New Court Case: Mikovits v. Whittemore Peterson Institute, The

[RustyJ]

Mikovits v. Whittemore Peterson Institute, The
Plaintiff: Judy Mikovits
Defendant: Whittemore Peterson Institute, The
Case Number: 3:2014cv02797
Filed: November 24, 2014
Court: California Southern District Court
Office: San Diego Office
County: San Diego
Presiding Judge: Roger T. Benitez
Referring Judge: William V. Gallo
Nature of Suit: Labor: Other
Cause of Action: 31:3729 False Claims Act
Jury Demanded By: Plaintiff

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/casdce/3:2014cv02797/459865

This should be interesting.

 

[Valentijn]

Nice. Should result in a lot of information becoming public.

 

[RustyJ]

Jury Demanded By: Plaintiff

I don't know anything about the US court system, however in view of past irregularities between judges and WPI principals, this seems prudent. I wonder how much will be revealed about other shenanigans external to her workplace, and even if she loses, perhaps there will be silver linings for us...

...it could open up possibilities for other challenges, eg recovery of patient fees for blood tests, or if WPI was part of a wider conspiracy against her, would other parties be drawn into the case or future cases.

...even community fundraising for legal challenges?

Much speculation here, but just tip of the iceberg, yummm...

 

[Countrygirl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act

The False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 3729–3733, also called the "Lincoln Law") is an American federal law that imposes liability on persons and companies (typically federal contractors) who defraud governmental programs. It is the federal Government’s primary tool in combating fraud against the Government.[1] The law includes a "qui tam" provision that allows people who are not affiliated with the government, called "relators" under the law, to file actions on behalf of the government (informally called "whistleblowing" especially when the relator is employed by the organization accused in the suit). Persons filing under the Act stand to receive a portion (usually about 15–25 percent) of any recovered damages. As of 2012, over 70 percent of all federal Government FCA actions were initiated by whistleblowers. Claims under the law have typically involved health care, military, or other government spending programs, and dominate the list of largest pharmaceutical settlements. The government recovered $38.9 billion under the False Claims Act between 1987 and 2013 and of this amount, $27.2 billion or 70% was from qui tam cases brought by relators.

 

[RustyJ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act

Countrygirl, you beat me to it by a whisker. So basically this is a whistleblower action, not wrongful dismissal?

 

[Ecoclimber]

If Mikovits believes she is going to win this lawsuit she will be sadly mistaken. Too many scientists have information and evidence on Mikovits concerning her duplicity.

Chicago Tribune
Manipulation alleged in paper linking virus, chronic fatigue syndrome
October 03, 2011|By Trine Tsouderos | Tribune staff reporter

The journal that published a high-profile paper linking chronic fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus is now investigating allegations that a figure in that report was manipulated.

The appearance in Science of the 2009 paper caused an immediate sensation among patients who have yearned for an explanation for their condition. Its authors said they had found evidence of a retrovirus called XMRV in the blood of people with chronic fatigue syndrome more frequently than in the blood of their healthy peers.

The report included a figure purporting to depict lab test results from seven blood samples, including two from chronic fatigue syndrome patients whose blood appears to show evidence of XMRV and five from healthy people whose blood does not.

But the leader of the team that authored the 2009 paper, researcher Judy Mikovits, apparently presented the same figure -- carrying different labels and supporting a different point -- in a talk given at a conference on Sept. 23 in Ottawa. A copy of her PowerPoint presentation circulating among an email group also reveals an apparent third version of the image, with a third set of labels, when formatting is turned off.

"As is our policy in cases of alleged figure manipulation, we will follow up with the research authors as soon as our own review of the allegation is complete," the editors of Science wrote in a statement. "In particular, we will request additional information from the authors as one of the next steps.".....

 

[JT1024]

Sorry Ecoclimber.... I disagree.

I do not have time on Thanksgiving Day to rebut your post above. However, many of us have been around a very long time and remember what transpired over the years. You were here then and you know full well.

As I have said in another post, each person on this forum needs to learn who has integrity and speaks the truth and who only plays the part while actively seeking their own private interests. This forum suffered substantially and many left. Many will never return here because they were "banned". Others elect never to give PR any further credibility by participating in this forum.

My concern is that new patients to this forum will be limited to knowledge because of substantial bias. Newbies will have a tough time figuring on what is going on.

Just because Trine Tsouderous published something does not mean it is truth. She has had strong connections to big Pharma and Paul Offit and has even been described as a "presstitute" (I LOVE THAT WORD!)... someone who has sold out and uses PR instead of true journalism.

Sadly, much of our media today could be describe in these terms.

 

[Gijs]

Mikovits made a big mistake. She must not begin a lawsuit but move on with her life It just gets worse and worse.

 

[Ecoclimber]

@JT1024. Unfortunately you do not have the information and evdience that I have. You don't know what was occuring behing the scenes with Mikovits, the Whittemores and other scientists including Silverman. I do, as I was in communication with all parties involved.

Information that Mikovits held up a research project for over a year with another prestigious researchers in another country in which Mikovits broke an agreement with him and several other parties involved in that agreement including myself with a research project I was conducting with Miller which was sabotaged by Mikovits and her followers which is still continuing to this date with aspersions against Jennie Spotila.

Mikovits stated she didn't take her notebooks (the work product belonging to the WPI) . Guess who turned them in?

Inform yourself.

1. IN A WORLD… where telling the truth is a CRIME…. SHE became an OUTLAW!
Posted by ERV on August 27, 2014

2. XMRV: The rats are trying to climb out of the sewer
Posted by ERV on March 21, 2014

3. XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome: I fought the lawl and the lawl won.
Posted by ERV on November 21, 2011

4. XMRV and Autism: Worst internet meme since Milhouse
Posted by ERV on November 3, 2011

Finally Drum Roll Please...the main evidence presented to the Editors of Science.

5. XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome: For your enjoyment– A magic trick.
Posted by ERV on September 30, 2011

Also Silverman, Miller have information concerning Mikovits that has not been disclosed as well as other scientists whose names will remain undisclosed for the time being. Complaints on Mikovits were filed with Office of the Inspector General at the NIH as well as with other department heads with oversight on IRB regulations, patient recruitments, and NIH Grants including the NIAID. This is one of the reasons why the notebooks and grants stayed with the WPI.

It's unfortunate that Mikovits didn't just let this go. I would not be surprise if the Whittemores file a countersuit against Mikovits.

For a scientist to allege that xmrv was associated with other illnesses including Fibromylagia, ME/CFS, Lyme, atypical MS and Autism without any scientific proof is outrageous as it gives false hope to desperate patients in the ME/CFS community.

"At the January talk, she showed a slide connecting XMRV to a list of frustrating medical conditions like ALS, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and dementia. She also linked it to autism. But no published data exist to support those links."

For a scientist to suddenly change their position on xmrv when xmrv didn't pan out and then go on a campaign to allege that the retrovirus sequence that they 'really' found was not xmrv but hgrv without uploading those sequences to the GENBANK so other scientists can ascertain the validity of those sequence, falls in the realm of duplicity, desperation and deception. Such information that was not made available if it existed to the scientific community for validation gives false hope to the patient community.

To equate ME/CFS as another AIDS epidemic without any scientific proof discredits the ME/CFS patient community and their researchers and causes other researchers to back off in conducting research for the casue of ME/CFS. To associate with the Age of Autism group and with likes of such individuals as Wakefield and Kent Heckenlively - diehard Anti-Vaxers - discredits the credibility of Mikovits and those associated with her.
Historical Comparisons of Morbidity and Mortality for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States


The cognitive dissonance can distort the reality of the situation by refusing to examine the scientific evidence that is presented but instead rely on the claims of a Pied Piper that led the ME/CFS community on a roll coaster ride over the years for failing to back up her claims as a scientist. The blood working group is a prime example as Mikovits couldn't identify xmrv in her own cohort and failed to find contamination in her own lab and yet castigated other researchers for not following proper protocol for faling to find XMRV. XMRV is a lab artifact. It is not in the Wild! But, instead Mikovits spreads fear -sigh- with again no evidence to support her claims. It's a common theme with Mikovits!

"It is clearly a human infection," Mikovits, the institute's director of research, told an audience at a January presentation hosted by a California alternative medical practice. "It is clearly circulating through the population as is our fear and your fear."

Scientists say there is no evidence to support her statement.

"Saying that is just inciting fear," said Columbia University virologist Vincent Racaniello."


Mikovits even tells patients in a mail: “First of all the current diagnostic testing will define with essentially 100% accuracy! XMRV infected patients”
https://laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com/category/medicalclinical-stuff/infectious-diseases/

There was also a petition from another forum to stop Lipkin's CFI research which was blunted.
Follow the science! Where is the scientific proof via a reasearch article or a new viral sequence that Mikovits claimed to have found uploaded to GENBANK

If you don't believe me then contact Silverman and Miller to get their viewpoint!

 

[JT1024]

I am well aware of your claims and your position "Ecoclimber"... I was avoiding it. You can write all you want. I am not buying it.

We can agree to disagree. Same story as before. I am walking away... not out of fear of a debate. There is no point in arguing......

 

[duncan]

"...duplicity, desperation, and deception." Cutely alliterative.

Regardless of which side of the tracks you stand on history, to suggest that Judy Mikovits provided anything less than one of the greatest single boosts to the ME/CFS cause would border on, well, the disingenuous.

 

[Kati]

It would be best for everyone if Mikovits moved on. She didn't find it. Our field does not need more scandal over XMRV. Things went incredibly sour for her in Reno. If she is the scientist she claims to be, she needs to be absorbed in science, not more drama.

 

[cigana]

Sorry Ecoclimber.... I disagree.

I do not have time on Thanksgiving Day to rebut your post above. However, many of us have been around a very long time and remember what transpired over the years. You were here then and you know full well.

As I have said in another post, each person on this forum needs to learn who has integrity and speaks the truth and who only plays the part while actively seeking their own private interests. This forum suffered substantially and many left. Many will never return here because they were "banned". Others elect never to give PR any further credibility by participating in this forum.

My concern is that new patients to this forum will be limited to knowledge because of substantial bias. Newbies will have a tough time figuring on what is going on.

Just because Trine Tsouderous published something does not mean it is truth. She has had strong connections to big Pharma and Paul Offit and has even been described as a "presstitute" (I LOVE THAT WORD!)... someone who has sold out and uses PR instead of true journalism.

Sadly, much of our media today could be describe in these terms.

Can you tell me where these people went (i.e. did they go to another forum)? Thanks.

 

[worldbackwards]

Regardless of which side of the tracks you stand on history, to suggest that Judy Mikovits provided anything less than one of the greatest single boosts to the ME/CFS cause would border on, well, the disingenuous.

Is it disingenuous to say that, given the whole business didn't pan out, that this was then flipped against patients with a reductive 'Well, if it's not that virus, then it must be in their heads' argument, that was deeply damaging for us in the long run? As anyone who's used energy they haven't got will know, temporary boosts based on thin air are not particularly useful.

 

[Valentijn]

Is it disingenuous to say that, given the whole business didn't pan out, that this was then flipped against patients with a reductive 'Well, if it's not that virus, then it must be in their heads' argument, that was deeply damaging for us in the long run?

Wasn't it during the process of disproving the connection between ME/CFS and XMRV that Ian Lipkin got interested, as he found strong signs of some other infection? And he's been quite active regarding ME/CFS since then, despite the NIH obstructing his efforts to obtain federal funding for his research.

I think there are other researchers, doctors, and scientists whose interest was piqued due to XMRV, and who have stayed in the "biological" boat since then.

 

[Sidereal]

Wasn't it during the process of disproving the connection between ME/CFS and XMRV that Ian Lipkin got interested, as he found strong signs of some other infection? And he's been quite active regarding ME/CFS since then, despite the NIH obstructing his efforts to obtain federal funding for his research.

I think there are other researchers, doctors, and scientists whose interest was piqued due to XMRV, and who have stayed in the "biological" boat since then.

As far as I know, Lipkin got interested back in 1999 or so when he disproved the link between bornavirus and CFS.

 

[snowathlete]

Well, this is interesting, at least. No idea if it's a good idea or not, but I think legal proceedings can help facts come to light and that may be a good thing - or at least interesting - may be a bad thing. I think it's hard to know what's true and what's not as it stands.

 

[Ecoclimber]

Can you tell me where these people went (i.e. did they go to another forum)? Thanks.

Yes to the four instigators on an insignificant forum called the mecfsforums.com who are bent on bringing discredit to the ME/CFS comminunity as Jennie Spotila alluded to in her blog. There are only a few posters on the this forum that constantly post hatred and defamation through their unsubstantiated and malciouslies towared other individuals and researchers including myself Jennie Spotilo, Miller, Silverman, Cort, PR. which have all been captured. Blinded by their own hatred to those who disagree with them....four posters causing so much discord within the community.

Mecfsforums.com
Alexa Global Rank 1,081,379 US 563044

Phoenix Rising forums.phoenixrising.me
Alexa Global Rank 65,637 US 36960

 

[Ecoclimber]

"...duplicity, desperation, and deception." Cutely alliterative.

Regardless of which side of the tracks you stand on history, to suggest that Judy Mikovits provided anything less than one of the greatest single boosts to the ME/CFS cause would border on, well, the disingenuous.

I agree!! The research article in Science certainly did put ME/CFS on the map.

 

[Undisclosed]

Ho hum. This is so difficult. Can we not just have information about the court case without rehashing old history that just causes upset and stress on the forums. I would like to hear from all parties and the Whittemores have not said boo since the arrest. I am looking forward to reading Judy's book. I will follow any court case with interest. In the end, the more information we have, the better.