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Dr Peterson retiring from medical director at WPI

MEKoan

Senior Member
Messages
2,630
Oh Cort, you do love drama.

Sharpening Their Knives

Can you hear the knives sharpening?

Then a series of problems occurs.

A Different Tack

Betting the Farm

I can practically hear the cogs turning in your head. I mean this in the most affectionate way: I get the feeling you just love drama.

Doesn't make any of it so but you sure do make it sound dramatic!
 

MEKoan

Senior Member
Messages
2,630
Tina, this is beautiful!

Tina said:
I posted this on Facebook under the announcement:

Dr. Peterson, I wish you peace from being in the front lines of our battle. You have been a gallant soldier for decades. I hope now that even though you are still keeping hold your loyalty to your patients, that you can also find some time for personal interests. You deserve it. Let the others build on the foundation you created.

I hope some day a "based on real" life movie is made to show the heroism of a man who gave up so much to fight for the sick and weak.

"Thank you" does not seem good enough. But it is what I can give. And know I give it from the depth of every malfunctioning cell in my body.

Tina
 

Cort

Phoenix Rising Founder
Cort did you see the Prague thread with Dr Mikovits' poster? there are lots of goodies and stuff that makes us want to hear more. XMRV is "it"

I think Dr. Mikovits has alot of compelling evidence indicating that XMRV is 'it' or at least is important and the finding is valid. They have strong stuff - overlapping levels of evidence - that seems very compelling to me. Their internal findings appear to be matching up correctly - very important! We just need those positive studies to start coming out. Just find it using PCR in even a subset of patients and I think we and them are off to the races....
 

Cort

Phoenix Rising Founder
Oh Cort, you do love drama.



I can practically hear the cogs turning in your head. I mean this in the most affectionate way: I get the feeling you just love drama.

Doesn't make any of it so but you sure do make it sound dramatic!

I think you're right.... I think the ideas are valid but I do err on the drama side - both positive and negative. (good call!) Maybe I should have been a screenwriter.....
 

Michael Dessin

Senior Member
Messages
608
Location
Ohio
It is our right to full transparency...A lot of sick people put their faith and MONEY towards WPI for the sole reason of the P in WPI, now the P is gone, what the heck are people supposed to think.

There is only a handful of docs who understand CFS the way Peterson does, its nearly impossible for someone to fill his shoes there :(
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
Hey Koan--

What's that Buddhist slogan about "NOT KNOWING?"... about being okay with suspending judgment until you know?
Sounds like we need that reminder here now.

Drama can be exciting, yes, but all that anticipatory anxiety is just such a drain.
 

serenity

Senior Member
Messages
571
Location
Austin
Tina that was beautiful! i'm just gonna stay XMRV positive (no pun intended) - Australia banning CFS donors is what is on my mind.
 

Cort

Phoenix Rising Founder
Hi Mike,


Anyway, I don't think WPI is somehow morally forced to provide the world "full transparency" in their own doings and decisions as a research institute - what institution in the world as is will give this, really and fully, after all? - and that what counts in the end most for patients is the quality and effects of the scientific research they have done and plan to do.

Maarten.

Institutions seem to be inherently very conservative in this area and I don't expect that we should expect WPI to be any different than most of them. I think being transparent is a good strategy in the long run but I seem to be in a distinct minority. They all seem to get very conservative.

I agree -what will count in the end is the science they leave behind - not the personalities - its all about the science in the end.
 

MEKoan

Senior Member
Messages
2,630
Hey DB ~ Just don't know. Heart of Korean Zen is "Don't Know Mind". For me (and it seems for you) it's the way to go.

For Cort ~ He needs to write a screenplay! Why not?

Peace out,
Koan
 

Dr. Yes

Shame on You
Messages
868
For Cort ~ He needs to write a screenplay! Why not?

The studio called.. Peter Jackson is insisting on having the entire psych lobby look like Orcs and replacing Bill Reeves with a giant flaming CGI beard.
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
Hey DB ~ Just don't know. Heart of Korean Zen is "Don't Know Mind". For me (and it seems for you) it's the way to go.

For Cort ~ He needs to write a screenplay! Why not?

Peace out,
Koan

That's true. If you need to go for the screenplay, then that might be the ticket out of the drama.

When the drama surges up in me, I paint or sing to cathart (is there such a verb form of catharsis?) it out of my system. It works like a charm, and sometimes I even like end the results. Ask Picasso, he knew all about this.
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
The studio called.. Peter Jackson is insisting on having the entire psych lobby look like Orcs and replacing Bill Reeves with a giant flaming CGI beard.

There you go! You have a PRODUCER already.:Retro tongue::Retro tongue::Retro tongue:

When does SHOOTING start?
 
G

Gerwyn

Guest
Sharpening Their Knives. The WPI is loved in the Patient Community but they're really kind of embattled in the research community. Until we get positive studies coming out I imagine that the standard researcher does not a favorable impression of them. They came out of nowhere with a paper in Science!

Can you imagine how everybody else felt about that? Good - very, very good researchers who have been working hard for decades - who know they will never get published in that journal - see this little Research Institute, that hasn't even been built yet, lands an article in the biggest journal in the land.

Not only that but they basically state that they have 'the answer' to one of the knottiest problems in medicine...and that their finding may also apply to an even bigger problem - autism. The news flies around the world - articles in all the major outlets appear...and everyone is saying....WP..what? WP..who? Vincent who? Who are these guys?

Then as time goes on their Research Director publicly lambasts other researchers suggesting, as Dr. Raccinello so vividly put it, 'the rest of the world doesn't know how to do PCR'.

Can you hear the knives sharpening? They were already jealous....

Then a series of problems occurs. The diagnostic test comes out early -and is subsequently changed....the makeup of the patients in the cohort is not what the Science paper said... the PCR tests seem to work at one point and then not anymore......Dr Mikovits is very encouraging to the patient community like no one we've ever seen before but her language in her emails about researchers - some of which get transmitted into the public - is very strong.

A Different Tack - Recognizing that they're a small unknown Institute that, above all, needed to win the trust of their peers, they could've and really should've, kept their heads down and maintained as low key and professional an attitude as possible. Think what a boon it would have been for them in the research community to show that they could maintain their cool in the midst of this huge media uproar.

For the most part I think they did couch their official statements correctly - they were careful not to overstate - and qualified their assertions...the website was fine but then this other stuff would come out - which, naturally, got more attention.

Betting the Farm? - My gut feeling is that it would really behoove the WPI to be right about XMRV because they're invested really heavily in it in alot of ways. If it doesn't work out they may not get support on other issues and, if that's true that's really a shame because the Institute had, and still has, a solid non XMRV research effort. That's what it was built on - they got good federal and state funding for that...they have alot of great ideas.....it would be horrible if the granting agencies start turning up their nose at those things...because they don't like the way XMRV was handled.

If XMRV works out then stylistic problems and breaches of etiquette are not so important[/U]...we've all probably heard of prickly researchers who are at the top of their game despite their breaches of etiquette. As they say winning solves all problems!

I would note that what Dr. Peterson did does not necessarily mean anything about XMRV itself. To some extent the XMRV question is out of the WPI's hands. they kicked it off and the other study groups will resolve it over the next couple of months I would think.

one of the greatest breaches of science is to look for a new rna virus using an unproven technique and refusing an offer of a positive sample to ensure that your test worked.McClure and Groom commited that clear breach of scientific protocol.

It is not a question of other people no being able to do PCR but if you are looking for a RNA virus then you would perform a PCR and a RT-PCR especially when dealing with a latent virus

Another major scientific sin is to design an experiment where the conclusions are unfalsyfiable Mclure and groom did this

If we are talking about culpability lets not forget who the culprits are!

Mclures desperate claim about contamination has now been shown to be a scientific impossibility by the latest paper to be presented in Prauge

She has already admitted that she tested a different patient group to the WPI. so where does that leave her.will she now exchange samples as Scientific protocol demands. I dont think so do you?