Wasn't there also something that Lo/Alter should have done with their samples that would have shown their conclusions were false but this didn't happen as they were in a rush to publish? Was this another paper?
barb, you can do better this. This could be interpreted as putting political gain over the welfare of sick patients. Your accusations are not based on fact, but on a line of propaganda being pushed by the CAA and CAA affiliates. You accuse Lo/Alter of rushing their study and messing up their samples, then glibly say it could be another paper (it was another paper - most of the negatives). Nothing of the sort occurred with Lo/Alter. Please refer to your source to prove me wrong. If this is not true, it is just baseless rumor mongering aimed at bringing down the Lo/Alter paper. Have you finished with Mikovits? Is it time to remove the other pillar of HGRVs? The only issue with Lo/Alter is that their BWG assay was not the one they used in their study, which is why their BWG results stank.
Of course I understand why the CAA would want the Lo/Alter findings diminished, but pushing a political line, devoid of facts is a little transparent. At least you are up front about your support for CAA, but I am glad the silly hysterical dig at IMEA has gone from your signature. I am not a fan of IMEA, but if they are getting under the skin of the CAA, then they must be doing a good job. But why try to get rid of them, are they really that great a threat to the CAA? At least they are an advocacy group, while the CAA is not, according to McCleary.
The other thing which puzzles me is the repeated and baseless accusations of incompetence against Mikovits, yet it was Silverman who created the mess. Noone seems to treat Silverman the same way. In fact Silverman's incompetence seems to have been rewarded by giving him grants. It was Milovits' competence which created the scenario for her departure from WPI.
In fact the real incompetents are those negative studies which continued to use Silverman's VP-62 clone, long after its effectiveness at finding XMLVs and pMLVs was called into question. The fact that hundred of thousands of dollars has been wasted in this exercise of futility is nothng short of scandalous.
You spoke of polarizing in another thread. Well what could be more polarizing than muddying the reputation of researchers and research with baseless accusations. The use of CFIDS is also a very polarizing term. You are squarely in the middle of the us and them battle, pushing propaganda harder than most. If you want us to have a different opinion of what you are saying then please use factual evidence when you attempt to denigrate a researcher's work.
Have a look at the time scales of the negative papers, most were rushed through at breakneck speeds, with outrageous conclusions bearing little resemblence to their real findings. XMRV is dead is not a scientific finding. The Lo/Alter study was a very good study. So was the Lombardi study, in terms of blinding, methodolgy, selection of cohort. Because three labs checked Lombardi's samples, Silverman's contamination was isolated. This was down to good management, not incompetancy as many would suggest. None of the negative studies went to these lengths, so the potential for contamination, failure of assays is much higher in the negatives.
Why did no one really try to replicate Lo/Alter or Lombardi exactly? Not as if the money wasn't there, afterall the negatives spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on saying the same thng time after time.
