I joined Marc Pelletier and Ruedi Aebersold on 
episode 76 of Futures in Biotech for a conversation about how mass spectrometry has become one of the most important technologies in our move towards personalized medicine. We also talk about systems biology, a topic we first discussed in TWiV #121.
[powerpress url=”http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/fib0076.mp3″]
Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download FiB #76 (33 MB .mp3, 68 minutes)
Download video (292 MB .mp4)
“Not 100% at detecting contaminants” – this would also apply to replicating exogenous human retroviruses.
“We suspect” is not an absolute for these agents being an actual problem now is it. Neither is the idea that “they might help”. If you say they night help, then you must also entertain the possibility that they might not help – yes “who knows”
The comment on safety checks for vaccines is also not safe. It is only an assumption that we have all the correct testing in place, and that records are being properly kept. If this were the case Government researchers would have stopped looking at the dangers vaccines potentially pose. Furthermore, it is well know that places like the CDC ignore certain epidemic as being a disease, don’t recommend the tests that show abnormalities and get doctors to ignore the abnormal results when they are undertaken. Where is the evidence that they are “non-clinically relevant”? Thats a leap and each agent would have to be looked at separately. The possible ease of undetected contamination, and the rumour mill, could potentially make most studies could become unsafe.
It looks like it is the researchers that are fearful about this.