Um - consider the source
@charityfundraiser, I've enjoyed many of your posts:Retro smile:, but I do take exception to the conclusion in this one.
These blogs are written by actual scientists, in this case a retrovirologist grad student. Their opinion is more important than patients' opinions.
ERV blog wins award for profanity
Most importantly, consider the ERV source:
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2010/01/xmrv_and_chronic_fatigue_syndr_5.php This is an invective-laced diatribe at just about anything that the ERV author disagrees with. Reading through the whole posting is like walking through mud, while being pelted with unspeakables. I feel dirty just reading it. I suspect many folks will summarily dismiss that particular blogger, on the basis of the massive emotional overlay, not to mention the award-winning foul language.
How can the ERV blogger be trusted to be scientifically objective when she is SO out of control emotionally?!
Take a good, hard look at the ERV blog.
With this kind of language, and the downright filthy, unspeakable epithets she uses to describe her "adversaries" (including Mikovits), is the author stable enough to make a cogent scientific pronouncement on Mikovits?
Even a closer look at the content reveals gaping holes. ERV indignantly notes:
"What Mikovits is suggesting is an organized conspiracy, lying, and scientific fraud in another lab."
The raison-d'etre of the psycholobby: Smoke and mirrors re: ME/CFS definitions
Um, welcome to our world. And well, yes, that is the whole
raison d'etre of the psycholobby for CBT/GET. They offer a perversion of cohort selection, with finessed wordsmithing to give the illusion that they are in fact "replicating" the Science findings, when their cohort is entirely different. The uncomparable lab techniques are another matter. The bastardization of CFS definition by the psycholobby is nothing new - it is a modus operandi, which has been alive and well for decades. This is no time to be shocked that someone is calling them on their longstanding game. It's about bluudy time!
It's like the age-old conundrum in a court of law. At any given time, one side or the other isn't right. Are they lying? Maybe. But does every single court case end up with one half of the parties in the slammer because of perjury? No.
Necessary scrutiny of the psycholobby's methods - but who should do it?
Yes, Mikovits may well do better, to leave the lambasting of the psycholobby to others, and to stick to her scientific knitting - which she does SO well. The fact remains that she and the WPI are among the most vocal in calling for closer scrutiny of the psycholobby's methods and motivations, which have cast an oppressive cloak of silence on genuine research into ME/CFS. And hers is an entirely fair, and necessary call. Whether it's politically astute is another matter. So while I lament the PR role Mikovits has elected to take recently in calling the psycholobby to the mat, she is absolutely right in saying - in a million ways - that the science of the CBT/GET lobby is at best suspect, and at worst, a Machiavellian perversion, resulting from significant financial/political/ego incentive to suppress revelations about how serious (and organic) ME/CFS really is.
Who's the lunatic fringe, who's not?
The ERV blogger goes on to say,
"How is this statement any different than anti-vaxers saying researchers 'dont want to find the link between vaccines and autism', and they sold out to BIG PHARMA?"
This comment goes to show the shallowness of this person's intellectual curiosity. Conspiracy theories aside, I suspect there are many on this forum, having read research on Gulf War Illness and the massive pre-deployment vaccine schedule; increased prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder in GWI families; and possible vaccine triggers to both GWI and ASD; that are reconsidering their biases against the Autism community's aversion to vaccines. Specifically, many (myself included) are now level-headedly entertaining the possibility that, indeed, the Autism and GWI communities may be right in a link between neuro-immune disease, viral activation, and vaccines and/or vaccine adjuvants. Whether it's through vaccine activation of endogenous retroviruses, or the adjuvants in vaccines acting like fire accelerants sparking an immune conflagration, there is mounting evidence that the hitherto "wingnuts" in the Autism field may have been right all along about neuroimmune risks from vaccines.
At a minimum, a thoughtful, level-headed scientist - particularly a one involved in endogenous retroviruses - would show the kind of intellectual curiosity that we rely on, to move science forward. The ERV writer is frankly not in that league. In fact, if anyone's approximating a wingnut, it's the author of the ERV blog.:Retro tongue:
@charityfundraiser, lest there be any doubt, I'm only speaking about the ERV blogger, not you!:Retro smile: The fact is, that just because someone has the patina of respectability (i.e. they're a retrovirology grad student, and not "just" a patient), they are not automatically right. Indeed, based on the many erudite posts on this forum, there are many brilliant patients here who not only understand the emerging science around XMRV, but could also run circles around the ERV blogger.
And Dr Mikovits, if you're listening - it may be wise to keep your comments squeaky-clean politically, and focus on the science! :Retro smile:
, but that doesn't make me a non supporter.
