Clearly change has not reached CDC management.
If they really can't see a problem in having the same people who define the disease and choose the patients to test also defining the control positives used to validate the test, they are completely lost. Those three independent labs were simply following instructions dictated by the group at CDC, including which control samples to consider positive. No other samples of any kind were found positive.
The group which collaborated with WPI headed by Dr. Eric Klein of the Cleveland Clinic, (editor of the journal Urology,) was primarily interested in prostate cancer. They developed their first assay several years ago. It is unlikely they would accept a new assay fine-tuned to match characteristics of ME/CFS patients. This represents true independence in the choice of controls.
In public material the CDC has never detected XMRV in blood from any infected human being. When he says they detected it in prostate cancer, he is perhaps being disingenuous. The presentation given at a conference earlier this year announced that they had detected XMRV in 2 out of 165 tissue samples from prostate cancer patients. Since the virus was discovered in this context, years ago, this is not exactly earthshaking news. To detect any less would undermine CDC credibility to detect XMRV in any circumstances. So far, there is no published material, or even public data, to support any assertion the CDC group can detect XMRV in blood from infected humans. This is why they had to create artificial positive control samples.
Since they have no ability to find XMRV except in prostate tissue, you could avoid testing any patients without prostates. Those with prostates would probably object to the surgery required for the CDC assay. This neatly eliminates all possible CFS patients.
In these circumstances, the claims made in relation to CFS could apply to any illness tested via blood, including prostate cancer. The emphasis on CFS in publication must be chalked up to other factors.
The whole exchange could be titled "Interview as a Non-Contact Sport".