CAA, CDC and Cfs research

Question, I think some people involved with CAA participate here or at least people w/knowledge about it.
I am late to the political history game with CFS so trying to play catch up the last couple years.

I was struck today during a search at pubmed how research related to immune/viral stuff in ballpark of cfids dropped off after the 80s.
Rereading Hillary Johnson's essay about the CDC corruption at her website tonight reminded me why she is down on CAA and it also made me realize the diversion of research funds in 90s for cfs could be why dearth of certain types of research after 80s related to cfs per se. I didnt do a comprehensive search on cfs today and I know people say there are tons of studies supporting bio etiology in cfs but I did notice that certain topics seemed to fall away ie on IVIG in 90s, this was just an aside I noticed in a narrow search regarding herxheimer reaction and antivirals.

At any rate, hillary writes that when she went to congressmen Nadler to help with the congressional inquiry regarding cdc misuse of cfs funds that the CAA basically coached Reeves to get thru it unscathed. Why is that, that is what I am really curious about now. Was it not apparent by '96 that Reeves is a sack of sheeit? I really don't know, so am curious what others know.

thanks and excuse my "french", I want to say and do much worse to the man but I'm a nice midwestern girl

Oh and one more question, anyone know why things didnt change for the better for cfs in research and public eye after the scandal inquiry in 96 by nadler?

lots of interesting related info here

http://www.co-cure.org/audits.htm

such as :

http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0002b&L=co-cure&F=&S=&P=3614

wth?!
"That is not to say that continuing to investigate hantavirus is not
important, Koplan said. The disease first appeared as a frightening 1993
outbreak, when otherwise healthy adults suddenly began suffocating from a
disease that filled their lungs with fluid. CDC ``disease detectives''
quickly discovered the culprit was a never-before-seen strain of
hantavirus spread by a type of mouse, and worked to stem the outbreak."

'A TYPE OF MOUSE' ???????????

http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0002a&L=co-cure&F=&S=&P=930

I never heard of hantavirus before? could it be one of alters mlvs?
it was also ripped off of funds like cfs by cdc in congressional inquiry.

curiouser and curiouser

Weaponization

"Korean hemorrhagic fever (Hantavirus) was one of three hemorrhagic fevers and one of more than a dozen agents that the United States researched as potential biological weapons before suspending its biological weapons program.[2] "
(wikipedia on hantavirus)
uh huh

I'm working on a YouTube video that covers this subject. Elaine Defreitas discovered a retrovirus in CFS in the early 90's. The CDC did a replication study which "proved" her wrong and then they made sure everybody knew it. This scared off everybody from research retroviruses for the next 20 years. However, I a believe independent researchers were still research the biological aspects, just not the CDC. When Walter Gunn (good guy) retired, Reeves took over his job and has kept research firmly in the psychological camp until the present.

Why did the CAA help Reeves become a whistleblower, thus preserving his job? Not sure, perhaps they felt it was better to have the misappropriations exposed and the funding put back. Perhaps they were bamboozled by his "newspeak" where it sounds like he's doing scientific helpful studies, but he's really not. By 1996 though, it was clear where he stood - his statement for the Prime Time Live piece on CFS is really damning. I'm not sure whether he already had his whistleblower status by then or not.

Finding out the timing of that would answer your question.

Hanta virus would be a regular virus, not a retrovirus like an MLV.

thanks caledonia, I will try to do a little more investigation. Has the CAA ever come out that you know of and apologized or explained to us?

I remember last week someone asking on one of the threads either here or at prohealth whether their inadvertently eating mouse poo in their peanut butter (? or molasses, some food) closely before getting cfs could tie into getting cfs, this hanta virus made me think of them as eating or breathing mouse poo could infect you, i guess we don't know that about mlv's yet.

From reading a couple of articles it seems that research (done a fair while ago) showed that MuLV's could be passed through saliva (when mice are fighting for example), sexually and mother's milk in mice. Many mice have genetics such that they are protected from MuLV's. It has been shown that co-infections can remove this genetic protection.

The CAA have been challenging the CDC at the two CFSAC meetings in 2009 (can't remember much about meeting this year). They have done pretty indepth investigations e.g. into the money to Abt Associates. Not sure other groups have been doing much that indepth in recent times. Lots of people have ranted about the CDC (have done a little myself in my time) but they exposed some interesting information.

The GAO investigation with Dr. Reeves as whistleblower resulted in the restoration of the misappropriated money - $12 million total over several years. It is highly unlikely that Dr. Reeves would have testified without whistleblower protection (that is, of course, why such protections exist), and there would probably have been no investigation. There was also Congressional oversight of the program during that time and the CDC's program improved. Once the payback and oversight period ended, the Association documented the decay of the program. The Association presented this information publicly to the CFSAC and in numerous meetings with Congressional staffers. It was not until the CDC's swerve to the psych focus became more pronounced, and the absurd strategic plan was drafted, that the outcry from advocates and researchers became much more pronounced.

I think Jspotila has pretty much nailed it all. See Hillary Johnson's Osler's Web. I do believe that getting Reeves to spill it about the loss of CFIDS funding via whistleblower status (Protection within the Federal Government) did restore a fair amount of money and this money movement from CFIDS to other departments would have continued if Reeves did not open his mouth. Now I am so not a fan of Reeves, and I do believe he was using this to cover his own behind since he was NOT a fan of CFIDS and made nasty comments about us before blowing the whistle. He may have thought that he too would have been in trouble if he did not first and quickly spill the beans. I do think it was a CYA on Reeves part.

And yes, the CAA did go after Reeves very focefully (on video, I have it and you can see it on Utube) for wasting money. CAA did do real research on what was funded to ABT and Emory Mind-Body and they too saw waste. And they pointed this out (Mcleary did) very publicly and rather forcefully. The amount of money for ABT to so a simple "Statement of Work" (SOW) was beyond insane. I have done many SOWs and you basically pull old ones off the shelf, update them to fit the new project (if possible) and they are done. Now ABT does much the same things for other organizations so I really expect that doing a SOW for CDC would take only a few hours at best. And CAA pointed out just how much that simple SOW cost the CDC which was waaay beyond what it should have cost. Now that is Contractor Sleaze stunts of real epic proportions - I know them well.

So many twists and turns to this story over the past 25 years and we are still not done. I think that soon the real "WHYS" will come out into the light of day and many people we know about (Reeves, Weasel, others) as well as those we do not know anything about - will be exposed. That will be great for us and for the rest of the public as there prob. is more than just ONE family of retroviruses out there and our collective governments need to deal with this very true epidemic(s). Thank you Jspot. You really are a major asset to us and to CAA. Hugs - S.

I agree. There are still many unanswered questions.

You are so kind, muffin. Thank you! I just lightly tap the shoulders of giants. Just as there are many "villians" in CFS history, there are many "heroes" as well.