From our wonderful CFSCENTRAL.COM ..more info..
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 By super smart: Mindy KiteiCDC and FDA/NIH STUDIES ON HOLD
http://www.cfscentral.com/2010/06/curiouser-and-curiouser.html
On April 15, 2010, a government source told CFS Central that a soon-to-be-published CDC study hadn’t found the retrovirus XMRV in CFS patients but that another government agency had. The agency that found XMRV in CFS patients—and up to 7 percent of the blood supply—turned out to be two agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the FDA, as was leaked last week.
Today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the CDC paper, which was accepted at the journal Retrovirology, has been put on hold, as has the FDA/NIH paper, which was accepted at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The reason? According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s because “senior public-health officials wanted to see consensus—or at least an explanation of how and why the papers reached different conclusions.”
In addition, the Wall Street Journal also reported that a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the research was being reviewed to ensure “accuracy” and “relevancy of the scientific information.”
Some insiders say that this is a face-saving move to come up with a plausible explanation for the disparate XMRV findings and to present a united front so as not to confuse the public about blood safety.
The CDC has had a problematic year where CFS is concerned. The long-time CDC principal investigator for CFS research Dr. William Reeves was reassigned on February 14, which many critics believe was because the scientist was embarrassing the agency. After Dr. Judy Mikovits's paper linking XMRV to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was published in Science in October, Reeves told the New York Times: “We and others are looking at our own specimens and trying to confirm it. If we validate it, great. My expectation is that we will not.” Reeves also told the Times that the culprits behind CFS were more likely sexual and emotional abuse and an inability to handle stress.
Privately, insiders have told CFS Central that they did not expect the CDC to find the retrovirus because the agency’s CFS definition has been watered down from one neuroimmune disease to five different combinations of depression, insomnia, obesity and “metabolic strain,” as Reeves himself explained in a 2009 paper. In a 2008 CDC paper, “An extended concept of altered self,” Dr. Jim Jones argued that illnesses such as CFS are “illness states” rather than “true diseases.” A CDC paper from 2006 on coping styles found CFS patients guilty of “maladaptive coping” and “escape-avoiding behavior.”
If the CDC had found the retrovirus, it would have negated its 20-year affair with CFS as a psychological problem. Now that two other government agencies have found XMRV and other studies due out this summer have also found the retrovirus, critics point out that the CDC is in a no-win situation and beginning to look like the odd man out.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 By super smart: Mindy KiteiCDC and FDA/NIH STUDIES ON HOLD
http://www.cfscentral.com/2010/06/curiouser-and-curiouser.html
On April 15, 2010, a government source told CFS Central that a soon-to-be-published CDC study hadn’t found the retrovirus XMRV in CFS patients but that another government agency had. The agency that found XMRV in CFS patients—and up to 7 percent of the blood supply—turned out to be two agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the FDA, as was leaked last week.
Today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the CDC paper, which was accepted at the journal Retrovirology, has been put on hold, as has the FDA/NIH paper, which was accepted at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The reason? According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s because “senior public-health officials wanted to see consensus—or at least an explanation of how and why the papers reached different conclusions.”
In addition, the Wall Street Journal also reported that a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the research was being reviewed to ensure “accuracy” and “relevancy of the scientific information.”
Some insiders say that this is a face-saving move to come up with a plausible explanation for the disparate XMRV findings and to present a united front so as not to confuse the public about blood safety.
The CDC has had a problematic year where CFS is concerned. The long-time CDC principal investigator for CFS research Dr. William Reeves was reassigned on February 14, which many critics believe was because the scientist was embarrassing the agency. After Dr. Judy Mikovits's paper linking XMRV to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was published in Science in October, Reeves told the New York Times: “We and others are looking at our own specimens and trying to confirm it. If we validate it, great. My expectation is that we will not.” Reeves also told the Times that the culprits behind CFS were more likely sexual and emotional abuse and an inability to handle stress.
Privately, insiders have told CFS Central that they did not expect the CDC to find the retrovirus because the agency’s CFS definition has been watered down from one neuroimmune disease to five different combinations of depression, insomnia, obesity and “metabolic strain,” as Reeves himself explained in a 2009 paper. In a 2008 CDC paper, “An extended concept of altered self,” Dr. Jim Jones argued that illnesses such as CFS are “illness states” rather than “true diseases.” A CDC paper from 2006 on coping styles found CFS patients guilty of “maladaptive coping” and “escape-avoiding behavior.”
If the CDC had found the retrovirus, it would have negated its 20-year affair with CFS as a psychological problem. Now that two other government agencies have found XMRV and other studies due out this summer have also found the retrovirus, critics point out that the CDC is in a no-win situation and beginning to look like the odd man out.
the CDC paper must be right, eh? 
