Is Ruscetti an clever Schweinehund or what?

Honestly:

There were some positive results returned by the NCI-Cornell-Mikovits team using another method that looked for antibody reactions to these agents. Dr. Francis Ruscetti’s NCI lab tested serum from the coded samples using a flow cytometry-based assay slightly modified from the one he reported in the original 2009 Science paper. The team detected antibodies in human serum but when the code was broken, it revealed equal numbers of CFS cases and healthy controls had these antibodies – nine in each group, or six percent of the subjects. The paper states, “The serology results are more difficult to address given that the assay cannot be validated with plasma from humans with confirmed [???] XMRV or MLV infection. We posit that positive results represent either nonspecific or cross-reactive binding and note that irrespective of explanation, a positive signal does not correlate with case status.”

So he claims to use a "slightly modified" assay.

And results are indistinguishable if he had thrown in randomly some positive results.

Mmmm. Hmmm. Right.

How convenient for our dear Dr. Ruscetti, how convenient indeed.

And I can see our dear Dr. Ruscetti played it much cooler than our dear Dr. Mikovits. He is a much much cooler customer. Much much cooler indeed.

Sir, you played that nice and safely – chapeau.

Small sample sizes for the serology done in his lab. Ambiguity about whether the tests were done blinded. A few "false" positives mixed in. A nice signal, but enough noise (with the small sample size) so he has his bases covered.

If there had been actually an virus involved in ME/CFS, he could have claimed "We found it first!" – even if it had been some completely different virus.

And now he say with a straight face: "My bad – sorry."

A cool customer indeed. Plausible deniability and exit strategy, played like the real pro he is.

One can see that Dr. Francis Ruscetti has learned from our dear Dr. Robert Gallo, a master in his field.

And I guess John Crewdson would fully agree. Science Fictions indeed, now in their (at least) third generation.

Only Mikovits overplayed her hand, quite a bit I'd say. Not everybody is an natural talent like Ruscetti. One can see what Gallo liked in Ruscetti. And why Gallo fired Ruscetti – Ruscetti is simply a much cooler customer than Gallo. Gallo likes to overplay his hand, he needs to make it big – Ruscetti plays it much safer.

No XMRV means no more money for Ruscetti to pocket. And no money for Ruscetti to pocket means no Ruscetti. I say good riddance, with people like Ruscetti helping us to relieve us from urgently needed research money, with people like him we will go under while he stuffs his pockets.

Ruscetti has his bases covered and other than that keeps his lips tight.

Lombardi is tight lipped as well.

But it's Mikovits who has put her head above the parapet – she could very easily play the fall gal. And rightfully so, I would like to add.

As she doesn't want to play the fall gal, I wouldn't be surprised if she goes into blame-mode again, trying to throw somebody under the bus. Either she plays it straight (and we know that is not her style) and tries to shifts blame to Lombardi. Or she will go to full-retard mode and attempt to throw Lipkin under the bus – which wouldn't surprise me. Or she has gained some sense and plays it cool, keeping her lips shut.

We'll see, we'll see.

We have lost three years to this shit.

Three years.

Thankfully there is other research going on. And Ian Lipkin looking for answers is an real plus, an real asset.

I for one am not thankful for what Mikovits, Ruscetti and Lombardi did – their selfish actions could have easily destroyed most possibilites for progress in ME/CFS for at least the next decade.

Let's hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.