I got a valentine and a newsletter from the WPI, proving yet again that their PR people are brain dead. Here is one patient’s response to her valentine, now making the rounds anonymously, since who wants to poke fun at organized crime and take credit for it:
Clearly demonstrating the need for comic relief in the midst of unrelenting insanity, this is from my email: “The theme of the next fundraiser should be I Hope You Dance In Shackles. Dress code is orange jumpsuits.” That’s what the community thinks of the institute that the NIH has decided to keep funding.
And where is the money coming from to pay those PR people, now that patient donations have no doubt dried up? It would appear the WPI has successfully pulled off a bait and switch and will keep the grants without a PI. The scientist who wrote the grants, the institute’s only real asset, has been tarred and feathered by the “Whittemore machine”, as one paper put it, and a judicial system that they appear to be manipulating. There is accumulating evidence in the public domain that the CEO of the WPI is a liar and a fraud. Witness her performance on Nevada Newsmakers, after she knew the results of the BWG, where she still advertised XMRV testing, saying it only needed to be refined. The new PI has essentially no scientific credits to his name. Search Lombardi VC on PubMed and what comes up? He has never been a senior author on a paper. Besides his work at the WPI under Mikovits, now largely retracted, he was a junior author on two unrelated papers when he was a graduate student. The institute has no publications to its name that weren’t written by Mikovits. The grantors must be as brain dead as the grantees. Or there is pull involved.
It made me sick to read the newsletter. Over the top propaganda, but there will be people taken in by it, even though it is so blatant as to appear written intentionally to fool the simpleminded. WPI’s top 10 contributions…
#1 is a joke. The “Center for Translational Medicine” is fairy dust. There is no science happening there to translate. There is an endocrinologist and a nice doctor I declined to hire, who uses HMD after his name (Homeopathic Medicine Doctor), and who says he can “resolve” autoimmune disease and “cure” allergies on his website. So far, true to form, the most common thing I’ve heard from patients about the “clinic” is that they don’t answer their phone. Sounds like the same old same old to me.
#2 through 5 are the fruits of the labors of their now denounced ex-PI. #6 is somebody else’s work. #7 and 8 are true, they walked a mile and gave Dr. Lipkin a lecture hall for a couple of hours last summer. #9 is an outrage since at least two of the three have openly withdrawn their support for the WPI. It is an insult to the scientists they are attempting to use. Name dropping. And #10, wow, you’d think they’d be ashamed to list contest money without telling those who toiled away what happened to it. Prove to us that it didn’t go to lawyers so that you could scapegoat your best friend for your own failings. @@.
But the WPI is getting the money anyway. Even as politicians from Harry Reid on down give away anything they got directly or indirectly from a Whittemore as quickly as possible. Yet the government still intends to send them a big chunk of the entire federal budget for our disease for the next three years, and if you believe their newsletter, Gulf War Illness too. The only information I could find on the internet, still lists Dr. Mikovits as the principal investigator (at the WPI).
How blatant does it have to be? There is nothing of substance there. A strikingly untalented PhD, one experienced lab tech and a Russian trained doctor who can only work in this country as a tech, because the US doesn’t recognize her training, known as “the magic eye”. Since it seems they can’t rely on science, apparently magic is needed..
Where did all that money go? The grant money, the patient donations, large sums of money from a private investor mentioned to me. It is true that there are a large number of salaries still to be paid; nineteen was the number Annette gave Dr. Lipkin in June at dinner, now minus Judy, Max, who has moved on, and me. So sixteen people unless there are more now. That’s a lot of payroll to keep three people working in a lab, Vinnie, a tech and the magic eye. For that, PR people, personal assistant, lots and lots of poorly designed space. By the way, the final straw in my being fired for saying what I thought, was my use of the word “nepotism” in a text to Harvey. In addition to the fact that my actually being determined to open a real department fit for an academic institution was becoming something of a nuisance. I’ve wondered if they didn’t hire me thinking I was too sick to make trouble.
Vinnie and the magic eye worked at VIP Dx. My understanding was that Vinnie was an owner of VIP Dx. Money was very short, so what did they do? My guess is they decided to jettison the research lab in favor of the commercial lab. Less people to pay. Bait and switch. Protect the investment.
What has the WPI accomplished, other than destroying the career of the only real scientist there, while burning through money like it was jet fuel? It was Dr. Mikovits that brought recognition to our disease. The Whittemore’s have brought only notoriety. And they are continuing to hurt the patient community by diverting funds that could be used productively to help us. The people who collude with such diversion are suspect in my mind. The Whittemore’s have been allowed to manipulate the justice system in order to muzzle the person who knows the most about what actually happened. She is prevented from telling her side of the story by the threat of jail. For “stealing” her own notebooks. How convenient for them.
While the scientist who did the work is blamed for everything under the sun, the patient community holds its collective breath awaiting the results of the Lipkin study, now a reparative effort, since Dr. Mikovits has been deprived of her lab. How can the people who did that even suggest that they are our friends. With friends like that…
Millions and millions down the drain. Why is there no accountability? Why is the FBI investigating political contributions, but not worried about misappropriation of government funds? Why is the FDA ignoring the lab?
It makes me really sad that what’s left to do is work against a negative, after all the hope we had, but it was false hope and what’s left is a sham, diverting funds that could be spent to help us. The patient community needs to object, and loudly.
Today’s song: Money by Pink Floyd
I hate the WPI, but the viruses Judy found in ME patients were polytropic, not XMRV. Polytropic MRVs. PMRVs.
The blood working group study is a different story. The none flash freezing of samples did enough if Lombardi hadn’t used a different assay to that from Lombardi et al.
Now I don’t know if that new assay in the blood study was the assay used at ViPDx, but the did say the assay at the commercial lab was different to the one used at the lab.
Thank you, Jamie, for having the courage to say in public what many are thinking. Those Valentines caused quite the uproar in the patient community, and instead of creating goodwill created a huge backlash, in a group already clearly traumatized, as noted in the work of the anonymous poet. Thank you for being outspoken and brave and strong. Many are fearful of saying anything in public, and for good reason.
The clear waste of precious, scarce government funds going to an institution with a ominous dark cloud over it is mind boggling. As you said, how blatant does it have to be?
Thank you Jamie for telling it how it is yet again.
I received the valentine card and the newsletter on an email I don’t use much and had forgotten to unsubscribe. I was disgusted by their attitude and their blatant whitewashing of the past six months fiasco. I wrote my own little top ten in response to them but I best not post it here…it probably wouldn’t pass moderation!
Carole Carrick in Scotland.
Thank you Jamie for confirming that my thoughts about the WPI drama were not in any way skewed. There was a while there when I thought I’d completely lost my mind reading all that Harvey has done. I expected to wake up to find him planted facedown in the desert somewhere. Then the Uncle aswell!! Crikey. I want to know who to contact to have a picture taken off their mosaic picture. But most of all I want to know the truth from the CEO. All it would take would be a short video on utube . I want to know why on earth they landed a grant without a PI. Has Lombardi even been interviewed? Or was it all a done deal – a set up by govtmnt. How did they get a grant to study GWI. Whose going to be using that? All the CEO has to do is answer those questions.
Well here is who to start asking about exactly why they were given taxpayer money for the NIAID grant with no PI:
Marvin Kalt Ph.D
kaltmr@niaid.nih.gov
NIAID Misconduct Policy Officer
Director, Division of Extramural Activities
NIAID
I was just told I will be a grandmother again. My first thought was not how wonderful that is. Instead it was, I hope everything will be ok. The last baby didn’t make it. Why do I worry? You see I tested positive for the HGRV. My whole family except one is sick and one has died, well actually 2 now technically. I worry will my son, his wife, my grandaughter, or this new baby become ill with either cancer or a neuroimmune illness at some point? Chances are good for that given my family history.
Yes what hopes we all had. My hopes were that the rest of my family would not have to go through what I have. All the suffering of watching the torture of my family members, and experiencing the daily torture inside my own body for almost a decade. Now the institute is lased in scandal and feels dirty. I cannot even fathom why my government is allowing more funding to go there. And especially without the scientist that wrote the grants and did all the work.
Must be our government officials don’t care about wasting taxpayer money because the new PI is not qualified, so the work won’t be done anyway. Will their problem be solved then? Then the institute can just go on their business of adopting a more CAA approach. Hey there’s money to be made off us, and for years.Thanks for nothing WPI, Enjoy your flights while they last. Hopefully the NIH and FDA wise up soon. Before their families get sick too.
If the govt. doesn’t want something found, then what better way is there than to fund an institute where the employees are incapable of conducting the required research?
Very good post. That’s about all I can say. I agree with what you’ve said about WPI, the Whittemores and wondering why the heck they are continuing to get grants, without a PI — and with this terrible scandal that plagues them. They’re under state and federal investigation. Politicians have given their tainted money back. They are raising funds and continuing as if nothing has happened. It’s uncanny and eerie.
I wonder what the political back story is, who is tied to whom, what are the connections. Why and how are the grants coming in?
It seems as if the WPI house of cards is crumbling. When will the whole truth be revealed? Will Dr. Mikovits get a chance to do that? Without intimidation from the plaintiffs in that civil suit?
I hope all of the truth comes out. The CFS world must know much of it. I have no idea how the “institute” is continuing to raise money. Who is donating? Why are grants being given?
It’s truly an enigma. It needs some real muckraking journalists to investigate and reveal the whole story.
And to do it without besmirching the CFS patient, medical and scientific community who are really doing the investigatory work.
It is obvious that WPI wanted Dr. Mikovits’ research notebooks so they could use them to their own advantage and use her work to further themselves. This is despicable and so unprincipled … but we know that.
I’ve always thought that money was the root of all of this — and prestige and power.
I think of the O’Jays “Money is the root of all evil.”
I want my blood samples back.Is there any way we can get those back?The thought they have my blood makes me sick.We need attorneys for this.We need refunds!!
They old saying…..What goes around….will come back to bite you in the ass comes to mind!
Fool me once but not twice! Shame on them and the GOV to keep funding them. Before I die I want to see them in court for using ill people for their payroll! And taking people SS money monthly is beyond me. How can they sleep at night baffles me!
Mikovits knows that ME/CFS is a bioweapon of the Kartel.
Support Evolution / Mikovits with focused, benevolent attention.
It is excruciating for anyone to “wrap their HEART around” the awful truth —that all of creation is victim to the stealth , cold-blooded kartel commanding the earth.
“Wrapping the head around it” just don’t do it.
One thing about ME/CFS, it stops business as usual.
How is the species ever going to CLEAN HOUSE without an interruption of business as usual ?
This WPI Valentine 2012 reminds me of the time I received a Thank You Card for attending the funeral of a friends daughter. The extremely gifted young girl had been adopted by a Whittemore type family, and became Little Miss Arizona, a Screen Actors Guild member, and even an RN. (What a heart !)
Have you guessed ? In their jealousy, this worse-than-Mafia bunch offed this adopted girl.
Modern murder is increasingly stealth.
But torture (me/cfs) is much worse than death
A friend of mine is a government research biologist at the Center for Aging. He says that Stem Cell Injections help all disease processes, are very inexpensive, and blocked by the pharmaceutical kartel .
When I saw that Stem Cells also grow entire new teeth in 3 months when planted in the gum, I called the worlds leading researcher in London. He said ” the dentists worldwide stopped us from making this available , because they would lose their cash cow “.
Here is a sample letter to send to NIH and government representatives regarding inquiries pertaining to the awarding of NIH grants to WPI. If sending via e-mail here is what to put in the subject line:
NIH/NIAID grant project number 5R01AI078234-03: “New Strategies to Decipher the Pathophysiology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”
February 20, 2012
Matthew J Fenton, PHD
E-mail: matthew.fenton@nih.gov
Location: BG 6700B RM 2142
6700B ROCKLEDGE DR
BETHESDA MD 20817 Mail Stop: 7610 Phone: 301-496-7291 Fax: 301-402-0369 IC: NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Organization: ASTHMA, ALLERGY & INFLAMMATION BRANCH (HNM68)
Please also send to your US Senators and Congressional Representatives. Here’s how to find yours:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
Dr. Matthew J. Fenton,
As an ME/CFS patient and taxpayer I would like to inquire why the NIH/NIAID grant project number: 5R01AI078234-03 “New Strategies to Decipher the Pathophysiology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” was recently awarded to The Whittemore Peterson Institute? The founder and CEO of the institute is currently in litigation for misappropriation/embezzlement of funds from a partner in another business venture. The institute’s founder and CEO is also under investigation by the FBI for conduit campaign contributions. The Principal Investigator now in control of this grant at WPI is not qualified. He has no prior experience as a principal investigator, and he has very little research experience of any kind.
Please explain how giving taxpayer obtained funds to this institute would be justified. Does your office plan to investigate this matter, and why has your office not put this grant on hold pending the outcome of the FBI investigations.
Thank you for your prompt response.
(Your name)
I think all at WPI sleep fine at night, except maybe now when the chief businessperson/real estate mogul was the recipient of a lawsuit by former partners who mean business. I think that is the only thing causing them to lose sleep.
I don’t know that they care about the ME/CFS community, certainly not the broader group or they would have treated Dr. Mikovits better and would have collaborated or shared her research work, at least have given her a copy of HER work notebooks.
And they would have thanked people who donated and raised funds for them, not have used private jets and paid for a lot of unnecessary accoutrements at WPI, would have put more money into scientific research, i.e., research staff, etc.
I hope the whole story comes out and that Dr. Mikovits can tell it and she can be vindicated.
This is exactly why people don’t take patients seriously. This is insane. Your comments are insane. No wonder the NIH and FDA think people with ME/CFS are insane. None of these comments nor this blog has any ounce of truth. Poor patients. Your continuing to be mislead by insanity. Do yourself a favor and start reading and stop following sheep. ! Pretty soon we are gonna read this is the next WACO! All CFS patients follow me to Hawaii . Do this in the name of Jones. These people are not Gods. Stop putting them on pedestals and maybe you wouldn’t be disappointed when the result isn’t what you wanted.
Abby, would you please be more specific. You write that no comments here are true. I read the news here in Nevada every day, and the Whittimores have been making news. They are under investigation for several possible crimes. So what else written in this blog is not true?
My bad-tempered neighbour got cancer.
He became a bad-tempered person with cancer.
My manipulative colleague got cancer.
She became a manipulative person with cancer.
Not all people with cancer are cantankerous or manipulative.
So why are all people with M.E. described and stereotyped by the behaviour of the outlandish few?
Like elderly people, we are largely the people we were before we got sick.
That means we are kind, cruel, gentle, aggressive, reasonable, self-important, generous, suspicious, mild, reserved. We are members of society with M.E.
How did you forget that, in your sweeping statement?
You forgot it because the stage is already set for you to view us that way.
We are set up to be seen as crazy, rather than as people desperate for acknowledgment of our physical illness (for acknowledgement brings funding, research and a chance that it could end).
You statement says a lot about you. You might want to unpick why you think as you do.
There are people with M.E. who totally get on my nerves. Without M.E. they still would.
There are also those who are brave beyond measure. They would’ve always been that regardless.
We are just members of society. As diverse as that.
well said bella. :)
You say this publicly to millions of people who are suffering, including a mother and her own daughter? You are either trash (for intentionally trolling) or spectacularly dumb (for speaking on things which you know not) and possibly a combination of the two. You should take care not to spit in the wind lest it come back and hit you in the face.
Well, many of the comments are insane, deeply imbued with conspiracy theories.
Let’s see:
“If the govt. doesn’t want something found…”
“Mikovits knows that ME/CFS is a bioweapon of the Kartel. …”
“Modern murder is increasingly stealth.”
And nobody speaks up. Abby speaks up, only to get chided.
And this only those comments that don’t see the WPI as the root of evil.
As to the question you pose, Jamie:
How did we fall in with these scoundrels?
Yes, how could we? By unconditionally trusting them, by not questioning them. And most everybody in the patient community trusted the WPI. Nobody questioned them. Nobody. Everybody who now cries about the betrayal of WPI did unconditionally believe in the WPI before. Praised them in the highest possible way. And everybody criticizing the WPI got chided.
Maybe it is time to question the unconditional trust some still harbor?
The WPI is not what you wanted it to be. Neither is HGRV. Nor Judy Mikovits.
In searching the internet, I can’t find this Valentine WPI newsletter to read the 10 items discussed. Can anybody please give a link? Thank you very much in advance.
anne this copied and pasted from the newsletter email i received
1. WPI opened the Center for Translational Medicine (CTM), welcoming Drs. Fredericks and Pourzan. more about CTM
2. WPI was granted a two-year DOD grant to study Gulf War illness (GWI) with the VA Medical Center in Reno, Nevada.
3. While still extremely low for a disease which impacts over four million Americans, NIH funding for ME/CFS rose from four million a year to six million a year in 2011 and 2012. view report
4. For the first time, the DOD included CFS as one of the eligible topics for its Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs.
5. The Journal of Internal Medicine published “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria.” see ICC
6. Promising new research by cancer specialists Fluge and Mella points the way towards Rituximab as a potential treatment for some with ME/CFS. read more
7. WPI raised community awareness for NID through the first annual May Awareness month, which included a Walk and Roll, one mile walk around the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. visit ANIDA.co
8. WPI held a symposium in July featuring world renowned virologist, Dr. Ian Lipkin, for medical students, patients, researchers and physicians.
9. Extraordinary researchers, including Dr. Frank Ruscetti, Dr. Frank Malderelli, and Dr. Ian Lipkin, have added their talents to this field of research.
10. WPI received almost $200,000 from online donation campaigns such as Vivint Gives Back Project, Chase Community Giving and Nevada’s Big Give campaign during 2011. Thanks to the many who voted for WPI’s ongoing research program!
I apologize for the recent technical difficulties here and on the forum. The site is up again and functioning normally. Thank you for your patience. And thank you, Katieann, for your excellent help.
Warmly,
Jamie
Just Saying…..God forgives and People do also when you come clean with your Sins! Coming clean and being Honest goes a long way! We need this in order to ever get help and treatments.
What ever happened to Pay It Forward and Unity? I Pray for all of us.We all make mistakes but we all can make it better too!
Hello Tony,
We are all human beings here. We all make mistakes. And that is the last sweeping generality I will write you. Are the Whittemores a mix of good and bad. Sure. Did we spot the problems we would have with them? No. Could a good lawyer defend their firing of Mikovits? Maybe, but does that mean it was a wise decision on Annette’s part? Does Mikovits have rights to her research? What about her federal funding which has now been transferred to WPI even though they don’t have a scientist qualified to continue that research at this time?
Is there a familial link between polytropic and zenotropic retroviruses? My limited recollection of Mikovits’ presentation at Santa Rosa, CA says that there is a link. They are like retrovirus cousins, maybe once or twice removed. Do we know if they cause cancer or CFS? No, but I would bet the farm and some of my stock (on the stock market) that they do exist and do infect humans. So let’s fund further research.
Is there a conspiracy about the cause of CFS? I think this is a draw. Some government scientists may be hiding things, some may be stupid and some lazy. I have to ask why Heine (sp?) at the CDC never bothered to investigate DeFreitas’ work and now denies any retrovirus in CFS after a short search. And then there is the very serious problem – WHAT IF vaccines are contaminated with mouse retroviruses? What government agency is even going to want to fish in that pond? We don’t know, but we need to know. If I owned a vaccine biotech company I would not want to fish there, at least not in the daylight.
I make money on the stock market. I learned, as a general rule, while listening to FDA drug approval committee sessions not take a drug they approve. You can buy stock in it and make money, but don’t take it because it might kill you. I am not kidding.
On one point I agree with you, do not have unconditional trust in anyone. Do your homework. But at some point you have to jump in the pond or at least go fishing with someone. I think Mikovits and Lipkin are still going to catch a big fish or maybe a bunch of retrovirus fish.
I wonder if Abby aka Abbie is able to post something intelligent without smearing or insulting anyone? Hello, Abby. I would love to hear from your intelligent, objective part. I know you have a part of you that is like that.
Everybody check out the “News” Forum on this website !
And for all you girls, natural 8 mg day of Estriol (an estrogen your bod makes) is doing WONDERS in research trials for SLE, MS (relapsing remitting). I started on it a month ago , and so far so good . Just some slight breast tenderness as hormone levels adjust, and I’m eagerly awaiting results . You see, Big Pharma can’t patent natural stuff , so they HIDE it’s benefits . The more miraculous natural remedies are, the MORE they hide them (to sell all their poisons) . My estriol is a water ‘gel’ from a compounding pharmacy that I apply vaginally, and on your face it helps youthfulness. In 6 month trials it stops brain lesions / MS –which flared again if pt went off estriol. Find a doc who will work with what you learn.
Woops—forgot to state that I was diagnosed with SLE at age 19,
and also with ME at 21 years old, including a spuma-like retrovirus.
Let real science begin…, maybe on another planet ? :o)
Excerpt from website below :
“A NEW CLASS OF REFUGEES
A tragic and unthinkable result of wireless technologies is that some have become so ill when in proximity to the microwave radiation and dirty electricity coming from the devices, that they must actually flee their homes and communities.
Scores of people – renters and homeowners alike – are finding it impossible to live in their homes due to EMF. The symptoms they experience are so intolerable that they must either find accommodation in the few areas that are as yet unpoisoned, sometimes living in their cars for months on end until they can find solutions.
Families have been broken apart, relationships have been disrupted, jobs have been lost, and entire geographic areas become off-limits to those whose bodies cannot tolerate the unrelenting assault from the technology used by the meters and the wireless mesh network.
With their civil rights and human rights being denied them, these people are met with callous disregard by their utility companies and, in many cases, their elected representatives.
A particularly pernicious form of narcissism is exhibited by those who say to people whose lives have been turned upside down by this toxic technology foisted upon them without knowledge or consent: “Deal with it, it’s modern life – and it’s mandatory.”
http://www.smartmeterhealthalert.org
http://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/?cat=6
http://www.magdahavas.com/category/electrosmog-exposure/
http://www.bioinitiative.com
http://che.webfactional.com/search/search.cgi?Terms=smart+meters&Go=%3E%3E&searchaction=fdse&Realm=All&hl=&lr=&ie=&domains=&q=&btnG=&sitesearch=
Research acronyms for microwave radtion include EMF, RF, WiFi, WiMax, wireless, EHS, ES, etc. Any wireless devices cause the “slow cremation” of all biological lifeform. The military invented all wireless as weapons… , brought to you by the secret government designing stealth retroviruses, and countless other bioweapons.
Dr. Cheney is the only one who mentions this in his research.