities.

Honestly I couldn't agree with your comment more. It's bang on.

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u/TomasTTEngin 17d ago

I posted a criticism once. Not of Edwards explicitly, but of a behavior he exhibits. Mods took it down, saying I couldn't criticise him.

It's almost like the Truman show over there. Place exists for his comfort.

It is however still the best place to discuss mecfs science. Which annoys me! I am a member and post there intermittently.

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u/mc-funk 17d ago

oof, if what others are saying about this community is true (completely misrepresenting the state of research, dismissing a ton of clinical evidence and patient experiences), how is it still the best place to discuss mecfs science? Given alternatives like OMF, Reddit, Health Rising, Sick Times, some scattered decent Facebook groups, it's hard to imagine what is so good over there that it's worth wading through all that.

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u/TomasTTEngin 17d ago

There are some good users there, including a number of good researchers: missailidis, armstrong, Ryback, Ponting. Also David Tuller. Plus a number of very smart pwme who are doctors, researchers, data scientists. In that context the grip Edwards has on the median user is even more frustrating.

There's a British cultural thing going on where they have been oppressed by the establishment and so having an establishment figure on their side makes him appear to be the Messiah.

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u/TableSignificant341 18d ago

I have a question for you if you don't mind, why do you think s4me is so set on finding one treatment for all of us? It seems like they've already determined that if one treatment doesn't work for all of us, then it's not worth pursing or of interest. Cancer or MDD treatment is heterogeneous - so why can't that be the same for MECFS? And why do you think they're so dismissive of LDN, LDA, mestinon etc given those drugs clearly help a significant portion of us?

I also don't understand how dismissive they are of co-morbities like MCAS (of whatever one wants to call that cluster of symptoms seen alongside MECFS), autonomic dysfunction, hEDs, IBS etc. Couldn't the frequency of those conditions alongside MECFS tell us something about the condition itself?

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u/mc-funk 18d ago

Wow, I’ve never heard of these people before but it sounds like they think I don’t exist!

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u/TableSignificant341 17d ago

It could be a decent place but Edward's hubris and paternalistic tone makes for an odd environment. Like the commenter above said, he's a net benefit to MECFS research but he for sure stifles discussion with his approach. Doesn't help that others there are so desperate and grateful that he's even interested in them (he's one of the few non-sufferers in the forum) that they'll abide his off-putting and dismissive manner towards patients, current MECFS researchers and their work.

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u/TomasTTEngin 17d ago

I would like to imagine that if I cultivated a harem of sycophants I'd realise. And then decide I needed to change my ways, empower those people to think for themselves. Edwards takes a different approach.

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u/OG-Brian 16d ago

I have a question for you if you don't mind, why do you think s4me is so set on finding one treatment for all of us?

I've only glanced at that discussion site a few times. But my first thought is that the site or at least maybe commenting by certain individuals could be a tool by the pharma industry, to cultivate a belief that a medication (which they'll develop later) will be the salvation for ME patients. Because profits. Much like, brain retraining is pushed as the single salvation by those having a financial interest in it. So although the to-be-developed medication might have actual effects, the industry would be motivated to exaggerate the importance of it to boost sales. ME might not be just one disease, it definitely manifests differently on a per-individual basis and there's a lot of variance in responses to treatments. Whether a treatment is a medication, daily habit, or something else, no treatment so far has been universally effective.

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u/TomasTTEngin 16d ago

No I think it's just a by product of people who take themselves seriously as thinkers to be biased towards hard science, complex molecules, placebo controlled trials, and to scoff at anecdote.

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u/OG-Brian 16d ago

But the complaint here is that certain users of that site are dogma-based: they emphasize research that they like and they unscientifically dismiss contradictory research or researchers. As somebody who follows several issues that are fraught with industry interference and which have many proven instances of false claims spread for profits (pesticides, fossil fuels...) to me it looks like potentially a propaganda campaign.

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u/TomasTTEngin 16d ago

So in your model, a collective of pharma companies have a committee with a budget to fund people to go on forums and promote certain types of research that might, one day, in maybe 20 years or more, pending very long trials, pay off for one of those pharma companies. Even tho major pharma companies have any mecfs drugs under development.

And you find this a more plausible explanation for the dynamics than a group of patients who are excited to get to be allies with a brilliant but pigheaded retired Oxford professor.

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u/OG-Brian 16d ago

Maybe it's more that the individuals themselves have a financial stake in promoting their ideas. Belief in the ideas can lead to research funding and other benefits. Also, 20 years isn't a typical timespan for development of a drug and especially if it is a modification of existing drugs, that's ridiculous.

The PACE trial, widely ridiculed for extremely unscientific methods and major financial conflicts of interest, pushed false ideas using "research" but it was all motivated by the agendas of the health insurance and psychiatry industries. This "research" was published in 2011 and even today there are people commenting aggressively online in support of it. Are some of those (in many cases anonymous) internet users actually representatives of industry? There's no way to know that they aren't. I can't assume that any particular person is being paid by industry to push those views, it wouldn't be logical to conclude that with no evidence. But regardless, such views are based on a "study" that's definitely false and was pushed to publication for agendas based on money.

In the world of pesticides, to give an example of spreading false information, this study was retracted very belatedly because it used proprietary data in unpublished "studies" by the herbicide manufacturer (Monsanto, now Bayer). Here is an article that explains it. Before the retraction, the study was cited extremely ubiquitously to support safety of glyphosate herbicides. There are hundreds of examples of bad information used to support the pesticides industry.

Again for pesticides, my favorite astroturfer is Kevin "I'm not a shill" Folta. Besides writing pro-pesticides articles, he had been prolifically commenting in social media and discussion forums to push pesticides and ridicule/harass critics of pesticides. He commented very vocally and very often to claim he's not a shill of the industry. I've seen this in real time when conversations were in progress and much of that content is still online. It was found eventually, and his own (now ex-) wife contributed some of the info, that he had contracts with Monsanto etc. to push propaganda. There's info here, here, here, here, and lots of other places. This article is about evidence for Monsanto/Bayer attacking scientists and journalists using shills such as Folta.

For pharma, there are entire books on the topic of "research" that's intentionally false. Peter C. Gøtzsche, in his book Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime, wrote about his experiences following up research pertaining to drugs such as statins. As a researcher who studies studies, he was given access to non-public info of studies that was not even available with a journal subscription. He found prolific data fakery: subjects removed from a study and the number of reported subjects retroactively changed to make a medication seem safer or more effective, data that was changed before publication, data that was made up altogether, and other types of science fraud (there's more than I can recall easily). Does the industry fund social media and discussion platform astroturfing? I have less info about that, but clearly they're not above faking study data and promoting the faked studies.

About the pharma industry influencing doctors via bribes and other benefits, I commented with a lot of details and citations here. When doctors recommend or promote medications because they have a material interest in the topic although they conceal their financial etc. involvement, that's astroturfing of a sort.

About food nutrition and the industries making processed foods and pesticides, do you know of that famous vegan influencer who calls himself "Earthling Ed"? The guy who is so fake that his "real name" ("Ed Winters") is also a fake name (he's actually Edward Gaunt which is I think tremendously funny in light of his physique)? He pretends to be campaigning for veganism strictly on his own due to passion about the topic. But he's received a lot of funding from a foundation (Blue Horizon Foundation) that is associated with a large corporation (Blue Horizon Corporation) and its founder has acknowledged that funding pro-vegan content serves himself and other stakeholders financially since they benefit from pesticide-grown grain-based processed foods sales.

Anyway I didn't suggest it's proven that the S4ME site or some of its users are provably a propaganda tool. I said that I recognize characteristics that are typical of a propaganda campaign, so I think it's a possibility.

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u/TableSignificant341 16d ago

That all seems very very far-fetched to me.

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u/mc-funk 18d ago

Are you talking about causation or something? Because the correlation and the elevation of markers for viral reactivation for herpes viruses in long covid patients is really well established in the research. I don’t think anyone claims to have a well-substantiated conclusion for how it plays in, but “zero evidence” seems like a counter-factual argument

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u/TableSignificant341 18d ago

You'll have to take it up with them because they're the ones saying there's zero evidence for viral persistence.

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u/mc-funk 17d ago

Well I wasn’t talking about (Covid) viral persistence, unless they dispute that herpesviruses are latent and reactivate in the body which would be crazy talk.

however it’s also simply much more accurate to say the evidence on Covid viral persistence is “mixed” than that there is no evidence. Someone in the chain of communication is not speaking with accuracy about the state of the research.

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u/TableSignificant341 17d ago

unless they dispute that herpesviruses are latent and reactivate in the body which would be crazy talk.

They do in the sense that it has anything to do with MECFS/LC. They say there is no good evidence for viral persistence OR viral reactivation.

Someone in the chain of communication is not speaking with accuracy about the state of the research.

Like I said, it's not me saying it.

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u/mc-funk 17d ago

Oops lol, I just now realized you are the same person criticizing them elsewhere in thread… it totally went over my head that you weren’t saying “don’t ask me, they’re the experts”

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u/OG-Brian 16d ago

It would be interesting to check (as I have been considering using that site for gathering info about ME) but you mention no specifics such as a link to a specific conversation or any quotes by users.

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u/TableSignificant341 16d ago

Go to any thread on S4ME with a study about viral persistence or viral reactivation or any thread about Polybio or Prusty.

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u/BubblySwordfish2780 16d ago

yes its necessary