Ok, listen... I have had very little sleep the last 2 nights and yesterday i travelled here to Munich to see Dr. Bieger. I just came back to the hotel from the visit. My blood is on the way to the university where the XMRV test will be done. I have given him my word i will not share any details, with no one. So please, please, please don't ask me about it. My inbox is almost full already anyway.
BUT... there is absolutely no reason to retract this paper. People are sick and researchers are finding XMRV and related MRV in those sick people.
I do not know what's going on here, but something is wrong and somebody is going to fall hard. I don't want to go back to repeating stuff that has been said 1000 times, but i still believe we and the authors of the positive studies have the power to make sure it will be the "bad" side that falls hard, if XMRV is for real. And as long as all those highly qualified people are finding the virus, it is to be considered for real. Yes, the situation is crazy and i can't explain why a journal like Science could be so wrong. But nevertheless, what i said above is true. Look at all the names who have found it. Ruscetti, Alter, Lo, IrsiCaixa etc. They are no beginners. Neither is Judy Mikovits, of course, but since she made the discovery, i'm leaving her out of the list here. A negative paper, even if it was of high quality, which is not certain at all here, can't be justification to retract Lombardi et al. Only the demonstration of a vital error in Lombardi et al. could be. And this has not happened. Yes, we need clarification of the situation, but this is not how it will be achieved. As long as people are finding it and their work is not shown to have been flawed, this finding is to be treated as existing. And has to be followed up on.
Sorry to bother you with this, but it's true. Time to take a position and make a stand. Time to defeat the bad side. There is a slim possibility the positive studies up to date were wrong, i agree with this. But we have to defend this research now and make sure science will get to the bottom of things. Suffocation of the science and the groups helping us can not be allowed to happen and we need to fight.