I didn't really have any intention of posting here but as I said, I'm really shocked at the 1. Unquestioning support of Mikovits by some people here. 2. The abuse of scientists.
I'm not a retrovirolgist (I'm a molecular cell biologist) but I can follow most of the science.
I think you may have a wrong expression. Maybe what you see is people who have formed their opinion over the last one and a half year and now, after all of this, have a certain view of things.
What would you expect if scientists like John Coffin say it's time to leave XMRV behind? When the CDC says they have found it, in their latest prostate cancer study, and they also say it's not contamination. Should science then just forget about this virus that the CDC has found in the population?
Or when around Christmas of last year Towers said it's now proven the XMRV the WPI found was contamination. And now the WPI has uploaded new sequences to Genbank that probably can't be explained this way. And all the time there were the variants Lo and Alter found anyway, that could not be explained by Towers et al.
Or Peterson leaves the WPI after being angry for having been left in the dark regarding XMRV, when he was the one who didn't want to sign a confidentiality agreement. And now he is involved in a negative study that leads to Science asking the WPI, his former colleagues, to retract their paper.
Those are just some examples that come to my mind. Is it then not justified people think something is not right here and this should not be the way things go? No, it's not "how science works". I have no experience, but i think the XMRV story is not usual, such a drama is not the norm and rather rare.
There are multiple groups who have found HGRVs and they all stick to their findings. It's not as easy as "Judy Mikovits was wrong, it's over". And yes, in such a moment i think we have to back the WPI without hesitating and pondering things for 3 years. Because then it will be too late. We don't have to back them because we're 100% sure they are right, but because they well might be and we must be sure we will get to the truth.