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New Science article: Ruscetti standing by Mikovits & saying he did western blots

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Drs Mikovits and Ruscetti are behaving as scientists first and foremost and making their decisions accordingly. Good.
 

Wonko

Senior Member
Messages
1,467
Location
The other side.
Maybe I'm just being picky but I have to question the likely accuracy of an article which descibes XMRV as "a recently detected mouse retrovirus" - if they cant get that right what else have they got wrong.

edit - it doesnt look like it was a mistake persay, a result was re-interpreted on the basis of new evidence (which doesnt necessarily mean the original interpetation was wrong, just not as right as it could have been), storm in teacup.
 

citybug

Senior Member
Messages
538
Location
NY
I'd been wondering if they had just used that chemical in the first paper. The space limits Science put on the paper meant not all the methods were included. More information was provided later in the addendum.

For me the Silverman retraction of figure 1 in the Science paper makes the paper better. This single round PCR figure is what led to most of the negative reports which concentrated on single round PCR. Mikovits always said that serology (antibodies) and culture were better tests. And Alter and Lo and further research has shown why- that is a family of murine related retroviruses, more variation than the one called XMRV.

I am relieved there was a conflict between VIPDX and the research arm and management dynamics and nothing more sinister. Please some university hire a brilliant researcher and get the grants as an extra.
 

Angela Kennedy

Senior Member
Messages
1,026
Location
Essex, UK
My favourite bit was the hilarious understatement about Abbie Smith writing a 'snarky blog'. That blog is full of inflammatory and defamatory attacks on Judy Mikovits which show Smith has a massive conflict of interest at best, meaning her attempt to destroy the integrity and reputation of Mikovits is clear for all to see. I collected screenshots of Smith's comments (let alone her cronies). This is highly unprofessional on Smith's part.

So the understatement, from the same mag (I'm having more and more trouble calling it a journal, frankly) that said Mikovits had fire shooting out of here blue-gray eyes last week, is freakishly incongruous - absurd.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Interesting article re the politics, but rather sad.

Sciencemag, is owned and run by Science, so are we to assume that Science are content with the explanation, and that there is no improper activity involved?

The article doesn't seem to answer all of the questions because of the incongruous way that the images are labelled, and it doesn't seem to clear the matter up because of the issue of the 5aza not being reported in the original paper.
 

oceanblue

Guest
Messages
1,383
Location
UK
The Science paper does say that the healthy control samples were 'activated', so is this not a reference to using 5aza? :confused:
Not sure. The Figure legend for that gel in the Science paper says:
Lysates of activated PBMCs from healthy donors (lanes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7) or from CFS patients (lanes 3 and 6)
However, the latest version of the slide at Ottowa says (according to erv):
1-- Normal
2-- 2905 PBMC
3-- 2905 PBMC + 5-AZA
4-- Normal
5-- 1674
6-- 1674 + 5-AZA
7-- Normal
8-- SFFV-infected HCD-57
So under this new - apparently more accurate - labelling lanes 2&5 are not healthy controls but patients, and are without 5-aza. It also says the normal lanes are without 5-aza. Which makes me suspect that activated doesn't refer to 5-aza-treated, though I don't know what it does refer to.

The whole point is that 5-aza effectivley unmasks the latent MLV (lanes 2vs3 and 5vs6), in which case it needs to be in the controls too. Ruscetti's explanation still doesn't make sense to me but perhaps I'm missing something.
 

Angela Kennedy

Senior Member
Messages
1,026
Location
Essex, UK
My response to Science last night

The comment 'snarky blog' has to be one of the biggest understatements in journalistic history. Jon Cohen - in the interests of balance, really should have addressed the inflammatory comments Abbie Smith has repeatedly made against Judy Mikovits for a long time now. Smith has repeatedly attempted to smear Mikovits good name and assault her integrity, though anonymous followers have also taken part in this. It has been shocking to watch. Comments from Abbie Smith (ERV) alone (without the other chiming in) include:

"It could TOTALLY be what Judy says it is NOW, she just 'forgot to label it' and 'forgot to talk about 5-AZA' in the Science paper! That is an excuse I had not expected. Judy should keep it in the bag for the next time one of these 'accidents' pops up. LOL!!...But Im sure Judy (or that damn post doc) just accidentally scanned the wrong image that just happened to have the pattern they 'saw' with their epigenetics assays"

"ATTENTION JUDY MIKOVITS AND WHITTEMORE PETERSON INSTITUTE: Game over. DONT F*** WITH SCIENTISTS. DONT F***K WITH SCIENTISTS." (please note the asterisks NOT used on the blog).

"I will not let Average Joes/Janes think this woman is scientifically trustworthy." (referring to Mikovits)

"Why do I get the feeling that this evidence does not exist, and Mikovits is just a gigantic fucking c**t?" (please note asterisks NOT used on the blog)

"So, now she is a deceitful, conniving, gigantic fucking c***" (please note asterisks NOT used on the blog)

"So once again, Mikovits is being manipulative, suggesting another groups scientific statements are actually personal attacks, 'attacking us', while providing no scientific response. Like a Creationist"

"Aaaaand now weve graduated from 'deceitful, conniving, gigantic fucking c***' to just good old fashioned dangerous. We are now well into Kook Kountry here"

"Judy Mikovits? You suck. Grow the f*** up and learn to be a scientist." (please note asterisks NOT used on the blog)

These are just a few examples. There are plenty more. I do not personally care about the rude words (I've only asterisked them in order to prevent ME being prevented from posting here, ironically!) - but it's the fact they are directly used to attack a scientist, Judy Mikovits, already accused of having fire shooting out of her eyes and being a Joan of Arc (i.e religious fanatic and heretic) in Science itself last week! These attacks on a scientist by a 'snarky blog' writer are part of this story, as are many other things conveniently ignored in the press about this whole issue. Looking at this level of attack - one sees how there has been a concerted smear campaign going on. Now THIS should be investigated.
 
Messages
13,774
I am awake again, but am planning to take most of today off internet discussions (I drove myself towards rambling semi-conciousness yesterday).

Having re-read the article, I'm not sure if it really helps us understand what's going on (assuming everyone apart from V99 was able to recognise that two identical images were the same). I pretty much agree with OceanBlue's post - but that's where we were yesterday.

It seemed like Science published before they knew what was going on (maybe they just wanted to get what they could out quickly?), and I really wanted to hear Ruscetti and Mikovit's reply to this:

Vinay Pathak, a retrovirologist at NCI who earlier damaged the XMRV/CFS theory with a study in published in Science that documented how the virus was accidentally created in laboratory experiments, says he is "bewildered" by Ruscetti's and Mikovits's explanations about Figure 2C. "If [5-Azacytidine] was used in the original experiment, it's an egregious error to leave it out of the Science paper," says Pathak. "It makes a difference how I would interpret the results."

I don't want to be left with bewilderment! I had bewilderment before reading the article. This is the non-stop internet age, and I want to be thruthed right now!
 

Angela Kennedy

Senior Member
Messages
1,026
Location
Essex, UK
I am awake again, but am planning to take most of today off internet discussions (I drove myself towards rambling semi-conciousness yesterday).

Having re-read the article, I'm not sure if it really helps us understand what's going on (assuming everyone apart from V99 was able to recognise that two identical images were the same). I pretty much agree with OceanBlue's post - but that's where we were yesterday.

It seemed like Science published before they knew what was going on (maybe they just wanted to get what they could out quickly?), and I really wanted to hear Ruscetti and Mikovit's reply to this:



I don't want to be left with bewilderment! I had bewilderment before reading the article. This is the non-stop internet age, and I want to be thruthed right now!

Yes, like those pesky patients with signs and symptoms of neurological ME want to be throothed about the claims of recovery in the PACE trial before they go and follow what might be really dangerous exhortations to think themselves better and increase exercise.

By that logic- there's quite a bit of 'egregious errors' in the PACE trial article.
 

oceanblue

Guest
Messages
1,383
Location
UK
Having re-read the article, I'm not sure if it really helps us understand what's going on (assuming everyone apart from V99 was able to recognise that two identical images were the same). I pretty much agree with OceanBlue's post - but that's where we were yesterday.
I'm clearly not keeping up. I thought what was new in the article was:
1. confirmation from one of the authors that the gels were indeed the same (as almost everyone thought)
2. Also, confirmation that they were meant to be the same gel ie it wasn't a new experiment with the wrong gel shown by mistake, and that the new labels are correct.

That second point, to me, means the original Science paper gel is wrongly labelled and doesn't have an appropriate control (healthy + 5-aza). That's pretty serious. While ERV had made this point, we didn't have the author's confirmation that the new side is the correctly-labelled version (for 5-aza).
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
So under this new - apparently more accurate - labelling lanes 2&5 are not healthy controls but patients, and are without 5-aza. It also says the normal lanes are without 5-aza. Which makes me suspect that activated doesn't refer to 5-aza-treated, though I don't know what it does refer to.

Perhaps Figure 2C might have the same type of PBMC activation as Figure 2A which says:
"Expression of XMRV proteins in PBMCs from CFS patients. (A) PBMCs were activated with phytohemagglutinin and interleukin-2"

The whole point is that 5-aza effectivley unmasks the latent MLV (lanes 2vs3 and 5vs6), in which case it needs to be in the controls too. Ruscetti's explanation still doesn't make sense to me but perhaps I'm missing something.

I agree. If the controls weren't treated with 5-aza then that renders them pretty meaningless.
However, I've realised that we need to take the whole paper into account before we start jumping to conclusions.
Someone found a quote from another source that says that only two patient samples were treated with 5-aza, and that it wasn't used for the rest of the paper.
So these two samples were just included for demonstration. But it's still a bit incongruous.

(If I find the quote, I'll post it here.)
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
I'm clearly not keeping up. I thought what was new in the article was:
1. confirmation from one of the authors that the gels were indeed the same (as almost everyone thought)
2. Also, confirmation that they were meant to be the same gel ie it wasn't a new experiment with the wrong gel shown by mistake, and that the new labels are correct.

You are keeping up ocean. I think Esther just meant that the article just adds to the confusion. It clarified something but then caused more confusion.

That second point, to me, means the original Science paper gel is wrongly labelled and doesn't have an appropriate control (healthy + 5-aza). That's pretty serious. While ERV had made this point, we didn't have the author's confirmation that the new side is the correctly-labelled version (for 5-aza).

I've been thinking about this and I thought that as the control lanes are totally 'negative', then maybe it's not harmful to relabel them as something else that is totally negative, just for the sake of easy presentation. Although it is a short cut, I don't think it's misleading. It might be common practise for all I know about it.
 
Messages
13,774
Yes, like those pesky patients with signs and symptoms of neurological ME want to be throothed about the claims of recovery in the PACE trial before they go and follow what might be really dangerous exhortations to think themselves better and increase exercise.

By that logic- there's quite a bit of 'egregious errors' in the PACE trial article.

I've clearly failed to recognise all of the potential dangers of an on-line truthing. I'll be more careful next time.

Did Science write an article about PACE? I don't remember it. I would have been hopeful that they would be okay on it. Or do you just mean one of the many misleading articles?

I'm clearly not keeping up. I thought what was new in the article was:
1. confirmation from one of the authors that the gels were indeed the same (as almost everyone thought)
2. Also, confirmation that they were meant to be the same gel ie it wasn't a new experiment with the wrong gel shown by mistake, and that the new labels are correct.

That second point, to me, means the original Science paper gel is wrongly labelled and doesn't have an appropriate control (healthy + 5-aza). That's pretty serious. While ERV had made this point, we didn't have the author's confirmation that the new side is the correctly-labelled version (for 5-aza).

We hadn't had confirmation. But we already had what purported to be a copy of the original slide, with labelling that more closely matched the IACFS/ME labelling than the Science paper labelling - so what is now confirmed already seemed quite likely. I was hoping for more of an explanation, rather than just confirmation.

Also - we still don't really know what was happening. Were all of their positives treated with 5-AZA? Were all healthy controls? I thought that these important questions could have been easily answered.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Yes, like those pesky patients with signs and symptoms of neurological ME want to be throothed about the claims of recovery in the PACE trial before they go and follow what might be really dangerous exhortations to think themselves better and increase exercise.

By that logic- there's quite a bit of 'egregious errors' in the PACE trial article.

I totally agree Angela... If only the PACE Trial had a fraction of the attention that this has.

Isn't it strange... When patients complain about the inaccuracies, data manipulation and flawed methodology in the PACE Trial, we get accused of being extremists, and told by so many establishment figures that it is a 'gold standard' study...

But when there is a small omission in a biomedical paper, then we are told by so many establishment figures that it is disgraceful and fraudulent, and that patients are again being extremists...
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
I am awake again, but am planning to take most of today off internet discussions (I drove myself towards rambling semi-conciousness yesterday).

I'm exactly the same... I'm going to have to take some time off soon!
I see you're still posting though Esther! So, more semi-conscious rambling for you today Esther?!? lol


I don't want to be left with bewilderment! I had bewilderment before reading the article. This is the non-stop internet age, and I want to be thruthed right now!

lol

Love it! "I want to be truthed! Right now!"