Your reply to my post was an article from Snopes;
Was a Scientist Jailed After Discovering a Deadly Virus Delivered Through Vaccine
THeir answer:
Judy Mikovits did not discover a deadly virus delivered through vaccines; she was arrested for allegedly stealing equipment belonging to the Institute that fired her.
Alex Kasprak
Claim
Researcher Judy Mikovits was thrown in jail after she refused to discredit research that led to the discovery that deadly retroviruses have been transmitted through vaccines.
Snopes rated this claim FALSE
Origin
In 2009, biologist Judy Mikovits, who was then the research director of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome-focused Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI), published a paper on what she and many others thought to be a major scientific breakthrough in the prestigious journal Science. Her team alleged to have demonstrated an association between a newly discovered retrovirus called “xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus” (XMRV) and the poorly understood condition known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), suggesting a potential viral cause for CFS.
The paper received substantial international coverage. However, as with so many other potentially groundbreaking studies, nobody — including many of the same researchers involved with the original study — was able to replicate its results. ((Numerous attempts failed to replicate the study, and the research itself came under increasing scrutiny for sloppy methods and its reliance on misleading or manufactured figures.))
Not true.
[They were not allowed to continue the research and arrested Judy. Its reported in the Nature magazine report why Judy did not agree to the whole retraction. Dr Lipkin hints they were not allowed to continue in his report who 'sheperded' the whole thing. ]
Science is fully retracting the Report “Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome”. Multiple laboratories, including those of the original authors, have failed to reliably detect xenotropic murine leukemia virus– related virus (XMRV) or other murine leukemia virus (MLV)–related viruses in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients. In addition, there is evidence of poor quality control in a number of specific experiments in the Report … Given all of these issues, Science has lost confidence in the Report and the validity of its conclusions … We are therefore editorially retracting the Report. We regret the time and resources that the scientific community has devoted to unsuccessful attempts to replicate these results.
https://www.nature.com/news/the-scientist-who-put-the-nail-in-xmrv-s-coffin-1.11444
The scientist who put the nail in XMRV's coffin
W. Ian Lipkin tells Nature about his efforts to validate the link between retroviruses and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Ewen Callaway
18 September 2012
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The Center for Infection and Immunity
W. Ian Lipkin
A study published today1 has found no evidence to support research linking the retroviruses XMRV2 and pMLV3 to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The US$2.3-million study, funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), comes three years after a link between XMRV and CFS was first reported in Science2 (see timeline, below).
W. Ian Lipkin, a molecular epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York, was not involved with the initial studies, but he shepherded the effort to replicate them to completion. Three laboratories, including the two that made the original discoveries, tested blood samples from 147 patients with CFS and 146 healthy volunteers, and then reported their results to Lipkin's laboratory for analysis.
The veteran scientist, who has debunked other disease links such as that between autism and vaccines, tells Nature about the study — including his efforts to keep Judy Mikovits, an XMRV researcher formerly at the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) in Reno, Nevada, out of jail for taking notebooks from her former laboratory — and why he hopes that some good will come out of the study.
What’s the history of this study?
When these two papers2, 3 came out very close together, there was a lot of concern. There was a lot of optimism as well, because now there was a potentially tractable solution for CFS. Many people began trying to replicate the work. Some people were able to do so and some weren’t, but there really wasn’t any coherence to it. It became clear that it was necessary to have some sort of investigation of this disorder and find out whether or not there was any link.
What was really needed was a properly designed study in which the individuals who made these reports could use their own best efforts. I’ve come to the conclusion that the most important thing you can do is to design the study, supervise it and then get out of the way.
Did everything go as planned?
Judy Mikovits, during the middle of all of this, was forced out of her job at the Whittemore Peterson Institute. [She was subsequently accused of stealing her lab notebooks and jailed.] Before she was incarcerated, I tried to negotiate some sort of agreement between her and the institute, so that this would not happen. One of the problems was that she really did need access to her laboratory notebooks so that she could answer questions from other scientists and patients, and she was not given an option to do that. She took these notebooks — and I trust that it was true — with the notion that she wanted to copy them.
Did you find any hint that XMRV is associated with CFS?
We did not find any genetic sequences [of XMRV or related viruses] in the people with CFS or the controls. As far as we know, there is no human being that is infected with XMRV.
The one wrinkle is that there were patients who were found to be XMRV-positive in serological tests by Francis Ruscetti, [an immunologist at the NIH in Frederick, Maryland,] in 9 cases and 9 controls. Some might say that this is evidence that there are people who are infected with XMRV, even if it isn’t associated with CFS. But I have concerns about that interpretation. If you consider this in the context of the work that shows that XMRV originates in the laboratory4, then I think we can probably close the door on this once and for all.
Will we ever have a full explanation of what happened?
I think the explanation is that there was contamination. I don’t see any reason to invoke anything beyond that.
Do you think there are lessons to be learned from this saga?
Related stories
XMRV paper withdrawn
Chronic fatigue syndrome: life after XMRV
Virology: Fighting for a cause
More related stories
My expectation is that this will be a cautionary note. We will see far more of these sorts of observations coming out over the next few years, as people use ever more sensitive methods for discovering infectious agents.
Why was this study necessary, given the failed replication efforts?
The only thing that matters is that the people who originally reported the finding had an opportunity to test it with a large, appropriately powered group. This was the definitive study and it was crucial that it be done properly.
Had we done this when Andrew Wakefield [the former medical researcher who proposed that autism was caused by vaccines] came out with the initial report5 about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, and had something this definitive, there are many more children who would have been vaccinated against measles during the ten years it took us to finally complete the MMR–autism work6. So I think it’s crucial that we don’t do things in a half-baked fashion, so we can test hypotheses and move on to new ones.
Do you think the CFS community and the scientists involved will accept these results?
I certainly hope so. I feel very badly for Mikovits, [her co-author] Ruscetti and Harvey Alter [a hematologist at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, who led one of the CFS studies]. Mikovits in particular — she has lost everything. She can be wrong but she’s not a criminal. She has been honest in a respectful, forceful way and said that we have to conclude that we were wrong. You can imagine how difficult it must be, and I think she should be applauded. Lots of people wouldn’t have the balls to do that. She has come across as a scientist who really believes in the importance of truth.
You have disproved the autism–MMR connection and other controversial disease links. Have you dealt with anything quite like the XMRV case?
I’ve never seen anything like this. To talk to somebody who is running from the law or has been incarcerated, or to try to adjudicate some sort of agreement so she doesn’t go to jail, it’s a little beyond the pale. I hope I never do anything like this again. Whatever it is we do, we’re castigated. My mailbox has been full today with complaints from people in the community saying: “You didn’t do this, you didn’t do that.”
What do you say to the CFS community to stop them from thinking that scientists will turn their back on CFS when this study is complete?
I have to agree with them that they’ve not received the attention that other groups have had. They’ve tried to take a page from people who work in autism, who looked at HIV/AIDS, breast cancer and so on, and the CFS community has not been as vocal and effective as they might be.
What I say to them is this: the fact that we did this study means we did take you seriously. We didn’t do a shoddy piece of work. We’re ready to invest in the next phase of research. There are all these samples that will be available. There will be funding opportunities. It’s evidence, I think, of an unprecedented opportunity for people to do basic and applied research into the causes and ways in which one can prevent or mitigate the tragedy that is CFS. People with CFS should actually feel heartened that there’s more energy and effort going into this. It wouldn’t make any sense for us to dwell on something that doesn’t work.
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/chronic-fatigue-researcher-to-publish-book-37816
Microscopic image of XMRV (Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus)
WIKIMEDIA, CDC
In 2009, Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada, published a Science paper claiming that the majority of chronic fatigue patients she and her team examined (68 out of 101) carried xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV). The researchers proposed XMRV as the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Two years later, Science retracted the paper without the full consent of Mikovits and her coauthors when follow-up studies failed to replicate the results indicated that laboratory contamination may have led to the findings.
A veritable circus ensued with Mikovits being fired, sued, and arrested on charges were later dropped, all while she maintained her innocence and stuck by her claim that XMRV caused CFS. Now Mikovits has coauthored a book, Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth about Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases, detailing the ordeal, according to Retraction Watch.
Mikovits’s coauthor, Kent Heckenlively, drew the link from the XMRV-CFS story to the autism-vaccine conspiracy theory in a piece published Monday (March 10) on Age of Autism, a blog predicated on the premise that autism is a manmade affliction. “In many ways I felt her story, especially the campaign of persecution against her,” he wrote, “mirrored that of many other honest scientists who have looked for answers to the questions raised by these diseases.”
Heckenlively was referring to discredited autism researcher Andrew Wakefield, whose published claims that measles, mumps, rubella vaccinations caused autism were retracted from the literature and thoroughly debunked. Mikovits’s own follow-up research on the link between XMRV and CFS refuted her earlier findings. “The bottom line is we found no evidence of infection with XMRV,” said Mikovits’s co-author Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in a statement on the 2012 study. “These results refute any correlation between these agents and disease."
Keywords:
bookschronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)Mikovitretractionxmrv
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https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/chronic-fatigue-researcher-to-publish-book-37816
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/03/11/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-researcher-mikovits-who-championed-link-to-xmrv-to-publish-book/
Here’s a teaser for the book:
On July 22, 2009, a special meeting was held with twenty-four leading scientists at the National Institutes of Health to discuss early findings that a newly discovered retrovirus was linked to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), prostate cancer, lymphoma, and eventually neurodevelopmental disorders in children.
When Dr. Judy Mikovits finished her presentation the room was silent for a moment, then one of the scientists said, “Oh my God!” The resulting investigation would be like no other in science.
For Dr. Mikovits, a twenty-year veteran of the National Cancer Institute, this was the midpoint of a five-year journey that would start with the founding of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease at the University of Nevada, Reno, and end with her as a witness for the federal government against her former employer, Harvey Whittemore, for illegal campaign contributions to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
On this journey Dr. Mikovits would face the scientific prejudices against CFS, wander into the minefield that is autism, and through it all struggle to maintain her faith in God, the American justice system and the profession to which she had dedicated her life. This is a story for anybody interested in the promise and peril of science at the very highest levels in our country.
The story is certainly full of drama, and twists and turns. Mikovits ended up in jail at one point on charges that were later dropped. But while the teaser mentions “early findings,” what it omits is that papers linking XMRV with CFS and prostate cancer have been retracted.
The Science retraction notice is worth reviewing:
Science is fully retracting the report “detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome” (1). Multiple laboratories, including those of the original authors (2), have failed to reliably detect xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV) or other murine leukemia virus (MLV )–related viruses in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients. In addition, there is evidence of poor quality control in a number of specific experiments in the Report. Figure 1, table S1, and fig. S2 have been retracted by the authors (3). In response to concerns expressed about Fig. 2C [summarized in (4)], the authors acknowledged to Science that they omitted important information from the legend of this figure panel. Specifically, they failed to indicate that the CFS patient–derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) shown in Fig. 2C had been treated with azacytidine as well as phytohemagglutinin and interleukin-2. This was in contrast to the CFS samples shown in Figs. 2A and 2B, which had not been treated with azacytidine.
Given all of these issues, Science has lost confidence in the Report and the validity of its conclusions. We note that the majority of the authors have agreed in principle to retract the Report but they have been unable to agree on the wording of their statement. It is Science‘s opinion that a retraction signed by all the authors is unlikely to be forthcoming. We are therefore editorially retracting the Report. We regret the time and resources that the scientific community has devoted to unsuccessful attempts to replicate these results.
In fact, a 2012 study — co-authored by Mikovits — “puts the speculation to rest” about any link between the virus and CFS, according to lead author Ian Lipkin.
Mikovits recently co-founded MAR Consulting, which, according to its website:
MAR Consulting Inc., led by Drs. Frank Ruscetti and Judy Mikovits, seeks to understand complex and innovative biological issues to yield unbiased integrated, cutting-edge information for patients and physicians impacted by some of the most challenging chronic diseases. Utilizing their combined 75 years experience in tumor biology, immunobiology of retroviral-associated inflammatory diseases, cancer, stem cell biology, hematopoiesis, and drug development, MAR focuses on research projects, consulting (to patients doctors, academia, and industry) and lecturing without the restrictive authority of vested interest groups, following Thomas Jefferson’s dictum: “Here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as freedom is left free to combat it.”
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