Let the lawyer games begin. My blog “Square One”, of October 1, was unfortunately prophetic. The WPI is in fact using money donated by patients to pay lawyers to sue Dr. Mikovits. One more in a very long line of horrible decisions. I am truly incredulous. This entire fiasco is doing great harm to the patient community, the extent of which is unknowable at this time. The research is destroyed. The notebooks and specimens are potentially compromised.
As I finished that last paragraph, a friend sent me Annette Whittemore’s blog just posted. I really don’t know how she keeps a straight face. She’s suing her chief scientist and the principle investigator on the institute’s grants, after termination without cause, to obtain notebooks and flash drives that Dr. Mikovits apparently does not have, since she was locked out of her lab suddenly and unexpectedly. I would say that as the “the guardian of this property”, Mrs. Whittemore has failed pretty miserably. And now she is using a little of the millions of unaccounted for dollars to sue Dr. Mikovits. I thought I understood the depth of the incompetence, but it just keeps getting worse. She thinks the patient community is going to be OK with this? Business as usual? Wait for the WPI to figure out a cure, without a chief scientist, and oh, please send more money? Who is she kidding? Sorry Annette, now we have to think about a legal defense fund for Judy!
I was going to write some good news, to follow the bad news, but I think I’ll write that when I’m not feeling like I’ve been slimed.
>They used a previously validated assay and the other multiple experiments in the study again validated that assay. Do you know how this works? How do you think HIV and HTLV were confirmed? They used clinical positives. Why do you think all major health authorities require clinically validated assays. Why do you think Mikovits, Racaniello and Singh say you must clinically validate!
>If the Mikovits assay is so "validated", why did the WPI results in the SRWG study published in September incorrectly score negative controls as positive test results?
>The publications produced by a group of virologits is based on their preexisting belief that gammaretroviruses cannot infect humans and thus any detected replicating in humans must be a laboratory artifact or some sort of contamination
They have designed all their studies in an attempt to confirm this and interpreted all the data so it is in line with this belief and ignored all other possible explanations
They ask you to believe that this represents sound scientific practice and the convlusions presented are unbiased and the work of competent scientists
They ask you to believe that the VP-62 strain is the only possible strain of xenotropic murine related retroviruses found replicating in the human population.This is despite the fact that no retrovirus in history has been limited to one strain
They ask you to believe that their PCR assays that can detect the DNA of the vp-62 strain in a spiked sample ( analytical sensitivity) would be able to detect the vp-62 strain in an infected person(Clinical sensitivity).This is despite numerous papers demonstrating that PCR assays with excellent analytical sensitivity have zero clinical sensitivity
They ask you to believe that this is good scientific practice and the work of unbiased scientists
They set their PCR conditions so that the assay could only detect the vp-62 stain in people with ME and no other even one very closely related.They ask you to believe that this is the work of unbiased competent scientists
They know that after the initial stages of infection the vp-62 strain becomes impossible to detect in blood using PCR.Yet they continue to report that they were unable to detect the vp-62 strain of xmrv in the blood of people with chronic fatigue.They ask you to believe that this is the work of unbiased competent scientists
They know that the vp-62 strain of XMRV is readily detected in tissues when it is not detectable in blood.Yet they continue to conduct studies looking for the vp-62 strain in blood.They ask you to believe that these are the actions of competent unbiased scientists
They know that the host antibody response to the vp-62 strain of xmrv fades and disappears after the acute infectious phase.Yet they continue to present papers highlighting the absence of an antibody response to the vp-62 strain in people with ME as evidence of absence of the vp-62 strain in the blood of people studied.They ask you to believe that this is the behaviour of unbiased competent scientists
They know that the vp-62 strain rapidly establishes latency and is highly unlikely to produce proteins.Yet they continue to produce papers highlighting the absence of vp-62 proteins as evidence that the people studies are not infected with the vp-62 strain.They ask you to believe that this is the work of unbiased competent scientists
They ask you to accept such practices without complaint because they are carried out by reputable scientists
This post is aimed at the honest posters and readers of this forum
GJO I am totally in agreement.
>Mikovits did not do the testing for the blood working group. Lombardi did at VIP Dx using their assays, and as Whittemore stated those are not the same assays as were used in the clinical lab. There is also the issue that no patient could have been declared negative as PBMCs were not pre screened and not all labs received the controls to screen. 22Rv1 that is likely contaminated with VP62 was also in the CDC lab with some of the collection tubes. A dogs diner of a study!
>If Mikovits didn't do the study and didn't agree with the way it was done, then why is her name on the paper? Same with Ruscetti. Keep working on all those excuses, they keep getting more and more ridiculous.
>They should all retract their names from the paper but it appears that politically they are not able to do so and the we are left with a paper that again has no relevance and proves they cannot protect the blood supply. If they removed their names you would cry sour grapes. Instead science should be conducted properly and the study redone. Ruscetti would not have known about the PBMCs until now as he only did serology and culture, and Mikovits would only now know about the results because Lombardi did the study. After all Mikovits is not in charge of WPI. But again instead of looking at what occurred in the study you would find a way to complain. The entire BWG should retract, but it suits those with vested interests to have you pretend nothing is wrong with that paper.
>Ah,so Mikovits' name is on the study, but Lombardi actually did the tests and he screwed up? And I still don't understand the excuse about Ruscetti, other than a claim that the negative controls really weren't negative? These excuses get weirder and weirder.
>What do you mean screwed up? Annette Whittemore on Facebook stated that the assays at ViPDx are not those used in the clinical lab.
The controls in the blood working group could not have been declared negative. PBMCs were not pre screened and not all labs were sent the controls to pre screen. These are facts in black and white in the paper. You might try reading the paper first or learning a few things about the scientific method and virology instead of having an opinion built on what you prefer the results to be.
>Pretty poor quality work then to let the clinical arm of the same small organisation you work for do the testing on a major, and critically important study rather than do it yourself (or make completely sure that they're doing things as you want them to).
Particularly when your reputation is already on the line, and there is a large pile of papers that can't find what you said was there. Sorry that excuse doesn't ring true at all.
>Mikovits wasn't in charge at the WPI, Annette Whittemore is. You really think Mikovits is going to say use clinically unvalidated assays? Have you not seen what has happened?
>Why did she attach her name to it then? Why did she participate at all?
Not ringing true.
>How could any of them take their name off it? You are displaying the same political interferance that is the problem. If they take their names off you whine, if tgey stay on you whine. The HHS and Science should pull it. The fact is the paper shows they cannot protect the blood supply. Assays must be shown to be clinically validated to scientifically challenge the findings in Lonbardi and Lo et al. Optimising to VP62 means an assay is not optimised to HGRVs. Fact! VP62 is not the viruses discovered in Lombardi et al. Fact!
>Why put your name on it in the first place if you don't think it's been done right (and given no-one else can find it- I'd think she'd be very concerned about the method).
And the paper shows no such thing. I don't think you read right. Not finding something (even if you didn't look for it the right way) doesn't mean it's there – sheesh.
>It's absolte bullcrap that Mikovits's WPI lab did not test the BWG samples:
1. Mikovits only stated that VipDx tested (some) samples as backup. All of the samples were tested by Mikovits, and some of them were retested by Lombardi as some kind of split-control.
From an earlier entry in this blog (and I remind you that the writer is a personal friend of Judy):
"In terms of the BWG: I was told that the BWG specimens were being run in both the WPI research lab and the VIP Dx clinical lab. Though the labs were kept separate, and cooperation between the two labs was already very troubled, Dr. Mikovits believed that VIP Dx would succeed, and everything would be doubly validated."
2. Mikovits has admitted herself "that we don’t have a reproducible assay to detect XMRVs in the
blood". Ruscetti stated that the BWG results show "at the very minimum, is that we can’t find it reliably in the blood of patients we found it in before".
Please note the "we" and note that Lombardi's nickname is "Vinnie" and not "We".
3. VipDx doesn't even offer the RT-PCR testing that was done in the Lombardi et al. study and for the Blood Working Group.
4. Mikovits was present at Blood Working Group meetings before Phase III and defended her earlier (also lacklaster) results, never mentioning that WPI wasn't really doing the testing (which, I might add, was the whole idea of getting WPI and Lo involved).
5. On top of this, it makes no sense at all. This was a very important study for Mikovits and for patients, and even for online comments (because she could have surely shut me up!). On top of that, there were really not a lot of samples to be tested compared, so why decide to put your trust in the hands of the not very experienced Lombardi?
It's amazing what people choose to believe, in order fo them to uphold the initial results.
>How can anyone take their news off? You would poltically accuse her of being bitter again without even understanding how awful the paper was conducted. What are you claiming the paper doesn't show? The organisers have already admitted to several of the issue I raised.
>Busch wont be happy about the paper either but he cannot take his name off it either. It's politics not science.
>I don't know why Cort Johnson thinks that not being able to access Judy's notebooks will delay research into HGRVs. The people using unvalidated assays have not read Judy's data which is in the public domain because they have used assays which have changed all the variables in the work she has published. That is why HGRV research is such a mess. Johnson is in his own universe again, I see.
>I agree with the post above!
>As a person who is very ill with CFS, I had complete faith in WPI and supported them tremendously through donations and using my last bit of energy to advocate for them.
To say I am appalled is an understatement. As far as I am concerned, WPI no longer exists.
My god they have a child with this illness! And they are taking their supporters (mostly those of us with this illness) donations to persecute a former researcher instead of continuing their mission?
Slimed is a great adjective for the way I am feeling. Dan Peterson is now also gone so they might as well close their doors.
>Cort Johnson has been living in his own universe for quite some time now. I think his illness started affecting his brain a long time ago.
He is pretty pathetic.
>Who cares what Cort Johnson thinks. He is merely the CAA's puppet.
>Jamie, did Judy lie to you too or did you know all along that she had asked Max to take the notebooks and that she had them all along?
>Cort Johnson seems to have been saved from the darkside. Shame the rest of the weirdos won't be.
Starting to think Gerwyn is actually quite disturbed. I think this must all be very distressing for him. Kind of feeling sorry for him now his life's work has been trashed.