If i read the entire blog entry and his replies to comments
i did. Looks like he's trying to both backtrack and uphold the contamination causation.
here is just a few posts about his statement:
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Omerbasket [Moderator] 2 hours ago
Mr. Racaniello. You said in the comments: "There are clearly questions that remained to be addressed". You also said that LNCap cells cannot produce antibodies - and you probably know that the WPI found antibodies to XMRV, and it is published in the Science paper. Meaning that it just cannot be a contamination.
So why, if you think and know all the above, you told the Chicago Tribune today that "it is the beginning of the end for XMRV"?
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profvrr [Moderator] 1 hour ago in reply to Omerbasket
The finding of antibodies does not necessarily disprove contamination
- there are other explanations. My statement to the Tribune yesterday
was based on my initial reading of the Retrovirology papers. However
upon further consideration it is clear that the results of all four
papers do not challenge the existence of XMRV in patients; rather they
point out potential pitfalls in doing research on this virus.
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Otis [Moderator] 17 minutes ago in reply to profvrr
While I appreciate your willingness to reconsider your initial position it makes one wonder about how much effort you apply to appropriate scientific rigor prior to making such comments, blog posts or podcasts. Your statement here does little to undo conclusions based on your previous statement.