I've been skeptical of Mikovits from the start, when WPI claimed finding 67% of CFS patients had XMRV and then quickly changed that number to 95% or 98%.
Her behavior over the last year, with lashing out at critics, has proven to be very unprofessional. Really, her lab isn't doing anything magical in order to get the results they got. Other labs should be able to replicate it with little problem.
Now, her treatment of Peterson, mentioned in the article, is yet more proof of her unprofessional and unethical behavior and really comes as no surprise to me.
As far as I'm concerned, something very fishy is going on...
I'm sorry, but this akin to really bitchy celebrity gossip.
And I'm speaking as someone who actually is not waiting on XMRV to be 'the one'.
I have no particular personal opinion of Mikovits. Too many people in this community, either liken her to Xena Warrior Princess, or some loud-mouthed idiot. It is too easy to become fixated on the personalities of scientists, treating them like characters from a Hollywood movie.
If you JPV, had to personally castigate every scientist involved in ME/CFS alone for being 'unprofessional', you'd be doing nothing else, because all of 'em have feet of clay one way or another, and talk - excuse the vernacular- bollox on a regular basis.
I don't know if you've focused on Mikovits because you're being provocative against the community, or you are frustrated because XMRV is not panning out as yet (though it might do), or you have a problem with women who don't fit an impossible prescription of 'gender appropriate' behaviour, or
whatever, but your writing is emotive and unsubstantiated, as is most of the remarks against Mikovits.
Your comment about lashing out at critics is hilarious. Simon Wessely does this on a regular basis (well, he does critique his critics regularly), but then so do most 'scientists', or anyone engaged in academic activity!
And your wholly unsubstantiated 'unethical' comment is also untenable. What on earth do you understand as 'ethical' defining?
And you already know that bunch of scientists who just can't get the replication right - most of them can't even get the right cohorts! If they are that ignorant (getting the right cohorts isn't some impossible Herculean task for goodness sake), then how can we be confident any of 'em can get the rest of the replication process right? You should be more consistent in your 'scepticism' JPV, frankly.