My friend Judy is in jail. It defies explanation. Nine policeman appeared at the home of Lilly Meehan yesterday with a warrant and searched her house, finding nothing of course. At the same time, Judy’s house was searched and she was arrested for being a “fugitive”. She was fired unexpectedly and went home to her husband. That’s being a fugitive? Only legal machinations, misuse of the system, could define her as a fugitive. If it wasn’t so horrible, it would be laughable. What she was “fleeing” was a veritable looney bin, having made every attempt to remain on the inside. And now they have taken her freedom. Turning her into not just a fraud, but a criminal, a thief? Come on. She is incarcerated and anything can happen. It is critical that the patient community find ways to let the authorities know that we are watching. If anyone harms a hair on her head, it will be noticed.
Dr. Mikovits was due in New York for the Mt. Sinai conference tomorrow, so would have had to leave the state in any event. And they knew very well she had been invited to that conference; it was no secret and they could have warned her that they thought that a violation of the injunction. What were they going to do if she had just gone to New York? Would she have been hauled off to jail for attending an important ME conference at which she was slated to be on a panel?
My blog is being monitored by the same law firm that sued Dr. Mikovits in the last few days. From Chicago and Kansas City. There are even 3 hits from the tech department in Kansas City. It would appear that they are actually paying really expensive lawyers to think about my blog! Are they going to spend money on a libel suit? To win a libel suit, you have to prove an untruth. I have told the truth and nothing but the truth. Everything I’ve said is my opinion and my own experience. I have nothing to hide and stand behind everything I’ve said. The only blog I regret is the one Harvey fed me about VIP Dx. I believed what he told me implicitly at the time, but now? Anything they told me is suspect. Who are these people? The sweet well-intentioned parents of a sick young woman? They must have used a very long, very strong arm to have made that happen yesterday. An intensive police effort in another state for a non-violent crime? How many cops involved? 20? You’d think she was a serial killer.
For the record, and lawyers at SNR Denton please take note, when I said that the WPI was spending money that patients donated on lawyers, I was stating my opinion, based on my assumption that the WPI’s income comes from grants and donations, and that they aren’t using grant money to pay lawyers. However, I was never privy to the books or finances at the WPI. I did not mean that there are line items in the books showing patient donations going to lawyers. The lack of accountability is part of the problem. What did happen to all that money, since there was lots of it, and apparently still enough left to burn up a bunch on lawyers? I wanted to write a blog before the annual fundraiser, but Judy stopped me. And now they have all that money, to pay lawyers to destroy Judy and go over my blog with a fine tooth comb. Very ugly.
Personally, I think it was Professor Plum in the library with the candlestick. The materials in question document a failed experiment. I have no idea where the notebooks are, but the value being put on them is smoke and mirrors, in my estimate. Their only real value would seem to be to someone with something to hide, which could be a number of people, Judy being the least likely. Any value the notebooks might have had is destroyed with this crazy maneuver. They are in the process of completing the destruction of the only scientist in the world who cares enough to have laid it all on the line. The scientist that helped their daughter by finally conceptualizing what was wrong with her, even if she didn’t have the resources, human and financial, to prove it. The damage to patients, to my daughter, is inestimable. The Whittemore’s are throwing us back into darkness. Complete meltdown for the patients. They held themselves out as our best hope, but have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Beyond tragic. They have now ensured their own place in the community as a pariah, it seems to me. The saddest thing of all is that they are fighting about the past, and ensuring that nothing at all will happen going forward, while our hearts get dissected in the courts.
I had to cancel my trip to NYC. I have been pushing to see patients for a couple of weeks and was too close to the edge to throw myself off a cliff and hope to fly. And now this. I will be in LA on Tuesday for Judy’s arraignment. I hope that as many of you as possible will attend. Let the authorities know that we are watching. Let her know that we are with her.
A hearing for Dr. Mikovits will take place on Tuesday, November 22 at the Ventura County Government Center, Hall of Justice, Room 13, at 1:30 p.m. The government center is on Victoria Avenue in East Ventura.
County of Ventura Government Center
800 S. Victoria Avenue
Ventura, California 93009See Click here: Maps Map of the Ventura County Government Center
Parking for the Hall of Justice is accessible from Lots B & C, entering from Victoria Avenue, and from lots E & F, entering from Hill Road. Even with handicapped parking, there is considerable distance to walk from the parking lot to the Hall of Justice, so bring a wheelchair if needed.
Ventura is a coastal Southern California town between Santa Barbara and Malibu. Travel to Ventura County by car is accessible by freeway. The Ventura County Government Center is bordered by the 126 Freeway and Victoria Avenue and is close to the 101 freeway as well.
Amtrac has stops at both Oxnard and Ventura. The Metrolink train station in Montalvo is much closer to the government center than the Amtrac stations, so if possible to use Metrolink, that is the best.
>And now judy's husband asks for no inflammatory blogs, messages to go out, I wonder why? Yet Judy was quite happy while they were all directed at Wpi & let that hate carry on all this time. She could have spoke out publically to stop that yet all the sheep moaned that there was no response from Wpi, er hello where was judy's Facebook page then? Oh yeah, she was too busy on a boat.
>Wasn't this very same Max missing for 2 days?? Wonder what happend….
>Well, to be fair there may not have been free wi-fi at the Ventura County B&B these past few days.
>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?
>Personally, I think everyone should be thankful to Dr. Mikovits. I have experienced her compassion first hand many times. If she did do what they are claiming, I really believe she must have had noble reasons. She has brought more hope to our cause than anyone and if we do survive, it will be, in large part, due to her tenacious personality.
>To Me, myself & me – 4.47 – hell yeah Judy was so "sincere" – I hope your apology will be just that.
>@Anon 6:29PM
You must also be a big fan of Newt Gingrich. He says he only cheated on his wives because he loves America so much.
>Anon 6.29 Here we go, jumping to defend her actions instead of admitting you judged & got it wrong. Were you one of those who met her once or twice & you were blinded by her saint like glow? Give it up
>@ 6:29 — what has Mikovits done for us lately?
Noble reasons? Oh puleez. Let's not forget that the original paper wasn't named Mikovits et al., it was Lombardi et al. Let's not forget who actually did all the grunt work with the PCR's, that would be Max Pfost. Why does Judy receive all the kudo's by all you people who think she is some sort of saint.
I think those people who so thoroughly insulted Andrea Whittemore, a patient, should apologize to her. The nastiness was extreme. You scapegoated her because of anger at her parents but now it turns out, the slime is dripping elsewhere. Not one person has come forward to apologize for the libel in some cases. I hope Judy Mikovits will make a statement or is she in a boat somewhere fleeing her actions.
>For every person who shouted Judy was innocent from the rooftops and took your fear and anger out at andrea you should all publically apologise but I guess you won't be quite as loud at doing that.
>To the person who asked if Jamie knew about judy's actions. See Jamie's post where she says she wanted to blog before the Wpi annual fundraiser "but Judy stopped me", Judy was orchestrating this blog & pulling not only Jamie's strings but Max's too. Not to mention the patients. The sad thing is you all all let Judy/Jamie wind you all up into a crazed frenzy.
>People will never apologize because they will have to admit that their perception of reality was wrong. People's ego's are so big, they can never admit that they were ever wrong. It is a personality disorder. Just the same as some people sill believe Elvis is alive today.
Elvis
>The raw data from Lombardi et al was not in a PowerPoint presentation that was then out of Mikovits hands and the western blots were not performed by Mikovits. What part of that do you not understand.
>Yeah, and the missing notebooks were out of her hands too. What part of that one do you not understand either?
>Coffin and Science knew about the use of AZA and requested the label change for publication.
RRM you have still not provided a source for the gel you posted on the Internet.
>Have you even read what Max said ? No you have not.
>Gerwyn, what part of the latest evidence don't you understand ? Reality calling…..
>What part judicial process do you fail to understand?
>I assume Gerwyn believes Max's affidavit is unvalidated and the legal methodology must be followed. Whatever that means.
>And here, I thought Gerwyn was sent away like a good little boy to play in his own little sandbox, sigh….
>We are not dead if Lipkin doesn't find the sequencing. We're just continuing to be chronically ill.
However, there are other researchers. Now Dr. Derek Enlander has opened a research/treatment center at Mount Sinai, with a virologist, immunologist and geneticist. And they seem pretty serious about doing the research, according to people who were at the session on Sunday.
I'm hoping for the video of the gathering as soon as possible. There have been good reviews.
As far as Dr. Mikovits, I'll abide by what her lawyer says, and what she and her spouse want done.
I think a scientist is entitled to her own research, a product of her own mind, creativity, and work.
I have a wait-and-see attitude on this.
Meanwhile, hope springs eternal so I await more news on Dr. Enlander's center and information from that as soon as it is ready.
This center is privately funded, and the money is obviously quite a bit, enough to afford staff, offices, equipment, etc.
>Oh Lilly Meehan you are still posting for Judy? I have just read the first response from judy's lawyer to Annette's that you plastered all over Facebook and allowed others to share, defies belief……
>Lipkin isn't doing sequencing for HGRVs, and any study using clinically invalidated assays will always be irrelevant to the findings in Lombardi and Lo et al.
>Unvalidated not invalidated
>"Lipkin isn't doing sequencing for HGRVs, and any study using clinically invalidated assays will always be irrelevant to the findings in Lombardi and Lo et al. "
Only on your planet, which is definitely not earth.
>Regarding the very moot point of the powerpoint presentation.
The slide we are discussing was indeed on a powerpoint presentation.
"July 28, 2011: IACFS/ME Conference September 22-25, 2011 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada … June 3, 2011: Presentation from Belfast with Dr. Judy Mikovits on May 22, 2011 ….. Dr. Mikovoits' PowerPoint slides now also available as PDF"
Judy presented this slide at the Ottawa conference. A copy of the powerpoint presentation was given to somebody at some point. If you have an original copy of a powerpoint presentation, you can reformat it to see what changes have been made, which is what happened. The original slide from the PPP had been circulating in an email group for a while. It is the original slide because if you photoshop labels etc onto an image — when you adjust the brightness, the photoshopped parts will remain the same and the unphotoshopped part will change in brightness. I did this and the whole image changed, thus no photoshopping occurred. So no silly arguments about pixels at the top please.
It doesn't matter if Mikovits did not "do" the western blots, she presented them — 3 different versions of them.
But this is all a moot, it has nothing to do with the apparent theft of WPI materials and the fallout. It is purely a deflection, like usual, lets blame Billy or RRM for things. No, I think the blame falls on somebody else here.
Still waiting for some apologies. Guess not. When you have spent months sliming the Whittemores and the WPI, I guess it's easier to not comment because Judy and her husband said not to. She's not acting on the behalf of patients in this request, she just doesn't want the WPI lawyers to be able to provide proof of how their reputation has been tarnished so badly. From what I have been reading here, there, and everywhere, Mikovits has lost support today.
>Still all very quiet on the apology front indeed, think I'll start a petition
>kathy d….maybe you have the luxury of the wait and see attitude but i don't. i will indeed be dead….have you ever read the CFS/FM memorial page? people die. hgrv's was the last hope for many of us who are at end-stage.
>The raw data from Lombardi et al. had nothing to do with the PowerPoint presentation. Billy refused to name his source and RRM has provided no source. The original raw gel should not have been available to anyone outside the study group, so how did they obtain it?
>Science requested the label change for publication and they and the reviewer John Coffin saw all the raw data, including use of AZA, during the 6 month review.
>It'll be interesting to see your latest contortions Gerwyn, when the Science investigation is complete. Since you are so knowledgeable and appear to know details not available to the general public, perhaps you could assist the Office for Research Integrity. First you'll have to beam down from Planet Superior…or Planet Bonkers…etc.
>I hope those who though it was OK to post ill wishes and ugly words about Andrea and the Whittemore's (umm Hitler?) in these comments yesterday will show some integrity and apologize ..at least to Andrea.. now that Judy'sthug in t he night antics have been revealed. Contrary to Judy's self-serving belief, she is not the only PHD scientist capable of carrying on the research ..she never was..
To say Judy had the CFS/ME patients' best interest in mind is just absurd. She's a liar and has carelessly damaged this patient community ..how is that helping anyone? …
It's not….
>There have been some disgusting comments on this blog. And not a shred of an apology from any of you. Classy stuff….
>Judy mislead the patients as well as causing terrible hurt and damage to the Whittemore's. If anyone needs to apologise it is her. Judy should have at least called for her supporters to stop the cruelty.
>Anon 5:47: "i never understand the people who keep insisting the disease has many causes. it does not. there is a pathogen that is resulting in these damn common infections becoming active."
Not necessarily. Immune function can be screwed up by environmental exposures (especially chronic ones — check out Tom Hennessy's story), genetic tendencies, heavy metals, fungicides, pesticides, toxic chemicals in the food supply, etc. Hell, even zinc deficiency and other mineral imbalances can screw up NK cell function. Then there's methylation issues, and on and on.
But go ahead and cling to the mystery retrovirus thing.
sigh……
>" i will indeed be dead….have you ever read the CFS/FM memorial page? people die. hgrv's was the last hope for many of us who are at end-stage."
With the greatest of respect to you, please look into the 'nocebo' effect.
You are telling yourself you'll be dead. How do you know this? Do you have a crystal ball? I say this because I've felt suicidal and near death several times this year, but am still here, and actually have some better days, or hours on some days.
You may feel near death, and have been sick for a very long time, but please try and believe that you will be able to hang in there, and you will indeed recover. Belief in life is just as powerful as belief in death, and that isn't saying this is all in your head. The same goes for cancer patients, or any disease. Hope is very important for recovery.
>right..so a mysterious zinc deficiency caused the outbreak of CFS at a convent and a high school (truckee). they all happened to have the exact same genetic tendency LOL give me a fking break. you sound like reagan during the HIV emergence…
>We don't know anything yet about the case or what happened or whatever. Let's wait and see.
Also, I don't think that we're dead if Ian Lipkin doesn't find the pathogen.
There is other research going on — or will be, at a new ME/CFS center at Mount Sinai founded by Dr. Derek Enlander. He's hired a virologist, immunologist and geneticist.
Attendees at the Nov. 20 seminar were impressed by the center's goals, new staff and their commitment to finding cause and treatment of this disease.
I'm hopeful that something concrete will come out of this effort.
I'm not going to get totally discouraged at this point.
>Anonymous @5.47, wow, I had no idea that the cause of CFS had been found. Problem solved then! You really ought to get that published so the world can share in your amazing discovery! *sarcasm*
>Any more lies for us today Dr D-J? Or was Mikovitz lying to you too? Either way, you too no longer have any credibility, just like the association between MLV-related viruses and ME/CFS. Time to call it a day and move on. Fortunately there are some respected, principled researchers out there making progress towards understanding and successfully treating our disease, such as Fluge et al.
>Rituximab will not be a cure if HGRVs are the pathogen. And it remains that clinically unvalidated assays reveal nothing about the positivity/negativity of a person. The future for humans is grime and it will be luck for anyone to go through life without being affected by these viruses.
>There is no scientific reason to think that MLV-related viruses are infecting ME/CFS patients or anybody else, let alone causing any disease.
"The future for humans is grime and it will be luck for anyone to go through life without being affected by these viruses."
Cuckoo
>The Whittemore have let their dogs.
>Yeah, the carrion birds are on the prowl.
>It is reassuring that at no time do the trolls here provide any scientific evidence to challenge the Lombardi et al. or Lo et al. findings. It is also easy to replicate the methodology of Lombardi et al. exactly or clinically validate an assay, or are they scared? Why else would people who claim to be scientists act like untrained monkeys and kill off the field of retrovirology.
>Simmons et al. provides all the scientific evidence you need.
Mikovits, Ruscetti and Lo chose their own patients, their own methods, their own "clinical validation" methods, and all horribly failed at discriminating between their self-chosen positives from their self-chosen negatives.
The thing is, in the Blood Working Group study, it would have been very easy to cheat and "fake" good result. At the time, I (kind of) trusted that the participants would never even think of cheating the somewhat flawed study design, but now that this has come out, I guess we were just lucky they didn't think of it and/or were actually confident of their capabilities….
>Wow….
If she told her grad student to steal notebooks for her you all better find another saint to praise because she's obviously not in it for patient community.
Easy scenario that can be envisioned here: Judy finds some hot data and publishes in a hot journal. Instant Saint status among CFS/ME peeps. However as time goes by no one can repeat her results and she probably realized it was bogus anyway. She then probably convinced herself that a retroviral origin (maybe not XMRV) for CFS was real. Facing pressure from Science and WPI to find out what's going on with her data she gets her grad student to steal it (which is property of WPI, not Judy's). Pretty low. Not only did she use us but she also took advantage of her grad student's career and basically f'ed it up.
Jamie, when are you going to come to your senses and stop advocating for this woman? Mark my words, it might not be tomorrow or the next day, but one day you will be forced to post about how this researcher duped us all.
>NEW blog from MRV
http://peoplewithme.com/blog/
>NEW forum
http://peoplewithme.com/index.php
>It will be easy to ascertain if Max's statement is correct. Plenty of facts that can be checked. I feel sorry for Max as I know Dr Mikoivits has done nothing wrong.