#xmrv

[hondawrench]

#Repost @wmanthoni A JAILED immunologist exposing a few likely scenarios, one including a retrovirus a lot of us may already have. #xmrv #mikovits #autism #cfs #myalgicencephalomyelitis #billgates #johnshopkins #who #event201 #chinese / #democRAT #scorchedearth #bioweapon #conspiracy to DESTROY @realdonaldtrump @potus.45 via #coronavirus #psyop #maga #kag2020 ONLY by LANDSLIDE because of PLANNED #democRATs #electionfraud #maga #kag2020 (;-{|)-]-< #ThisOldWrench https://www.instagram.com/p/B_WD9-dFzmD/?igshid=1l7wxn3bwxr9b

[kea101-blog]

XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome: DOUBLE RETRACTED

So, they finally retracted Lo et al, which should have never been published in the first place, as it turns out their findings were contamination, and they should have been aware of that if they BLASTed their goddamn sequences or did some basic evolutionary biology before they tried to publish.

Again, via Retraction Watch:

Another shoe drops as authors retract PNAS chronic fatigue syndrome-virus paper The authors wish to note the following: "Although our published findings were reproducible in our laboratory and while there has been no evidence of contamination using sensitive mouse mitochondrial DNA or IAP assays or in testing coded panels, we have the following concerns:

1. The original chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patient samples were of insufficient volume to distribute to other laboratories for independent confirmation. 2. Only one (1) of many laboratories has found a similar association between polytropic murine leukemia viruses (pMLV) and CFS and a careful study of 100 CFS patients (2), as well as a coded panel recently constructed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (3), have found no evidence for either xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) or pMLVs in CFS patient samples. 3. Our attempts, through collaborations, to demonstrate antibody in affected patients, to isolate the virus by culture, or to show integration sites in the human genome have failed to support the initial findings. 4. While recall of eight patients from the original cohort 15 y later showed pMLV gag sequences in seven, the copy number was very low and phylogenetic analysis showed these sequences were not direct descendents of the original dominant strains (4). Still later samples from four of these patients tested negative in the NHLBI panel. While this result could be explained by viral clearance over time, it fails to support a sustained retroviral infection in human cells.

Although a more definitive, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)-sponsored, coded panel of samples from 150 well-characterized and geographically diverse CFS patients and controls is being assembled for further study, in consideration of the aggregate data from our own laboratory and that of others, it is our current view that the association of murine gamma retroviruses with CFS has not withstood the test of time or of independent verification and that this association is now tenuous. Therefore, we retract the conclusions in our article.

Gee, thanks. I hope your sloppy (but high-profile!) publication was worth wasting everyones time and money, and jerking around patients. Thanks.

But hey, at least you all were grown up enough to retract this yourself and didnt have to have Bruce Alberts do it for you.

[itsokaytobesmart]

As CFS patients continue to feel abandoned by the scientific mainstream, a look back at the saga of fraudulent research, lack of government oversight, and some stolen lab notebooks:

Two years ago, Judy Mikovits and the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease were triumphant. Mikovits had just published a report inScience pointing to a retrovirus called XMRV as the possible cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood illness characterized by debilitating flu-like symptoms that worsen with exertion. A wealthy woman whose daughter has the disease had started the institute in 2007 to study CFS, fibromyalgia, and Gulf War illness—and it wasn't long before its researchers appeared to have shown they could succeed where two decades of government-led research had produced little.

Best of all for many CFS patients, the work seemed to offer undeniable proof of what they had long hoped to establish: that their disease has a physiological cause, not a psychological one.

But as of mid-November, the XMRV retrovirus research had been discredited and was suspected of being fraudulent; Mikovits sat clad in a blue jumpsuit in a California jail, accused of stealing lab notebooks and computer files from her former employer; the research program at the Whittemore-Peterson Institute was in disarray; and CFS patients were as confused as ever about the source of their illness and how to treat it.

(via Slate)

[zenmonkey]

Judy Mikovits in jail

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-nw-chronic-fatigue-scientist-arrest-20111122,0,5455739.story (by Trine Tsouderos)

Two years ago, researcher Judy Mikovits was riding high atop a wave of promise.

She had published one of the most discussed papers of the year in one of the most prestigious scientific publications in the world.

Her team's findings were hailed as a potential breakthrough for an illness — chronic fatigue syndrome — that had long frustrated researchers. She was invited to speak at scientific conferences around the globe. Adoring patients crowded her at her talks.

Now, in a stunning twist, Mikovits is sitting in a California jail cell, held without bond, awaiting an arraignment hearing Tuesday. An arrest warrant issued by University of Nevada at Reno police lists two felony charges: possession of stolen property and conspiracy.

She was fired in September, and this month her former employer filed a lawsuit alleging she had wrongfully taken lab notebooks, a computer and other proprietary data. Other researchers have discredited her work, and the journal Science, which published her study, is investigating whether the data were manipulated.

The only constant is the patients who continue to rally around her.

"Remember that we are behind you every step of the way, even whilst you sit alone in jail wondering what will come next," one person wrote on a blog called OslersWeb.

Well, what in the seven hells is this now? Could this scientific soap opera get any more bizarre? Never mind, forget I asked.

"The only constant...." Yes, the only constant there will ever be are the patients who have completely abandoned critical thinking in favor of hero worship. These are the exact same types who continue to lionize Andrew Wakefield despite his incompetence, fraud, and penchant for giving colonoscopies and spinal taps to children without consent or approval. No matter whether Mikovits is found to have committed two federal crimes, or defrauded the entire ME/CFS community, these patients will be "behind [her] every step of the way."

I'm pretty sure if Mikovits killed an ME/CFS patient with an XMRV-infected mouse, in front of two CCTV cameras and a network TV crew, this particular subset of the community would claim she'd been framed. Why am I not writing as much about ME/CFS anymore? Because these very people have completely worn me out with their ridiculous bullshit. I loathe having to be associated with them and I'm no longer going to sugarcoat it. 

Happily, science has moved on to many more interesting research angles. What are these die-hards going to do when a cure or treatment comes from, say, gene research and not XMRV, I wonder? Admit they were wrong? I eagerly await that day for a number of reasons.

[thecornerroom]

There Is Great Urgency

The following is a transcript of the speech my father gave on September 15th, 2011, at the Whittemore Peterson Institute fundraising gala. 

I am most honored to accept the WPI’s Outstanding Advocate award.  In doing so, I pay tribute to the Institute and to the broad and varied forms of advocacy performed by so many dedicated people, each playing his or her part in the fight against neuro-immune disease that  the WPI was created to combat.   

My daughter, Alexis, is seriously ill with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (better known as ME.)

She has been housebound in St. Paul, MN, for six years.  Because of her deteriorating condition, I have had to move full time from my home in Philadelphia to help her.  Our biggest problem is that she has no attending physician. She is unable to travel to an office, and we have found no one willing to manage her care at home.   I, a sculptor, make medical decisions for my daughter, based on telephone consultations with a web of physicians throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. 

One of the fundamental difficulties in dealing with this illness is this lack of ongoing medical care.  Doctors for the most part do not believe the illness is physical or infectious, and in large part are unable or refuse to treat it.  Another giant hurdle is the lack of coherent data.  The WPI is dedicated to addressing these problems.

Patients with neuro-immune diseases are taken out of the game of life, and there is so little help. They, and their advocates and caregivers alike, are isolated from friends and family, and cut off from the usual avenues for medical care. Lives of patients and families are constrained, limited, and indeed shattered by these experiences. An ME sufferer once said to me: “This is not the worst disease but it is among the cruelest.”

I am here today because the WPI is a bastion of hope for my family. I was in Reno in August 2010 for the dedication of the WPI building, and to help my son Peter make a short informational video for the WPI.  In an interview for the video, WPI founder and director Annette Whittemore recalled a watershed moment.  About the illness, she thought:

“Why isn’t anyone doing anything?   And you keep asking the question, and then one day you wake up and say, maybe that person is me, maybe that is what I am supposed to be doing.”

Out of Annette’s moment of revelation the WPI was born.

In this chaotic world of illness-dictated living, my daughter and I are like an island detached from the mainland of life. The WPI is a new causeway, a bridge bringing less isolation, more cohesive research data and more treatment.  Through the tireless work of Dr. Judy Mikovits and Dr. Vincent Lombardi, the WPI represents a new dimension: a new dynamic. The Institute’s goals are to bring research data to the study of neuro- immune disease, and to provide a framework where doctors can accumulate and share treatment options. 

The question I ask myself is what can I do to help?

Personally, I do not believe that the government is going to step in and help to find a cure for ME. Instead I think the future for research and treatment is as a private enterprise with private financing, like the March of Dimes. We cannot wait to be rescued. We have to do it ourselves. Increased scientific research and improved clinical medicine cost money.

Over the last two weeks I have contacted everyone that I know and everyone that my daughter, wife, and sons know, and asked them to make a small contribution to the WPI. In the course of this effort each of these individuals has learned more about my daughter’s illness - and about the Institute that is working on a solution.  Many people came forward (some with a little persuasion). All of these people are new givers. All now know more about neuro-immune disease - and the WPI’s work to find treatments that work. All of them will give in the future.  In two weeks I have raised $10,000.

I present my efforts as a demonstration, an example of what one person can do. Stringing a number of these smaller grass roots gifts together can meet achievable and valuable goals – hiring an additional lab technician, making informational videos for outreach, or financing small pilot trials.

I ask that each of you consider acting as I have done to spread the word about the WPI and to increase knowledge of and support for the Institute’s critical work. The need is so immediate and so great.  Those whose lives have been destroyed by this illness deserve all the help we can muster. There is great urgency.

Thank you.

A note to readers: My hearing has improved dramatically over eleven weeks of treatment so far.  I will write more about it as soon as I can.  Thank you for the incredible support and kindness you have shown me this year.

[bioslut]

This is just juvenile

Chronic fatigue syndrome researchers face death threats from militants

The full extent of the campaign of intimidation, attacks and death threats made against scientists by activists who claim researchers are suppressing the real cause of chronic fatigue syndrome is revealed today by the Observer. According to the police, the militants are now considered to be as dangerous and uncompromising as animal rights extremists.

One researcher told the Observer that a woman protester who had turned up at one of his lectures was found to be carrying a knife. Another scientist had to abandon a collaboration with American doctors after being told she risked being shot, while another was punched in the street. All said they had received death threats and vitriolic abuse.

Really, just really? This is what supposedly mature adults do? Attention morons, scientists are your friends. Scientists are trying to figure out how the damn thing works and treat it. If your pet theory is wrong, we don't care. Genuine help means that you have to let them do their job. And violence is flat unacceptable.

It is the latter group that has become the subject of extremists' attacks. The antagonists hate any suggestion of a psychological component and insist it is due to external causes, in particular viruses. In the case of McClure, her "crime" was to publish a paper indicating that early studies linking the syndrome to the virus XMRV were wrong and the result of laboratory contamination. So furious was the reaction that she had to withdraw from a US collaboration because she was warned she might be shot.

But, I guess it's clear some people would rather be deluded than helped. One more quote from the article to finish this post. Read the whole thing, it is headache inducing.

"The tragedy is that this tiny group of activists are driving young scientists from working in the field," said Sharpe. "In the end, these campaigns are only going to harm patients."

[thecornerroom]

Girls in White Dresses with Blue Satin Sashes

I admit this might be the cheesiest post ever. But, you see, I’ve been going through The Sound of Music, scene by scene, in my mind, singing the songs to myself in my head. One of the most famous of these, “My Favorite Things,” just keeps coming back: “Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes,/ Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes . . .” The theme of the song is pretty basic: when you are feeling sad, just think of some of your favorite things and you’ll feel better. Simplistic, I know, but I decided to try it once, after the song had been stuck in my head for days. And, well, it worked. I felt better, at least for a little while, and I’ve tried it many times since with the same result. So, cheesy or not, here goes: a few of my favorite things (CFS or no CFS) . . .

taking the train, any kind of train, anywhere

the smells of my dad’s studio: plaster, wet clay and Murphy’s Oil Soap

that scene in Double Indemnity where Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck meet at her home to discuss life insurance, but instead end up discussing her anklet and the speed limit

Nina Simone’s version of “I Put a Spell on You”

playing Scrabble with my mom and grandma in East Otis, MA

Mike’s Elvis impression

Gilmore Girls

the fact that I am (almost) always healthy in my dreams

Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson calling the Phillies games on WPHT

the smell of warm rain (and being out in it)

when you open an old paperback and find, stuck in its pages, the relics of the last time you read it: ticket stubs, postcards, receipts, scraps of paper with notes that don’t mean anything anymore written on them

the blue blue Minnesota twilight sky

Indian food

new socks

the ending of The Age of Innocence

going to the movies alone

walking the streets of New York City, my favorite place in the world

[thecornerroom]

My brother Peter made this short video, which features Whittemore Peterson Institute spokesperson Donnica Moore, with the WPI, for last month's Neuro-Immune Awareness Month.  See more of the videos Peter has made with the WPI at youtube.com/whittemorepeterson.