The morality on display here is not the immediate question. What bothers me about that response (or lack of same) is the implication that the validity of their test assay is not a subject open to discussion. If you can't compare the work of one group with another, and ask questions about the basis, you can't do science. (Perhaps, we should ask what they have been in the business of doing for 25 years.)
They deliberately inserted a statement in their paper about the lack of a panel of control subjects/specimens which, given the omission we now recognize, was deliberately misleading. They have created an assay, and now plaintively ask for someone else to provide controls which will validate their results without validating claims that some people are infected. Quite a conundrum. (Note: These people need not be CFS/ME patients, though I expect it will be easier to find infection in such. Ila Singh found a way around reliance on WPI for samples. The CDC didn't try.)
I'm glad I don't have to defend their "Test Assay Development" in front of a room full of PhDs. It could be a memorable spectacle.