In Search of the Insanity Virus

(Page 2 of 2)

by Keith Goetzman, Utne Reader
March-April 2011

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Separately, another researcher, Hervé Perron, made a breakthrough discovery, learning that everyone carries the virus that causes multiple sclerosis. It’s embedded in our DNA, the legacy of a rare retrovirus inherent in the human genome. And in people with MS, this “viral stowaway” has been switched on to cause MS symptoms. Torrey, Yolken, and others now think schizophrenia works in much the same way, caused by a retrovirus called HERV-W.

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“The first, pivotal infection by toxoplasmosis or influenza might happen shortly before or after birth,” writes Fox in Discover. “That would explain the birth-month effect: Flu infections happen more often in winter. The initial infection could then set off a lifelong pattern in which later infections reawaken HERV-W, causing more inflammation and eventually symptoms.”

It’s a bold theory that upends much previous scientific research into schizophrenia, but Perron has started a Swiss biotech company, GeNeuro, to develop treatments that target HERV-W, and he hopes to begin clinical trials this year.

Some skepticism remains, Discover reports, but if the trials work, “the questions may be silenced—and so may the voices of schizophrenia.”

Cover-MA11-thumbnailThis article first appeared in the March-April 2011 issue of Utne Reader.

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Archived Comments

  • Occum 3/22/2011 5:02:18 PM

    Roses are red, Violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic and so am I. Wait isn't that bi-polar. Shut up. No you shut up.

  • Bob Bennett 3/18/2011 3:50:58 PM

    The first I heard of Dr. Torrey, about 15 years ago, was that he was a brillant man who tended to ignore the research; including his own. He made his name with research that proved stress is a factor in the onset of mental illness, particully with schizophrenia. However, due to his group, the Treatment Advocacy Center, which in my opinion and the opinon of many others, is nothing more than a thinly disguised hate group, I am suspect of anything that now comes from him. He has written about several of his relatives who have mental health problems. Many studies have shown that various forms of mental illness are hereditery. Perhaps the 'good doctor' Torrey should have someone check him out.

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