Criminal Charges Against Dr. Mikovits Dismissed

It has been a long time since anything went right with respect to the fiasco at the WPI, but this evening, the tide appears to be turning. The terrible injustice that was done to Dr. Mikovits has been righted at long last with the dismissal of the charges against her. I guess somebody’s enthusiasm for jailing scientists is waning with the growing fishy smell coming from the direction of the accusers.

Writing this, I see people celebrating on FaceBook, friends of Judy’s from all over the world. As we held our collective breath, we can exhale again. Our most dedicated scientist and loyal friend is free once more; may her brave and genuine heart find its way back to the work so cruelly taken from her. And from us. The justice system is meting out a little justice for a change, even while the people who did this continue to suck up a significant percentage of all the dollars the US government spends on our disease, apparently so they can pay for all their lawyers.

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104 thoughts on “Criminal Charges Against Dr. Mikovits Dismissed

  1. Beautifully worded, as ever. Thankyou Jamie.
    It goes without saying that those of us who have followed the work of Dr. Judy Mikovits closely over the past two and half years, are mightily relieved that this burden has been lifted from her shoulders, but it should never have been this way.

  2. Hi Jamie, this wonderful news was long overdue. I really hope that Judy will now be able to continue her great work and that things will finally be rectified. To spread the wonderful news I took the freedom to translate your blog on http://www.cfs-aktuell.de/juni12_3.htm The German ME community will be very pleased to read about the most recent development! And thanks again for your blog and that you never faltered in this matter.

  3. Thank you for posting this, Dr. Jamie. I love this statement: “. Our most dedicated scientist and loyal friend is free once more; may her brave and genuine heart find its way back to the work so cruelly taken from her.” Everyone who genuinely wants the best for people with M.E. will agree with statement.

  4. “the people who did this continue to suck up a significant percentage of all the dollars the US government spends on our disease, apparently so they can pay for all their lawyers.” This is a FALSE statement. Significant %? Wrong. Pay for lawyers? Wrong. It is all about the grant process not the WPI. AND what is a significant % of nothing?

    • And where do you think the money is coming from, Pat? They still have Judy’s grant and now a GWI grant, as far as I know. Do you really believe any good can come from that money? There is no integrity in the process. “Research” carried out by liars and frauds is of no value.

      Who’s paying the lawyers to write what I’ve heard is a 260 page rebuttal to a response from Judy’s lawyer, which contains a declaration from me, in the civil suit? The WPI’s income comes from patients and government grant money. Either way, it’s a travesty. Disgusting. And what do you think they hope to gain with their vindictive lawsuit? Dr. Mikovits has no money. They have their cherished notebooks. An apology? Over her dead body.

      • Sorry, I forgot the income from the commercial lab, churning out lab tests that no doctor with a brain would believe or spend their patients’ money on.

            • Fooled by whom? Dr. Mikovits was vigorously promoting these ‘lab tests that no doctor with a brain would believe or spend their patients’ money on’ over the course of several years, even calling them the ‘gold standard’ on several occasions, if I’m not mistaken.

              Also, one comment I’ve seen popping up in articles about the charges against Dr. Mikovits being dropped, presumably fed from the source due to their commonality, goes something like ‘because Dr. Mikovits was PI of the grant, then she was rightfully in charge of the notebooks’, despite contracts reportedly being signed by Dr. Mikovits and the WPI stating that all research done belongs to the WPI. This argument means that whoever the PI is is some sort of trump card as to who should be in possession of the notebooks. Of course if this were actually the case, then it brings up the question re: now that Dr. Mikovits is no longer PI of the grant, is she going to return/hand over the notebooks to the rightful PI?

              • @ John, I believe you are mistaken. I don’t recall thinking that, so doubt I said it; if you feel like reading through 140 blogs, be my guest, but I don’t reread them. I believed the test was a good test at the beginning. Later I questioned it more, because of the seeming lack of correlation between culture and serology, but I believed in the validity of the testing, until it was shown not to be reproducible in a study. When I knew there was a problem, I tried to effect it, and when I couldn’t, I wrote about the problem, even though I had been wrong about it for a long time. Obviously, my comment about doctors without brains had to do with ordering from a lab which has already shown itself to have a serious problem. All of that said, doctors order tests all the time that have accuracy problems. The test for VIP (vasointestinal peptide), for a random example, seems not to correlate with the same test at Quest (always below reference at LabCorp). I haven’t done split samples, but I strongly suspect they would be quite different, though LabCorp may have just changed their test, because I got a result this week that was actually higher than reference. That happens sometimes, a bad test that gets fixed, or thrown out. But the point is testing is not as black and white as people believe. My experiences with small private labs, recent and distant, have made me stop using them. I’m only using the large commercial labs, and even then, it is fraught with difficulty and suspected inaccuracies. I don’t spend money on that testing from labs that have an ax to grind anymore, my money or other people’s. Another lesson learned the hard way.

                • The formatting of the comments is starting to make them very hard to read.

                  I can’t tell which comment of mine you are referring to in your reply. Dr. Mikovits was the one who said that the VIPdx test was the gold standard. Someone in the comments of another blog has collected some quotes of hers in this regard- http://cfsuntied.com/blog2/2012/04/30/misopathy-over-disclosureproof-of-vipdx-test-validity-still-not-forthcoming/

                  In regards to the lab notebooks, I wasn’t talking about your blog but rather recent newspaper articles in which Dr. Mikovits’ friends have been claiming that the PI of the grant should be the keeper of the notebooks. If this is the case, which itself is in question due to the reported contracts signed by Dr. Mikovits and the WPI, then is Dr. Mikovits going to return the notebooks now that she is no longer PI of the grant in question? Plus it’s interesting that you talk about integrity in this regards. The falling out between you and Dr. Mikovits that you have since made up from wouldn’t have anything to do with her straight up, flat out lying to you about certain issues pertaining to this case, would it?

                  • I never said we’d had a falling out. I said that we were good enough friends to have disagreed at times and still be friends. And under very difficult circumstances. If I thought she had lied to me, we would not be friends. Stop twisting my words please.

                    • Because that’s what basically every single news article about the case states.

                      “WPI’s attorney Ann Hall said the institute was disappointed that the criminal charges were dropped and that Mikovits still has not returned all of the missing property.

                      “That is one of the reasons why we are so disappointed. We still don’t have the data, the notebooks, the materials back,” she said. Hall said the institute will continue to pursue the civil lawsuit it filed against Mikovits.”

                    • No article says Dr Mikovits has the notebooks.
                      Ann Hall is the WPI lawyer and is on behalf of the WPI/Whittemore’s, claiming she has the notebooks. What evidence is there that Dr Mikovits has the notebooks? Can you see the difference?

              • John you are confusing which assay Dr Mikovits has talked about. At no time has she spoken in that way about the VipDx assay. As in the assay that is not the assay from Lombardi et al. The assays Dr Mikovits has talked about are those from her paper Lombardi et al. 2009.

                You are also confused as to which grant this refers to. The new PI already has copies.

                • January 22nd, 2010
                  http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=15173

                  “Annette Whittemore: Earlier you said that 40% were positive [by VIP Dx]. So describe the fact that if you’re positive, you’re positive. But if you’re negative, you’re not necessarily so?

                  Dr. Mikovits: Yes, that’s correct. I answered that question based on the samples that came through there. Everyone who is positive is definitely positive for having the virus.”

                  “Question: So what you’re saying is you may test negative but not be negative?

                  Dr. Mikovits: That’s correct. If you do it by the PCR. If you do it by VIP-Dx, at least right now, it’s running along the lines of (inaudible). We’ve got the antibody, and we’ve got three of the four tests. We’ll license it to anyone. We’re a non-profit institute, so everybody pays the same royalty, so any diagnostic company could do the gold standard. But right now, if you test negative, you’re not necessarily negative, even at VIP-Dx.”

                  http://esme-eu.com/news/email-fra-dr-judy-mikovits-ang-xmrv-og-me-article304-7.html
                  Email fra Dr. Judy Mikovits ang XMRV og ME

                  “Regarding the ramifications of being XMRV negative. First of all the current diagnostic testing will define with essentially 100% accuracy XMRV infected patients. The negatives are more difficult as there are additional tests that can only be done in the research lab at this time and not in a clinical setting such as VIPDx. The most important test is to check your blood for an antibody to the virus. If you are positive in the serology test and have an antibody to the virus, you have evidence of infection but at the time your blood was drawn the amount of virus in your blood was below the limit that could be detected by the most sensitive test currently available clinically, which is the the one done at VIPDx. that means while you tested XMRV negative..it could be a false negative.”

                  • Dr Mikovits is discussing the assay from Lombardi et al. 2009. The comments are correct for that assay. She was not discussing the assay they were using. Which Annette Whittemore has said is a different assay.

            • You mean like no doctor with a brain would believe or spend their patients money on.

              Sorry “Doctor”, you can have it both ways.

      • What Jamie said! No more taxpayer money should be allocated. Haven’t people been reading the news? Their founder was just indicted for conduit campaign donations and lying to the Federal government! The CEO is also listed on an embezzement lawsuit. I know where I don’t want my tax money going!

      • I suspect you must have evidence that Dr. Lombardi is not able or is incompetent enough to use the GWI money and the NIH money awarded to him for the proposes stated? Also, the 990’s filed for WPI must be carefully read. GRANT applications do have pages of documentation on who gets payed what amount from the grant money. The apps have salaries and equipment that must be approved. ………………………….I am 100% in support of Judy’ abilities and I never doubled her capabilities to do the science and to come out on top of this mess. I think that she is classy and able. If anything her passion for the patients got her into trouble. I also believe that Dr. Lombardi and his fellow NV researchers can do the job. Remember the chair of research at WPI is a NV university researcher. No conflict in my mind and I have no personal beef with anyone who believes other wise.

        • And you think it’s ok Pat that taxpayer money is given to an institute that’s founders are being investigated and one indicted for conduit campaign donations and lying to the federal government? And both founders and the CEO have a pending lawsuit for potential embezzelment? I would like to know who’s writing those checks with taxpayer funds. How about putting all funding on hold at the very least given the circumstances pending investigations? And what happened to human research protections? Why were participants in those grants questions NEVER answered? I know because I wrote several letters. NOT ONE WORD BACK! How do they lose confidential participant information and samples when Chris Beisel had approved everything? He gave them the grant didn’t he? I’ve read up on and know about human assurance protections and this was no protection!

          • Don’t you agree Robyn, the grant should be taken off the WPI and given back to Dr Mikovits.

            • Yes I do. in fact it should have just went with her. As the PI she applied and was given the grant. That is also what the participants in the study wanted and requested of the WPI. It was their taxpayer money. Instead we got the BS and nightmare that followed. And now what’s to become of all the research and taxpayer money that’s already been spent? How do they account for that to the taxpayers? Not to mention the fact that human subject protection violations have occurred. YOU DO NOT LOSE CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OR SAMPLES OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS. You also do not ignore those subjects letters and inquiries. They have rights.

    • Pat, there really is no grant process. The money goes where the people in power want it to go and not to what would cause them one almighty lawsuit.

  5. “As we held our collective breath…”

    Speak for yourself, please. While I’m happy the charges have been dropped, I certainly wasn’t on pins and needles waiting to hear what was up. She derailed proper research for years, and the fiasco surrounding her discredited research (remember, even she couldn’t find her HGRVs in her own blinded samples) has divided the community, wasted millions of dollars, much of which was donated by desperate patients, and set us back as a result.

    What a waste. Hopefully she’ll go back to bartending asap.

    • I agree, Cathy! I’m glad the charges are dropped but the sooner Mikovits’ name fades from CFS/ME research ..the better!

      Why is there no mainstream media coverage confirming this Mikovits dismissal? I can’t find one word printed about this except on CFS/ME blogs and forums

      • @ Kathy and Sam. Dr. Mikovits put the disease on the map. And interesting that even her enemies think her arrest was unlawful.

        • Jamie, once again you’re putting words in other’s mouths. I didn’t say her arrest was ‘unlawful’ — there may have been good reason or enough suspicions to have her arrested. But if charges have been dismissed, then I’m just glad it’s over with.

          She (and others in her team, working under the direction/approval of Annette Whittemore, who was once praised but of course now villified (after all, there can only be one God in the room according to the me-cfs-forums, i.e., the “crazies” forum) did indeed put the disease on the map, but not in a good way at all.

          The entire “one cause” hypothesis was, and will forever be flawed. This isn’t HIV/AIDS in Africa!!! as she say suggested on more than one occasion.

          • It would appear that someone in the DA’s office was concerned about the lawfulness of the arrest, no? Why else would they have dropped the charges?

            I was there. My opinions are first hand. It has been a long time since I protected, and even longer since I praised Annette Whittemore. The Whittemore’s are spin experts. I was fooled for a while, but they have shown their true colors. In the way they handled Judy alone, before and after the firing. Nothing to admire in their behavior at all. Such a shame. All the elements for success were there, but defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. All due to dishonesty and incompetence.

    • The “should go back to bartending” comment is just nasty and completely out of order – it says more about you as a person than anything else.

    • “remember, even she couldn’t find her HGRVs in her own blinded samples”

      When are you referring to?

      Dr Mikovits has always found the viruses in a higher proportion of patients then controls in blinded studies when she has conducted the experiments.

      • In the last multicenter study, she could not tell the difference between the positives and the negatives.

  6. For some reason, all comments are going to spam. I’m not sure why, because I haven’t changed any settings. I’ll try to figure out what’s going on, but in the meantime, I have to manually approve comments, so there will be a delay after sending before you see your comment posted.

    Jamie

  7. I dont post very often now but most people dont understand how crucial sample prep is in these matters. In the BWG the sample preperation was clearly suboptimal as evidenced by the omission of Trizol. Blood is a complex medium and matrix effects can inhibit antibody-antigen reactions and a slow thaw can rob B and T cells of replicative function add in the omission of Trizol and the tests constructed by Dr Ruscetti and Dr Mikovits would be rendered useless.'”proper” scientific research requires the use of clinically validated assays and the elimination of confounding variables. I can understand the reluctance of someone who believes that the results produced by Drs Ruscetti and Dr Mikovits were due to contamination despite a lack of a mechanistic explanation to account for the results as a whole based on a contamination theory. I cannot understand the willful avoidance of standard scientific practice in this matter.The elimination of the main confounding variable( the PCR assay) could be simply achieved by using the same reagent mix cycling conditions and primers as used in the Lombardi et al study. The absence or presence of the retroviruses could then be established as empirical fact. In similar vein if the purveyors of the contamination argument want to prove their case all that is needed is a direct examination of the samples retained in the labs of Dr Mikovits and Dr Ruscetti using the same methodology. Science demands that the results of an experiment be validated or refuted by repeating the details of the experiment and determining whether the results are reproducible or not.This is because of the cause and effect relationship between independent and dependent variables. Attempting to change the independent variables( reagent mix,cycling conditions and primer composition) and expecting the dependent variable to remain the same is not good science.I agree with Dr Singh when she says that it is not enough to demonstrate that an assay can detect a synthetic viral sequence in a mix of pristine DNA in a lab experiment. Real life samples are complex and matrix effects and inhibitors predominate.This affects the amplification efficiency of a PCR assay.This is whythe use of a new HIV PCR assay is illegal unless the diagnostic sensitivity of the assay has been determined.In vitro results are not accepted as proof of effectiveness of an assay.I wish you well Jamie and thanks for your work as always

    • “I dont post very often now”

      Good. Maybe you should have stopped a long time ago.

      Do you have any sense of what your writing looks like to others? And your friend V99, too. You were incredibly obnoxious to people on forums for a long time, and then there’s the great idea of arguing with people on sites hostile to us already. Great. Those of us who do support Judy? You’ve helped make us look like idiots to an awful lot of people. Thanks for that.

      • Patients can see through the purpose of your response Anon. Patients are not idiots.

        That was the motivation behind the wide spread UK media attack on patients last year. Try to scare us into not speaking out.

      • I notice you have no answer to the science but once again resort to empty ad hominem attacks. Gerwyn was only ever hostile to those who attacked Judy personally and carried out the most appalling pseudoscience imaginable and then complained when their methodology was attacked.

        • “Once again?” I’ve never responded to Gerwyn or addressed this topic. No, I don’t have an answer to the science, which is why I chose to not argue something I don’t know enough about with people who work in the field. They didn’t know about the disease, its case definitions, or Simon Wessely, but they didn’t want to be lectured about what they do by patients, let alone really annoying patients or advocates easily revealed as dilettantes. Maybe someone could’ve had a reasonable debate, but V99 sure wasn’t that someone.

          Now, to respond to both ‘Sara’ and ‘Rubble’: In this case being quiet and letting Judy’s work (or Frank Ruscetti’s, or Harvey Alter’s, or Maureen Hanson’s) speak for itself was the better option–at least past making a point once. Or twice. Really, it was insisting on driving it home thousands of times in dozens of different places that made it look truly insane. It didn’t take a linguistics expert to figure out that the vast majority of those comments were written by a very small number of people–most of them by one person, actually, one person obviously not capable of understanding that their voice was not variable enough to avoid being pegged for having come from that one person. I have no idea if Gerwyn is a credible scientist, but even a lab mouse could tell he’s no writer, and spot his awful grammar & punctuation without glasses.

          But that’s okay: going on and on, incessantly, about ‘clinically validated assays’ and ‘proper replication’ and ‘annealing temperatures’ and the ‘scientific method’ proved the UK establishment couldn’t shut you up! Of course, they didn’t have to–all of that stuff didn’t help Judy, it hurt her. Our enemies didn’t need any convincing that ME/CFS is a psychiatric disorder, because that’s what they already believed. People who didn’t know one way or the other took a look at those postings, and the pattern they assumed, and made up their own minds. Guess what conclusion they ended up drawing.

          Anyone who spent any time on MECFS forums the first year or so it was up didn’t have to look hard to see that Gerwyn was indeed nasty and abusive to many people, not just those involved with ‘Paprotka’ (which is not going to be retracted no matter how many times it’s argued, rightly or wrongly, that it MUST be) or with Dusty Miller. Targets ranged far beyond ‘Billy’ and ‘LaurieB.’ How many thousand posts? (Who’ll be the first to 1,000 on peoplewithme? gee…) Quite a few people didn’t stick around what might have otherwise grown into a very good place, because of how he and others bullied people.

          Instead it was ammunition for people like a certain Chicago Tribune reporter and a certain overtly obnoxious blogger. (Alan Dove wrote that he didn’t understand why Racaniello left all those posts up…duh! Racaniello did worse by us by not attacking us, and allowing our community to have its say, than Dove did by attacking us, and cutting off comments on HIS blog) And when they pointed to that site, and the other places where all these repetitive postings were spammed, and said, in effect, ‘look! these people are mentally ill! it’s a reflection on judy!’, it was difficult for even reasonable people to argue with them. Maybe it would’ve been different if more folks had looked closely at the science, but they weren’t going to look past that representation of the science.

          Great job. And if you think I’m somehow an enemy of Judy’s, then you’re even more pathetic than I would’ve thought.

          • LOL you must be really worried at the knowledge those two have to be defending people like Billy. I’m curious, do you know who that is and where he got that gel from?

            Never mind, ad hominem attacks are a sign that you cannot argue the science so hide behind personal attacks.

            • Paul, the gel was taken from a PowerPoint presentation that Dr. Mikovits herself presented at the 2011 IACFS/ME Conference. Dr. Deckoff-Jones even posted pdf’s of the slides on this very blog.

              From the Chicago Tribune- “The report included a figure purporting to depict lab test results from seven blood samples, including two from chronic fatigue syndrome patients whose blood appears to show evidence of XMRV and five from healthy people whose blood does not.

              But the leader of the team that authored the 2009 paper, researcher Judy Mikovits, apparently presented the same figure — carrying different labels and supporting a different point — in a talk given at a conference on Sept. 23 in Ottawa.

              A copy of her PowerPoint presentation circulating among an email group also reveals an apparent third version of the image, with a third set of labels, when formatting is turned off.”

              http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-paper-10032011,0,6792877.story

              • As soon as the PowerPoint was out of Dr Mikovits hands it can easily be tampered with. Unsurprisingly no person has come forward to claim they found that gel in the powerpoint.

                The labels were altered by Science to reflect the complete range of gels that were performed. Hundreds! It was a blinded study after all.

                Again I ask who is the source of that Powerpoint? Why has no one said I found it? Could it be that they would immediately come under suspicion for having tampered with the PowerPoint?

              • Can you list the members of that email group so that the police can investigate each of them?

          • I agree wholeheartedly Anon. Gerwyn, V99, Wildaisy and all the poor folks at her mecfsforums really made us look ‘crazy’.

            And WildDaisy is the owner of that blog, and actively encourages such attacks against anyone who doesn’t drink the Mikovits nectar. She actually attacked Robert Miller, a man who’s been ill with ME for almost 30 years now, who has gone out of his way as much as he can, to advocate for us.

            And all because WildDaisy was insulted that Robert didn’t want to do everything HER way.

            Shame on them. They’ve set us back 40-50 years.

            • The CAA are the ones that have set us back 30 years or haven’t you noticed the CBT/EBT studies they’ve been sponsoring as of late? The CAA is also Bob Miller’s pet organization, along with Pandora. The CAA has been making money off patients for over 20 years and that is who he chooses to advocate for. And it was Bob Miller that posted Wildaisy’s personal e-mail that was sent to his associate in error of which he posted without permission. Now is that anyway for an advocate to act? I remember that the e-mail was just inquiring about exactly which organization he was advocating for since he never made that clear to the patient population. So get your facts straight. Bob Miller is all about getting his name noticed and promotion of himself. He is not my advocate and is just looking for his 15 minutes of fame just like some others out there proclaiming to be advocates. He’s also advocating for treatments that no one can afford at $20,000 an infusion. I guess it would be for advocacy for the rich ME/CFS patients.

              • Robyn, you proved my point.

                Basically, WildCrazy attacked Bob Miller because he made a mistake, giving out her email address accidentally, something healthy people sometimes do, yet I guess he’s not too sick to be attacked. (He is, in case you care.)

                She (and you) then attack him, not surprisingly, because he chose to work with 2 organizations that didn’t put all their eggs in Mikovits basket. That’s the credo of the mecfsforums, besides of course rage and anger.

                The main issue with her forums, is that the people over there have NO compassion, no empathy for others. And if you think Patricia Carter is mean on her forums, that’s nothing compared with the vicious, nasty emails she sends out in PMs behind the scenes, something that at least a dozen I know of (every one a patient who didn’t agree with every single thing she said) has received.

                And she wonders why no one wants to hear from her. Not to mention why she’s still so sick. Pretty difficult to get well when one is so full of rage.

                • p.s. And you have the gall to say Robert wants his fifteen minutes? My god, that seems to be Patricia’s sole reason of existence.

                  It’s spelled ‘hypocrisy’.

                  • You have no idea what you’re talking about Sue aka Sweat pea. It was your precious Bob Miller that started the attacks and it was YOU who started it here. So get over it. I will never consider Bob Miller my advocate because I will never consider the CAA or Pandora my advocates. Plain and simple. And like I said get the facts straight. You’re so off base. Miller has been just as nasty and so have you.

                    • PP.S. Why would anyone choose to stick with organizations that would keep us sick? Just so they can continue getting government grants in our names? Or with those that would like us to pay $20,000 dollars per infusion. If you’re rich that is. Sorry they’ve had over 20 years to get it right. It is not going to happen now. They’ve gotten used the lifestyle their accostomed to

            • No, Sue, I did not intend to attack Wildaisy. You have your agenda, and that’s fine, but I don’t agree. I do wish those forums had been handled a little differently, but that’s not why I posted. I posted because I’m a patient, because I support Judy, and because I really, truly, honestly think that Gerwyn & V99 have done her far more harm than good.

              Robert Miller seems like a great advocate, if you don’t know anything about CAA, that is. I have a hard time accepting his efforts, some of which I think are very good, because CAA are not what they appear to be, and that’s putting it mildly. However, I’m not sure it’s fair to resent someone just because they can afford Ampligen while almost nobody else can. If they’re obnoxious or insulting about that, that’s one thing, but I haven’t seen that.

              This will be my last response. Already I drew multiple portions of word salad claiming I can’t argue the science (as if I had argued the opposite), that I’m somehow defending “Billy,” (???) that I’m issuing ad hominem attacks (got a mirror?), that because Judy used a term, it’s okay to repeat them thousands of times to people when the likelihood that all they’re going to do is tune you out is very high.

              There’s several problems here, starting with reading comprehension, but also a major issue where people don’t seem capable of thinking before they post, and never ask themselves if maybe they shouldn’t post the same thing they’ve already posted a thousand times, just one more time, just in case the point didn’t get across.

              The point has gotten across in a way that has achieved exactly the opposite of the intent. You won’t stop, obviously, because you’re not interested in assessing the responsibility you have for what you’ve done to the discussion over the past year. Go have fun playing in your new forum. I loathe you with a passion I couldn’t find words for if I sat here for 3 days with a thesaurus.

              • “I really, truly, honestly think that Gerwyn & V99 have done her far more harm”

                How is reporting the details and errors of various studies harmful? The virologists are responsible for their own studies, aren’t they?

                Are you defending BIlly or supporting Billy? You keep changing your stance. Do you even know who Billy is?

                “that because Judy used a term, it’s okay to repeat them ”

                You are not making much sense. If others in their research have not replicated Dr Mikovits methods or clinically validated their assays, then why would you not want other patients to know that? What is so evil about the truth? Why would you stop this information reaching patients.

                • Possibly because both Gerwyn and V99 have made abundantly clear over and over again that they have absolutely no idea as to what they are talking about, yet there apparently are still patients out there who think that Gerwyn and V99 have even the slightest clue re: retroviral research.

                  I’m not talking about someone being wrong every once in a while, I’m talking about extremely basic fundamentals that they are completely ignorant of. The following thread exemplifies their ignorance of the subject- http://www.mecfsforums.com/index.php/topic,7360.msg87703.html

                  What Gerwyn posted as evidence of sequence variation instead shows a complete lack of sequence variation, and his and V99’s ignorance of this is quite damning considering just how basic a concept it is.

                  Here is the explanation-
                  http://i46.tinypic.com/2qishw4.jpg

                  All you have to do to get the sequences that Gerwyn provides as an explicit example of just how much ‘variation’ exists to match up exactly is to remove the ‘cc’ from the top sequence and then space them accordingly. Voila! This is because the machine which does the sequences sometimes starts a bit sooner or later on the sequence. Read on to page 4, the fact that both Gerwyn and V99 were absolutely and completely oblivious of this shows just how fundamentally lacking their knowledge of the subject is. Gerwyn and V99 actually ridiculed other members for stating that there was actually no variation, with V99 goading a member that “Ha ha ha you are so out of your depth there… show us what it looks like when you line them up in your special way.”

                  It’s like having someone claim to be a mechanic trying to pop the hood of your car, popping the trunk instead and going around to the back of your car and marvelling at the complexity of ‘the engine with no moving parts’, ie the spare tire!

                  • MLVs are gamma retroviruses. They always have little sequence diversity in the individual strains. This is owning to their use of mitosis for propagation and not reverse transcriptase.

                    “From the codon-adjusted gag, pol, and env alignments, all proviruses were analyzed for mutations relative to the consensus for their group. The Xmvs differed on average by 1.8% (0.3%–5.9%) from the group consensus (estimated from the alignment used for Figure 1 and extreme values excluded), compared to differences of 0.18% (0%–0.5%) and 0.21% (0.1%–0.3%) for Pmv and Mpmv from their respective consensuses. Between the groups, consensus sequences differed by 2.3% comparing Pmv to Mpmv, and 5.2% and 5.1%, respectively, comparing either to Xmv.”

                    http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0030183

                  • You cannot deny they don’t know what they are talking about. They have always backed up their statements and are qualified to discuss the research. They do know retrovirology.

                    Your analogy is flawed, for if it had been correct it would be more like a mechanic telling a retrovirologist to stop acting like a cowboy builder.

              • Sorry Anon and Robyn,

                Yes, CAA has made some stupid decisions in the past, but there’s nothing we can do to change those, and to hold grudges against past decisions does NOTHING to heal oneself. I personally don’t believe they’re part of some conspiracy to keep us sick. We do a good enough job of that as it is (btw, people do get well, but of course most don’t want to hear that, so those who recover naturally run from any forums for fear of being “attacked”.

                Speaking of…it wasn’t my intention to attack Patricia, just to point out the facts, which are obvious to all who have read her forums, even the public areas, wasting and draining their ‘energy’ spewing pages and pages of venom, blaming others for “making us sick”. And yet these very same people avoid any parts of forums where people are getting their lives back, because ‘I tried (such and such) and it didn’t do s…t).

                Oh, well, then it must be worthless.

                Even Jamie pointed out about a year ago that those who avoided doctors felt they were doing much better compared to those who were saw docs regularily.

                Anyway, I’m sure we’ll agree to disagree. At least anon, you have the decency to disagree without so much rage and anger. I appreciate that and wish you well.

          • Coffin’s paper does indeed have to be retracted. It is an appauling paper to substitute for Dr Mikovits and Dr Ruscetti’s experiments. We have not heard the last of that.

            What I am interested to know is how you can say it won’t be if patients and not meant to comenton research, as you are arguing?

            You can’t say don’t say anything even though I do know what I am talking about and at the same time say it shouldn’t be retracted.

          • I forget to say, Dr Mikovits has mentioned all these points herself.

            “‘clinically validated assays’ and ‘proper replication’ and ‘annealing temperatures’ and the ‘scientific method’ proved “

  8. This is great news indeed. Please don’t forget that Dr. Judy’s legal bills must still be sky high. She has worked unceasingly — with unflagging resolve — for our community for years now. Let’s show her our appreciation. Please consider donating to her legal defense fund today. Even small amounts help.

    http://tinyurl.com/MikovitsLegalFund

    If you prefer to mail a check, please make the check payable to Judy Mikovits Legal Fund and mail it to: 2031 Jamestown Way, Oxnard, CA 93035

    • Thanks Rivka
      Well said!

      NIce to see justice for a change!

      Thank you Judy for everything you are doing to advance MRV science.

      “I guess somebody’s enthusiasm for jailing scientists is waning with the growing fishy smell coming from the direction of the accusers.”

      Biggest fish that anyone could catch!

    • Hi Rivka,

      I respect you immensely, but I must say I find your verbiage a little over the top. She may well indeed be working unselfishly for “us”, but did you ever stop to consider that she’s also working hard for herself, to be ‘the one’ who found ‘the answer’, that she can then patent, like she did w/the original XMRV stuff?

      • @ Cathy. I know her really well, for quite a long time now, through extremely difficult circumstances. We have even argued and made up. What you have said is not my experience of what motivates her. She genuinely wants to help patients. Any of her friends will tell you that.

      • I wasn’t going to post any more on this but your comment more than irritates me.

        Judy gave her rights to the patents to the WPI believing they were going to actually help patients. The only thing Judy gains is in knowing she has done the right thing. Unlike so many others.

        There is an abundance of evidence that ME patients are infected with MRVs. The viruses she and Frank found were not XMRV. The name given to whatever Coffin gives it to next.

        It is not one unifying theory for CFS, but is found in a very high proportion of people with CCC ME/cfs. A criteria which the NIH study is not using. Instead they have created a new one for this Governmeny study and a new criteria for controls.

        • thanks, cathy, for your note. but no, i do not think dr. judy has been thinking a great deal about herself during this whole 3 year drama we’ve all watched unfold. in fact, she has been really selfless, and i speak from a place of now knowing the woman personally. so if you have come to trust me at all, due to my own actions/advocacy for our community, i hope you will consider trusting my opinion on this: i hold dr. mikovits in very high esteem. she is a rare human being. in fact, i wish she would think more of herself sometimes and less of the patients. because then she’d take the time to take care of herself better, instead of giving it all away to others. and she’d get to focus on restoring her reputation, which got trashed in the last year due to the WPI’s seemingly desperate and scary tactics.

          of course, it is out of my own self-interest that i feel we need her to get her good reputation back — so she can get back to working for us as the world-class scientist that she is.

          best,
          rivka

          • Thanks for your kind reply RIvka. I appreciate your sincere and well expressed point of view. You make some good points. I agree that her reputation has been harmed in part by her employers. I also believe that she didn’t help herself by making comments comparing XMRV/HGRVs to HIV/AIDS in Africa. Perhaps she regretted saying that, but it got out there and made her look pretty foolish.

            I too want more answers, I’ve been sick for 13 years now, and nearly bedridden at times. I just think this is a lot more complex, and that we can find answers — and are finding answers — depending on other triggers that may be different in each of our cases. It’s certainly a very complex illness with so many, many factors.

            • The mouse model for HIV is MLV viruses. 7% of the population infected and ignored would be like HIV in Africa.

              Dr Ruscetti has agreed. His comment is that this is 1984. It is time to do something.

              Those comments are accurate and not foolish in the least.

              A plague of cancer and neuroimmune diseases is horrendous.

        • I agree in part with what you said V99. Can you believe that?

          I agree that there may be a possibility that these retroviruses are found more in people with ME/CFS. What I disagree with is if they are detrimental or have any causal relationship. After all, according to the original study if extrapolated to the population, 10 times as many healthy people were found to have XMRV compared to those with ME/CFS.

          In other words, if 4% of the population of the US (the controls) were found to be infected, that would equal about 10-12 million people. If 67% of the population (in the US) of the people with ME/CFS (estimated to be anywhere from 2.5 to 4 million people) were found to have XMRV, then that would equal about 1 to 1.5 million.

          Clearly there aren’t 10-12 million folks developing ME/CFS, and it isn’t contagious like HIV/AIDS, as she suggested.

          • The numberof infected does not have to indicatethe numberof those with ME or even a disease.

            HTLV-1, Dr Ruscetti first human retrovirus, only causes diseasein about 10% of those infected, and it is not one diseasebut several.

            Retroviruses, particularly MLVs, causes a range of diseases. So the figure could be, and we won’t know withouta great deal of money put into this, 10% of 3-7% of the generalpopulation for those with disease, then anothersmall fractionof those with ME. Other diseases could then be prostate cancer,breast cancer,lymphoma, leukaemia, autism,chronicLyme disease, Parkinsons, Sjogrens, MS…

  9. Great news! I am so glad to hear of the dropping of charges against Dr. Judy Mikovits. This not only vindicates her, but those of us arguing on her side on this very blog.
    Now I hope she gets copies of all of her research, even if she can’t obtain the originals. This is important.
    She did put CFIDS on the map. Once she made her discovery, more publicity came out for this disease than ever.
    I wonder how much pressure was brought to bear on the prosecutor once Harvey Whittemore was indicted on the illegal campaign contributions, and on the embezzlement charges, for which he will have to face a jury at a trial. He’d hoped for arbitration so his actions wouldn’t be publicized but some of his charges will require a trial by jury. So much of what he did will come to public light.
    I hope that Dr. Mikovits can find a decent job doing research for people with CFIDS, because she obviously is committed to helping to find a cause, and probably, a treatment for this dastardly disease.
    Anyway, it’s time to celebrate this victory.

  10. The patients that got caught unkowingly in the middle of the fall out are still in need of financial and medical justice. When everyone who has verbally made a promise begins to actually do them….then I will know whom to trust…maybe.
    We have also lost our home, health worsened and sent thousands of dollars of bills from WPI when given a full sponsorship that was not completed… credit ruined by each side.

  11. The dropping of these criminal charges is indeed good news, even if past due. Now is the time for the wpi to just drop the civil case and let everyone move on with there lives.
    Judy has worked incredibly hard to help the patient community. I wish her the best!

  12. I”m not holding my breath for WPI to drop the civil lawsuit. They are now in a somewhat financial bind, with Harvey being indicted on the campaign contributions and facing a jury trial on the criminal charges of embezzlement, and he’s got lots of attorneys’ fees to pay on both cases.
    So the Whittemores will be looking for cash everywhere. So, since their lawsuit against Dr. Mikovits involves funds, I’m sure they’ll keep it up. They’re even suing her for the donations they lost after she left!!! Even though they fired her — the word is chutzpah!
    My particular straw that broke the camel’s back (in addition to the rest we all know) is that the WPI put out a fancy, several-color fundraising brochure — and by the way they do get money from private donors, who are listed in that piece — and they put a beautiful quote by Anne Frank on it, with a photo of clasped hands. Anne Frank’s quote was about “hope.” I think my (normally low) blood pressure skyrocketed.
    To use Anne Frank for any fundraising other than for a Holocaust memorial, museum or organization, is the crassest opportunism. I don’t know who thought of that but it was horrendous. (And by the way, look at the budget in that thing.)
    I hope that the truth all comes out.

  13. in response to cathy’s note to me, found above.
    _____

    thanks, cathy, for your note. but no, i do not think dr. judy has been thinking a great deal about herself during this whole 3 year drama we’ve all watched unfold. in fact, she has been really selfless, and i speak from a place of now knowing the woman personally. so if you have come to trust me at all, due to my own actions/advocacy for our community, i hope you will consider trusting my opinion on this: i hold dr. mikovits in very high esteem. she is a rare human being. in fact, i wish she would think more of herself sometimes and less of the patients. because then she’d take the time to take care of herself better, instead of giving it all away to others. and she’d get to focus on restoring her reputation, which got trashed in the last year due to the WPI’s seemingly desperate and scary tactics.

    of course, it is out of my own self-interest that i feel we need her to get her good reputation back — so she can get back to working for us as the world-class scientist that she is.

    best,
    rivka

  14. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, for Judy.
    “Here’s to Judy, she’s True Blue! Harvey & Annette trumped up charges through and through. They are Bastard’s as we’ve seen, they’re are not going to succeed, they keep going the other way! Are the WPI going down! down! down! down! down?

  15. I am actually doing very well and so is my daughter-in-law and my grandson Devan Kenneth, who is very active inside his mothers belly right now. I am just so greatful that he has the best chance at having a healthy life give the fact I have a retrovirus. And I have one person to thank for that!

    • That’s great to hear Robyn! Are you by any chance on antiretrovirals? If not, may I ask what do you think has helped you?

      • Rebecca, No I’m not on antiretrovirals. Do to my major food sensitivities I dropped drastic amounts of weight. My gut was torn up too. My heart was in tachycardia mode almost 100 percent of the time. I think that may have been what was causing my shortness of breath.

        I believe that maybe do to my body’s inability to adequately process food and nutrients it was affecting my symptoms and they were getting worse. I believe I was literally starving to death. I think it’s also possible that maybe something is wrong with my mitochondria. I think this especially after reading some of the recent studies on Fibromyalgia and mitochondrial damage. I had no energy and I do now. I think my body may now be getting some of the what it was lacking. This is my opinion anyway.

        • Thank you for your reply Robyn! Do you mind me asking what helped you heal your gut? I feel like we’re twins as I too have lost a lot of weight and have major food sensitivitiesl. I hope you will see this and reply..

          • Rebecca, Yes I’ve had many comparison’s with twin’s. In fact I’ve had 3 very good friends throughout my life that are twins. I don’t consider my gut fully repaired. I’m also thinking I may need to add something else at some point for that. I am however taking a very potent probiotic which has helped alot, but my gut was really really bad. I believe now though that I am getting nutrients into my body and they are helping my symptoms.

              • I mean is it just the probiotics and nothing else? And is the probioitic VSL 3 by any chance? It is the most potent one I’ve found, and the most expensive.

  16. The lovely Judy deserves all credit for her selfless support of this patient community. I am mentally dancing round my kitchen at this news that I thought would never happen. Thank you Judy for your integrity and courage in the face of such horrendous crushing opposition.
    And no I do not believe Judy is God, nor that there is only room for one line of research in this field. Seriously consider the Whittemores are batting for the other team though, the name of which begins with D ; )

  17. Integrity..no I don’t think so. Charges were dismissed, “without prejudice” meaning can be refiled at a later date, at any time within the statutory limitations. There are other investigations taking place at the Federal level which takes a bit longer. So just don’t dance too high. It will all come out.

    • Trying to spin suspicion? Patients are used to this. The charges have been thrown out as they should never have been filed. They cannot be reintroduced without fresh evidence. The charges were dropped because the accusers are not credible witnesses and the witness statements were obtained under duress and not compiled using due process. No Judge would allow their presentation to a jury.

      The Federal level involves many heads rolling for not tackling MLV-related viruses earlier. If they are going to try and accuse scientists of anything then they should have had a scientist replicate Dr Mikovits and Ruscetti’s methods. The federal level is now being accused by the patients of willful abandonment of the scientific method and deliberately designing studies that are skewed to not find the retroviruses, but instead the synthetic virus XMRV.

      • The DA is trying to save face. They can’t exactly say Dr. Mikovits was arrested without evidence, because they believed the lies of a power broker who is currently under indictment for lying to the FBI. The WPI’s lawyer’s statement in the paper was pretty silly. “…the charges were dismissed not because the case lacked merit but because of issues related to the family of institute founder Annette Whittemore”. Issues such as honesty. LOL.

  18. I have corresponded with Dr Judy Mikovits from the moment she joined the wpi, I have absolutly no doubt that she genuinely wants to help patients, hwhy else would she have left the extreamly sucessful world of AIDS research and announced paraphrased – ‘I’m going to help people who suffer a little known disease but who suffer sometimes worse than AIDS patients, AIDS patients have treatments now with @ 20 specific drugs they can take, the mortality rate has decreased, but the people I’m going to help have no sucessful treatments and wedont even know the causality of the disease’. – paraphrased (cant find the exact original quoat when she left the AIDS Research field. Don’t get sucked in by the media themoney the intimidation or the marketing hype surrounding Dr Mikovits’s exit from the wpi. My hope was never with the wpi. The wpi is just a buisness runallong entirely comercial lines (not always ethical) that employs people wanting to research, but its a buisness and when a uneducated President who herself acnowleges that she doesn’t understand XMRV fires the researcher who does because the researcher has been opposing the ineffective VIP test that Dr. Vince Lombardi’s VIPDx’s inferior XMRV test which Dr Judy Mikovits correctly criticised from a sound scientific basis not from the basis of a desperate business model and it was Annette Whitemore’s monumentally inept decision to sack Dr Judy Mikovits after she publically voiced her very experienced and very valid rationale about Dr. Vince Lombardi’s research abilities which were based on 3 years of Dr Judy Mikovits observations having worked with Dr. Vince Lombardi and secondly there isn’t anyone competant enough to take on the lead researchers role at WPI then things naturally go pear shaped. Have a look at the people who jumped ship from the wpi – Professor Kenny de Meirleir was a foundng partner in 2005, he silently jumped ship but still supports the MLV, XMRV line, Dr Daniel Peterson jumped ship, and Judy rattled the cage so much until there was no other avenue open. The WPI was mismanaged by the President and Founder so much that 3 of the worlds leading ME/CFS researchers jumped ship. Don’t be fooled by the negative XMRV publications too. If the negative XMRV publications use inadequate methods then of course they wont find what Mikovits found. Why else would WPI and Annette have gone to such a conciderable extent and saught to legally block Judy and Frank from participating in further study namely the Lipkin paper which is using deep sequancing. Answer – Judy knows a vast amount about the detail. Dr. Lipkin went to considerable trouble to make sure Judy and Frank were involved with his study. They have both been working on it. Lipkin became transformed when he saw people in wheelchairs at the wpi, he asked “why are those people in wheelchairs?” and it seemed to be a pivotal moment for him. Why else would Dr. Ian Lipkin have gone to such considerable trouble to make sure Judy and Frank were involved with his study. Dr Judy Mikovits and Dr Frank Ruscetti know an awefull lod about MLV’s and XMRV’s and judging by Dr. Ian Lipkin’s recent paper on Autism where he scientifically redressed his stance and now takes almost the same view as Dr Andrew Wakefield, the guy Lipkin slaughteres 20 years ago (because Wakefield was correct), I am really hopeful that Dr Ian Lipkins paper on viral causalities of ME/CFS due at the end of this month will settle a lot of dust surrounding MLV’s ad XMRV’s.

  19. I would have felt more confident if you had not said MLVs. MLVs are the mouse viruses. XMRV is a synthetic lab artefact created by Bob Silverman in 2006. MRVs are the viruses the three positive ME studies detected.

    The NIH study has been re-branded as the “Lipkin” study so that patients don’t immediately understand this is a study organized and controlled by the Government bodies. This Government organized and controlled study has already ensured that the final work is not a replication of Lombardi et al.

    “Several months were required to develop clinical criteria for case and control definition and to complete approvals for human subject protection.“
    http://me-advocacy.com/Lipkin_study_cohort_problem.html

    What else will they change? Who is instructing the lab techs on how to collect blood and process the samples? How do we know this is being performed to the methods Mikovits and Ruscetti used in Lombardi et al.? One small error will prevent their methods from working. If the patients are not the same, why should we expect any positives?

    Why has the money for deep sequencing not been given to Dr Mikovits? Who is Lipkin to get this money? When did he ever do anything for ME patients? He hasn’t produced one retrovirus study, but the Government have given him the money for deep sequencing!

    I don’t see Lipkin jumping up and down about MRV infected autistic children, or defending Wakefield.

    • The post above is a pretty good example of the ignorance possessed by XMRV ‘advocates’ of even the fundamentals of the subject.

      1. XMRV was not created by Bob Silverman in 2006. It was created sometime in the mid-nineties and Bob Silverman had nothing to do with it. Bob Silverman was part of the team that discovered XMRV, not created it.

      2. The ‘Lipkin’ study is called the Lipkin study because it is too cumbersome to call it the Peterson, Mikovits, Ruscetti, Klimas, Bateman, Komaroff, Montoya, etc. study. All Ian Lipkin is doing is coordinating the study, he’s not even doing any of the work himself. The study protocol was devised by and agreed to by all participants, so to say that because government funding is being used to conduct the study that this somehow invalidates the study is bullshit, which is understandable due to bullshit being pretty much par for the course for the vast majority of ‘XMRV advocacy’.

      3. The patient selection criteria were tightened to ensure that all patients were extremely well characterized as having ME/CFS. It is worth noting that all patients in all of the ‘positive’ studies were simply well characterized ME/CFS patients, and were diagnosed by many of the exact same investigators involved in the Lipkin study.

      I think there could possibly be an issue with the study’s selection criteria though, which is that from what I remember all patients have to have ME/CFS accompanied by a sudden onset, lymphadenopathy, etc, with the logic of this being that sudden onset patients are more likely to have a viral aetiology to their disease. However I’m not sure if all viral diseases have a sudden onset. For instance I don’t know if hepatitis, AIDS, etc. have sudden viral onsets. So the only issue would be whether the selection criteria were actually too strict, not that they were not strict enough. However again, since all patients in the ‘positive’ XMRV studies were just random, though well characterized, ME/CFS patients, this shouldn’t be an issue. I think it still does remain an issue for future studies using this cohort though, because while a sudden flu like onset might be favored towards finding certain pathogens like enteroviruses, it might not be the best criteria for other potential pathogens.

      4. The issue of sample prep is another red herring. In fact that is what the entire point of the BWG study was, was to compare different types of sample preps. Immediate vs. delayed processing, plasma vs. PBMC’s, etc. At no point in time, using any protocol and/or assay, was the WPI, NCI, FDA, etc. able to tell patients vs. controls. Yet again, the fact that all samples from the ‘positive’ studies were simply banked and frozen ME/CFS samples argues against there needing to be some sort of ‘magic’ protocol for the tests to work.

      5. How do we know that the tests are being performed to the standards of Mikovits and Ruscetti? I don’t know, maybe because Judy Mikovits and Frank Ruscetti themselves are taking part in the study in the flesh and were also co-designers of the study to begin with?

      6. Again, all of the patients from all of the ‘positive’ studies were simply well characterized ME/CFS patients using banked samples, and were chosen by many of the exact same investigators who are taking part in the Lipkin study, with all of these patients being chosen before XMRV was even discovered.

      7. The money for deep sequencing has not been given to Mikovits because she hasn’t been able to replicate her results! You have to replicate your own results before you receive more money for further studies as well as bitching and moaning that others aren’t replicating them! Yet again, Lipkin is just coordinating this study and all parts of the study were designed by the collaborators involved, including Judy Mikovits and Frank Ruscetti. Ian Lipkin is not even taking part in the testing; the term ‘Lipkin study’ is simply an easy way to refer to the study.

      8. As far as I know, the government has not in fact given Lipkin the money for deep sequencing re: XMRV. The deep sequencing ME/CFS pathogen study money is coming from a private foundation. The reason why Lipkin was chosen to conduct this study is because he is one of the premier investigators in the world when it comes to this type of study, in fact he fucking invented several of the techniques used!

      PS- Yes I’m aware of the ‘XMRV isn’t the real pathogen’ argument, again it’s simpy an easy way of referring to MLV-gammaretrovirus studies in ME/CFS, which many of the negative studies have also included in their protocols despite what many ‘XMRV advocates’ go about ranting.

      • Do you know if the NIH Lipkin study is looking for MLV- gammaretroviruses as well as XMRV?

        Will the deep sequencing work done by the Chronic Fatigue Initiative study using Next Generation Sequencing finally determine without doubt whether these viruses infect M.E. sufferers?

        • MLV-gammaretroviruses are mouse viruses. Those would be the wrong viruses. They should be looking for MLV-like or MLV-related or MRVs or HGRVs. This was the same error made in the blood study.

          Deep sequencing if done incorrectly would not find HIV in a HIV infected person. The patients trust Dr Mikovits, she should be given the funding.

      • Mark, your red herrings are the red herrings. Who do you work for by the way? Every one under the sun is well aware that the retroviruses Dr Mikovits and Dr Ruscetti discovered are not XMRV, but are MRVs that are not XMRV. As were those found by Alter, Lo and Hanson.

        To address your opinions.

        “1. XMRV was not created by Bob Silverman in 2006. It was created sometime in the mid-nineties and Bob Silverman had nothing to do with it. Bob Silverman was part of the team that discovered XMRV, not created it.”

        XMRV is a laboratory artifact that Bob Silverman accidentally created in 2006. The Genbank records that virus as also being PreXMRV-1. The other two strains he discovered were not XMRV. There is no evidence at all that a virus was created in the 1990s. That is is fantasy speculation and would need evidence, which it is physically impossible to gather.

        “2. The ‘Lipkin’ study is called the Lipkin study because it is too cumbersome to call it the Peterson, Mikovits, Ruscetti, Klimas, Bateman, Komaroff, Montoya, etc. study. All Ian Lipkin is doing is coordinating the study, he’s not even doing any of the work himself. The study protocol was devised by and agreed to by all participants, so to say that because government funding is being used to conduct the study that this somehow invalidates the study is bullshit, which is understandable due to bullshit being pretty much par for the course for the vast majority of ‘XMRV advocacy’.”

        The NIH study is the brain child of Collins and Fauci. It is a Government study. Clearly they wish to not have any more studies conducted on these MRVs. Having it branded as the “Lipkin” study is not going to hide that it is the NIHs study. The people taking part were forced to do the study. They wouldn’t let them get away with saying they won’t take part. The study is invalidated because the entry criteria to be used are not the Canadian criteria. It is not a replication study. What else has been changed? Have they altered Dr Mikovits and Ruscetti’s proven assays through collection and processing? Only once the study is published will we have any idea as to the latter question (Mikovits is gagged still). But the cohort is not the Canadian criteria as in Lombardi et al., 2009.

        “There will be another attempt to figure out what’s going on, NIH director Francis Collins announced in his opening remarks to workshop participants. He said that in recent weeks he asked Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to direct a multi-center study of CFS patients to try to get to the bottom of the dispute. Collins said all the scientists need to “work together to get answers.”

        Fauci tells the Health Blog that one apparent factor in what he called “this curious situation with the discrepancy of results” is that the different groups were not looking at the same patients. He says he asked W. Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health whom Fauci calls “a world class virus hunter,” to head up the study.”
        http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/09/08/world-class-virus-hunter-to-head-up-the-latest-xmrv-study/

        “Several months were required to develop clinical criteria for case and control definition and to complete approvals for human subject protection.”
        http://me-advocacy.com/Lipkin_study_cohort_problem.html

        “3. The patient selection criteria were tightened to ensure that all patients were extremely well characterized as having ME/CFS. It is worth noting that all patients in all of the ‘positive’ studies were simply well characterized ME/CFS patients, and were diagnosed by many of the exact same investigators involved in the Lipkin study.”

        What does well characterized mean? Define it? If they are not Canadian criteria patients then the study is invalidated because it is not a replication study. It does not matter who the patients come from, it is the criteria that is important. The Patients in Lombardi et al., 2009 were Canadian, Hanson’s positives were Canadian, Komaroff’s were mostly Holmes criteria. But don’t forget an assay if not performed the same way has no promise of finding people who are positive. They have to prove that first through clinically validation. Alternatively they could replicate Mikovits and Ruscetti’s proven methods!

        “4. The issue of sample prep is another red herring. In fact that is what the entire point of the BWG study was, was to compare different types of sample preps. Immediate vs. delayed processing, plasma vs. PBMC’s, etc. At no point in time, using any protocol and/or assay, was the WPI, NCI, FDA, etc. able to tell patients vs. controls. Yet again, the fact that all samples from the ‘positive’ studies were simply banked and frozen ME/CFS samples argues against there needing to be some sort of ‘magic’ protocol for the tests to work.”

        There were no properly screened controls in the blood study. All could have been infected persons. The controls were not sent to all labs, and were not screened with all methods. The only samples that were checked by all were only the 3 lab workers, who work with the viruses and are exposed all the time. The samples were also not flash frozen and that my friend would stop Dr Mikovits and Dr Ruscetti’s assays from working. They also didn’t add Trizol or any other preservative at the time that is required by Dr Mikovits and Dr Rucetti’s assay. The serology assay on the other hand showed that some controls were infected. As this assay does not react to contamination or ERVs of any kind. You would never accept the results of a HIV test if it were not done using a magic protocol, i.e. Clinically validated assays.

        “5. How do we know that the tests are being performed to the standards of Mikovits and Ruscetti? I don’t know, maybe because Judy Mikovits and Frank Ruscetti themselves are taking part in the study in the flesh and were also co-designers of the study to begin with?”

        Dr Mikovits and Dr Ruscetti are not collecting, processing or responsible for accurately blinding the samples. They are not supervising those who have collected , processed the samples, so how do they know they are doing those aspects of the assays according to how they would require them to be done? They have not designed the study.

        “6. Again, all of the patients from all of the ‘positive’ studies were simply well characterized ME/CFS patients using banked samples, and were chosen by many of the exact same investigators who are taking part in the Lipkin study, with all of these patients being chosen before XMRV was even discovered.”

        No they were not. Two studies only had positives from Canadian criteria patients and the majority of the Lo et al., positives were Holmes criteria patients (24/37).

        “7. The money for deep sequencing has not been given to Mikovits because she hasn’t been able to replicate her results! You have to replicate your own results before you receive more money for further studies as well as bitching and moaning that others aren’t replicating them! Yet again, Lipkin is just coordinating this study and all parts of the study were designed by the collaborators involved, including Judy Mikovits and Frank Ruscetti. Ian Lipkin is not even taking part in the testing; the term ‘Lipkin study’ is simply an easy way to refer to the study.“

        Dr Mikovits has not been given the opportunity to replicate her results, the design of the blood study prevented that. Dr Mikovits has blinded replication studies she tried to publish, the journals were scared off by the Government. Deep sequencing has nothing to do with any of this. The Government doesn’t want to give the money to Dr Mikovits because she will sequence several complete viruses. Dr Lipkin having the money for deep sequencing is an insult to patients. It should go to Dr Mikovits, not an unknown entity with no prove record of standing up for the basic rights of ME patients. Kind of obvious the Government have an agenda or they would be funding it. Anyway the deep sequencing funding has nothing to do with this Government study, that is different money. Again, Dr Mikovits and Ruscetti did not design the study, or the CDC and FDA labs would be also using their proven assays, not their VP62 optimized unproven junk.

        “8. As far as I know, the government has not in fact given Lipkin the money for deep sequencing re: XMRV. The deep sequencing ME/CFS pathogen study money is coming from a private foundation. The reason why Lipkin was chosen to conduct this study is because he is one of the premier investigators in the world when it comes to this type of study, in fact he fucking invented several of the techniques used!”

        The family to replace the Whittemore’s with and make patients docile. Lipkin has never discovered a human retrovirus. He is called in when the Government are threatened by research. That boy has a whole lot of PR behind him.

        “PS- Yes I’m aware of the ‘XMRV isn’t the real pathogen’ argument, again it’s simpy an easy way of referring to MLV-gammaretrovirus studies in ME/CFS, which many of the negative studies have also included in their protocols despite what many ‘XMRV advocates’ go about ranting.”

        The sequences in the genbank are not XMRV.

        When they name XMRV they are not referring to the MRVs. XMRV was never detected by Mikovits, Lo, Ruscetti, Hanson, or Alter. They are other MRVs and their sequences are in the Genbank.

        • The deep sequencing work being carried out by the Chronic Fatigue Initiative will detect any and all known and unknown pathogens and should finally confirm the finding of gammmaretroviruses in M.E. patients. WPI is also doing a study on the antibodies found to these viruses in patients and so we should have more unarguable proof of human infection with HGRVs within the next 12-18months.
          Would anyone agree that these future studies should clarify things for us by using new technology that was not available when Lombardi et al was published in 2009?

          • No it won’t. It depends on the method of deep sequencing that is used.

            The WPI is not studying the retroviruses anymore.

            Dr Mikovits should be given funding. Patients trust Dr Mikovits.

  20. We should have undisputable answers to whether HGRVs exist in M.E. patients within the next 12-18 months when the Chronic Fatigue Initiative’s Deep Sequencing work and WPI’s study on antibodies comes out. It is a great pity that this technology was not available in 2009 when Lombardi et al was published – it would have saved a lot of grief in this matter. It would be wonderful if Judy could get a post at the CFI – I’m sure they would benefit from her vast degree of expert knowledge in these matters.

    • The CFI (Chronic fatigue initiative) is not studying people with ME/cfs. They are a fatigue group looking at those without a neuroimmune disease. Dr Mikovits has been studying the association of MRVs to people with the neuroimmune disease ME (ME/cfs) and to the population in general, where those with fatigue would fall. Deep sequencing using CFI selected people is absurd.

  21. It depends on the method of deep sequencing that is used.

    Dr Mikovits should be given funding to do NGS, she at least would use the technology correctly. Patients trust Dr Mikovits.

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