Parakoch: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Censorship on PhoenixRising - Actually no, I was wrong

I am no more to be found on the Phoenix Forums: both my name and all my posts are gone

~~Deleting all the posts by a person is simply not acceptable. What is this, 1984?~~ And yes, I checked, I couldn't find any posts of him.

[Update]:

Maarten writes

No, that's a misunderstanding: I removed myself and my posts from Phoenix Rising ca. May 23, 2010 and was removed from mecfsforums ca. July 18, 2010. The story is in my Nederlogs for 2010:

http://www.maartensz.org/log/2010/NL10.htm

So Phoenix Rising did not remove me: I did not want "Maarten Maartensz" with it associated anymore.

Best regards,

Maarten.

House of Cards

The question was:

Is it possible that the whole thing was purposely fabricated fro the start rather than a result of contamination? Wouldn't that be hard to do, since multiple labs were involved? How many people would have to be participating in such a fraud for it to work?

Or is it that you're suggesting that the original paper was contamination, but Mikovits was so vested that she then started making things up? Or something else that I'm not understanding? What's the worst case scenario here?

To which this was the answer:

I'd put my money on your second option. I guess most fraudulent scientists don't make up everything. They usually find something that is wrong, become convinced it is right but then cannot produce the additional data in support of their finding.

That is when they start to make things up - because they "know" they're right and they believe the doctored results are actually true and further research will confirm this, they are confident the fraud will not see the light of day.

I know that as an European leftie I shouldn't get all political, but I guess it's a bit like making up evidence in support of Iraq owning WMD's in order to justify an invasion. They thought they would find them anyway, in which case nobody would have questioned the incorrect evidence.

and

Now, it seems as though some of the other data in the Science paper is fraudulent. The immunoblot that was shown in Fig. 2C is actually an image of a completely different experiment, one that artificially manipulated the samples in a way that would induce expression of endogenous retroviral proteins.

Taken together, it is now very difficult to trust any data in the original Science paper. It appears to be a deliberate attempt to manipulate data, in a way that takes a laboratory artifact and makes it into a bona fide result. My guess is that the Mikovits group found some provocative preliminary data, as they ran some PCRs on their original samples and found (the contaminating) XMRV. They were so excited about the possible implications of this that they ignored/underestimated the possibility of contamination, and in the rush to publication they manipulated their data so as to look more robust and impressive and get the paper into Science. Everything since then has been a house of cards, built upon a very shaky foundation.

(via)

Cui Bono?

The following people have a patent on "DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF DISEASES OR DISORDERS ASSOCIATED WITH XENOTROPIC MURINE LEUKEMIA VIRUS":

Mikovits, Judy A.
Lombardi, Vincent C.
Ruscetti, Sandra K.
Ruscetti, Francis W.

Please do note that the following person is not included:

Robert H. Silverman

And please note that the following people wrote the addendum, with the last person being the PI:

Judy A. Mikovits
Vincent C. Lombardi
…
Francis W. Ruscetti

Please do note that the following person is not included again:

Robert H. Silverman

(via)

Bullshitting piece of shit (3)

From the addendum:

Neither the WPI nor NCI labs where PCR was performed had ever worked with mouse tissues or had been exposed to XMRV from other sources.

What blatant bullshit. Silverman sent XMRV VP62 plasmid to Mikovits/WPI in March of 2008.

Monday, January 30, 2012

10 Things to avoid as ME/CFS patient

I have seen this "The 10 Things a Thyroid Patient Should Never Do" list and thought some those points make sense in ME/CFS.

I am not going to flesh out the points, I just want to give a short overview – I hope you can fill out the details. You can read the thyroid list above to get some details.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet
Don't whine at the doctor – Instead be factual and quantifiable about your symptoms
Don't assume all your symptoms are ME/CFS-related
Don't smoke (Duh! Should be obvious.)
Don't accept "The tests were normal" – know that proper tests for ME/CFS are not ready yet
Don't hide supplements or unprescribed medication from your doctor
Don't asume that "natural" or over-the-counter products are universally good or safe
Don't ignore the warning signs that you need a new doctor – though finding a proper one may be difficult
Don't be silent when you can be an advocate for ME/CFS
Don't give up hope

The list could be probably be improved, but hey…

On working with Dr. Mikovits (3)

In a 1 October [2011] written response to Whittemore, Mikovits contended that it was "completely appropriate" for her, as research director, not to give Lombardi the cell line. The cell line was not related to studies of the gammaretroviruses, but Lombardi wanted to use it for experiments connected to a grant Mikovits had secured from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to study possible causes of CFS. Mikovits contended that Lombardi "was unwilling to take my direction" and should not be undertaking a new project "while neglecting his other duties." She also questioned his ability to carry out that experiment.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Does Table Number 4 lie?

UPDATE: The questions that arise from table 4 can be found here.

At the end of this post is the table 4 from the addendum to Lombardi et al. 2009 (submitted in February 2010).

In this table we find:

Only 93 of the 101 patients are reported (WTF?)
73/93 (78%) are positive by cDNA nested PCR
17/93 (18%) are positive by DNA nested PCR
34/45 (76%) are positive by LNCaP co-culture with PMCs
35/46 (76%) are positive by Antibody in plasma
48/51 (94%) (!) are positive by LNCaP culture with plasma

Please note that PCR positive rate went up from 68/101 in Lombardi et al 2009 to 73/93 in the addendum.

When looking only at the 20 PCR negative patient samples, we find that:

12/20 (60%) PCR negative patient samples were not tested by other methods, only one PCR negative patient sample (the all negative 1139) was tested by all methods - this is at odds with the claims by Dr. Mikovits in her talks since October 2009 that all PCR negative samples were tested and that 31/33 PCR negative samples were positive by other methods
1/2 (50%) are positive by LNCaP co-culture with PMCs
3/4 (75%) are positive by Antibody in plasma
6/7 (86%) are positive by LNCaP culture with plasma
Only one patient tested by all methods was negative by all methods (1139)

This is simply unbelievable sloppy work (only 93 patient samples reported, reports at odds with information given in talks). Why weren't they called out for this? This is a bad joke.

Here is the table, the rows are:

Patient ID
cDNA nested PCR
DNA nested PCR
LNCaP co-culture with PMCs
Antibody in plasma
LNCaP culture with plasma

(With "nt" = not tested)

1103 + + + + +

1104 + + + + +

1105 + - + + +

1106 + + + + +

1107 + - - nt nt

1108 + - - - -

1109 + - nt nt nt

1110 + - + + +

1111 + + + - +

1112 + - nt nt nt

1113 + - + nt nt

1114 + - nt nt +

1115 + - + + +

1116 - - nt nt +

1117 - - nt nt nt

1118 + - + + +

1119 + - nt nt nt

1120 - - nt nt nt

1121 + - nt nt nt

1124 + - - - -

1125 + - + + +

1126 + - nt nt nt

1127 + - nt nt nt

1128 + - nt nt nt

1129 + - nt - nt

1130 + - nt nt nt

1131 + - nt nt nt

1132 + + + nt nt

1133 + + nt nt nt

1134 - - nt nt nt

1135 + + nt nt nt

1136 + + - + +

1137 + + - + +

1265 + - + + +

1138 + - nt nt nt

1335 + - nt + +

1139 - - - - -

1140 + - nt - +

1141 + - + + +

1142 - - nt nt +

1206 + - nt - +

1144 + - nt nt nt

1145 - - nt nt nt

1148 - - nt nt nt

1149 + - nt nt nt

1150 + + + + +

1151 + - nt nt nt

1230 + - + nt nt

1237 + - + nt nt

1154 - - nt nt nt

1155 - - nt nt nt

1156 - - nt nt +

1157 + + nt nt nt

1158 + - - + +

1159 + - nt nt nt

1231 + - + nt nt

1161 + - - + +

1220 + - + nt nt

1221 + - + nt +

1164 - - nt nt nt

1165 + - + + +

1166 + - - + +

1167 - - nt nt nt

1168 + - nt nt nt

1169 + - + + +

1170 - - nt nt nt

1235 - - + nt nt

1281 + - + + +

1172 + + + + +

1282 + - - - +

1173 + + + + +

1174 + - nt nt nt

1175 - - nt nt nt

1176 - - nt nt nt

1177 + - + + +

1178 + - + + +

1179 + - nt - +

1180 - - nt + +

1181 + - nt nt nt

1182 - - nt + +

1183 + - - - +

1236 + - + nt nt

1224 + - nt nt +

1186 + + + + +

1187 - - nt + +

1188 + - + + +

1189 + + + + +

1190 + - + + +

1191 + - + + +

1192 + + nt + +

1193 + + nt + +

1194 + - nt - +

1238 + - + + +

Please notice the "odd" numbers (like 1206 or 1238), and the two "missing" patient numbers (1122 and 1123).

Focusing only on the PCR negative, first we have 8 patients tested by other methods (7 positive by other methods, 1 negative by all methods):