In Vitro Infidelium
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It has now been three days since the Lipkin study reported, yet not a single acknowledgement, let alone comprehensive statement, has been made by the Whittemore Peterson Institute or its Director of Research, Dr Vincent Lombardi. To date the only notable published research carried out at the WPI was the Lombardi et al 2009 study into the relationship of XMRV to M.E/CFS, Dr Lombardi remains the only author of that article not to have accepted the retraction of the article by Science magazine, or (via the Lipkin study) to have acknowledged that the study was flawed.
On the back of what is now (with the possible exception of Dr Lombardi) universally accepted as flawed science, the WPI licensed the sale of tests for XMRV, tests which were sold by a laboratory overseen by Dr Lombardi. It is no longer a matter of scientific debate, but a matter of principle that demands that both the WPI and Dr Lombardi make clear statements about how the science has progressed and about the decisions that underlay the licensing and marketing of tests which could never have been of benefit to patients.
To quote Charles Shepherd of the MEA:
“There should now be an apology –[ firstly] from the laboratories who persuaded people to spend large sums of money on useless XMRV tests: ….”
Whether the two companies (VIPdx and also R.E.D Laboratories ‘Belgium’) which were licensed by the WPI to offer XMRV testing, will meet their moral obligations is perhaps in doubt but as the issuer of the licences and as a recipient of both Federal funding and public donation, WPI has an unavoidable responsibility to acknowledge, to explain, and to apologise for, its ill judged attempt to monetise the (at the time) uncertain science of XMRV and M.E/CFS.
IVI
On the back of what is now (with the possible exception of Dr Lombardi) universally accepted as flawed science, the WPI licensed the sale of tests for XMRV, tests which were sold by a laboratory overseen by Dr Lombardi. It is no longer a matter of scientific debate, but a matter of principle that demands that both the WPI and Dr Lombardi make clear statements about how the science has progressed and about the decisions that underlay the licensing and marketing of tests which could never have been of benefit to patients.
To quote Charles Shepherd of the MEA:
“There should now be an apology –[ firstly] from the laboratories who persuaded people to spend large sums of money on useless XMRV tests: ….”
Whether the two companies (VIPdx and also R.E.D Laboratories ‘Belgium’) which were licensed by the WPI to offer XMRV testing, will meet their moral obligations is perhaps in doubt but as the issuer of the licences and as a recipient of both Federal funding and public donation, WPI has an unavoidable responsibility to acknowledge, to explain, and to apologise for, its ill judged attempt to monetise the (at the time) uncertain science of XMRV and M.E/CFS.
IVI