Does this read to you as if an honest investigation was being planned?
Maybe the plan was to make Judy a criminal so nobody would believe anything she says and ruin her life for a vengeful scientific establishment?
Perhaps not, but no other explanation makes more sense to me.
***
Just as we were starting the 2012 Lipkin study, the Lo, Alter et al., paper was retracted with the following statement “although our published findings were reproducible in our laboratory and there had been no evidence of contamination … we feel the association of murine gamma retroviruses with CFS has not stood the test of time.”19 This statement obviously satisfied the powers that be as Alter shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Meanwhile, the study design for the multicenter study, which had been decided November 4, 2010, and what was actually done were two very different things.
Participants with co-morbidities and coinfections typical of patients with ME/CFS were not included, even though sicker people are more likely to express the virus.
The VP-62 infectious molecular XMRV clone spiked samples were not supposed to be included because of the risk of containing a sample containing the defective or slower replicating natural isolates.
We were told that if we detected a positive in one of the duplicates and a negative in the other, we’d get a third sample to break the tie.
Many of the samples had the positive/negative split scenario when Fauci stopped our ability to get that third sample to test. Lipkin then stepped in and applied their “teacup statistics,” which he said determined that those results were contamination and we did not need to test a third time.
Even with all these issues, there were positives in the chronic fatigue syndrome cohort, as well as in the healthy samples.
The study was reported as showing no evidence of XMRV/MLVs viruses, or association with chronic fatigue syndrome. The truth is there was evidence of infection in 6 percent of patients and in 6 percent of controls. The title of the paper actually stated there was no evidence of XMRV in humans. Despite his promise to collaborate with us on future investigations, Lipkin never contacted us again.
The rest of 2012 and 2013 did not go well for me. The NCI administration decided to launch an investigation into whether there was any fraud in my performance of the XMRV project. No fraud was found in any lab associated with any of these original papers.
The failure of other labs to reproduce data is not a reason for retraction and occurs all the time. Neither is the omission of a step/reagent (5-Azacytidine treatment of samples to activate methylated viruses in the methods) a reason for retraction.
Later, a paper showing restricted replication of XMRV in Pigtailed Macaques was published, suggesting primates could be infected.20
Why not humans?
On September 10, 2013, Lipkin was on a CDC conference call on the radio where he said they had done high throughput sequencing on hundreds of samples. They detected retroviral sequences in the blood or plasma of 85 percent of the samples but did not think they were going to pan out to be significant. This is important because, using a more sensitive technique, he confirmed that the blood supply was contaminated with gammaretroviral sequences, thus confirming the earlier work that his study just denied. Apparently, this public conference call on behalf of the CDC was not recorded. But I have a contemporaneous email from Dr. Maureen Hanson of Cornell University, in which she relayed what Lipkin said on September 10, 2013:
Lipkin was on a “CDC conference call.” I think they recorded it and it might be available eventually though I’ll bet it will take at least a week.
I was able to get on the call after the first ten minutes, as I was on a PHD qualifying exam before it. I was quite surprised at how much info he gave out. Basically, he said they had done high throughput sequencing on 100s of samples. He said they detected retroviral sequences in 85% of the samples, but I don’t think he said whether these were cases or controls. He emphasized that he didn’t think these were going to pan out as significant (my guess is they might have been HERVs? Though he didn’t say that.) He also said that they hadn’t yet found a virus or microbe that seemed to be associated with CFS.
He actually was complaining about not having enough money for microbiome analysis, not for virus hunting. Wants to look in fecal samples for both bacteria and fungi.21
How is it that Ian Lipkin can find evidence of a retrovirus in 85 percent of his samples (presumably from the well-characterized cohort of Stanford researcher. Dr. Jose Montoya) and say he doesn’t know if it’s relevant? Can we at least agree that it’s a still an open question?
In 2017, a paper reported that Italian CFS patients were 4.3 percent XMRV positive.22
There were persistent rumors that the Board of Scientific Counselors was going to look at my budget and cut out all virus funding. This was a not-so-subtle attempt to get me to retire by making things difficult to continue. I had no guarantee that I would pass a new lab review. This was personally devastating as we likely found a new retrovirus, which I would never be able to characterize.
***
On September 30, 2013, the official day of my retirement, I got a call from Robert Gallo, whom I hadn’t spoken with since 1985. Gallo said, “Frank, Kendall Smith is writing articles that demeans my role in the discovery of IL-2. Please write and defend me.”
I said, “Bob, I’m retiring. It’s your problem now.”
Gallo then said, “I’m sorry how things turned out between us.”
I replied, “Bob, that could not be a weaker, more disingenuous apology and it’s way too late.”
By all rational measures, I have been lucky in life. I’ve had decent parents, a great mentor, a supportive and loving wife, great siblings, and a wonderful son. I’ve also had many caring and intelligent people with whom I’ve worked.
As with most well-off people across the political spectrum, my pride tells me I earned it. My humility tells me to recognize all the advantages I was given to enable me to come from the humble circumstances to live the life I have.
With that recognition comes the responsibility to do something to assist people who were not afforded these advantages. I think I could have done better to eliminate any vestiges of misogyny in the work place and the larger world.
The collusion between the regulators and their friends in corporate America is destroying our health.
This is where my perspective and that of Judy differs, just as it did forty years earlier on the question of Ralph Sampson and whether he should play for the Boston Celtics.
Judy believes most of their actions are deliberate.
I think they generally display and rely upon an arrogance leading to stupidity born out of the corruption of power, particularly to cover a previous mistake.
But the harm they cause, whether intentional or unintentional, is the same, and deserves our attention.
In 1995, John Coffin and Jonathon Stoye composed a letter to the editor of Nature about the danger of viruses being transferred from animals to humans by the transplantation of animal organs (or tissue) into human beings, a process known as xenotransplantation. They wrote:
Throughout this episode, there has, however, been little discussion of the dangers posed by the possible activation of endogenous retroviruses. Such viruses are widely distributed in mammalian species including pigs and baboons, potential donors for these procedures. Since they are inherited in the germ line in the form of proviral DNA, they are impossible to remove using the usual methods for deriving pathogen-free animals. Many endogenous retroviruses cannot replicate in their native hosts but will grow to high titers on heterologous [different] cells, a phenomenon known as xenotropism …
… Indeed, transplanting an organ carrying endogenous xenotropic provirus is equivalent to injecting a patient with a live C-type virus.23
In 2021, they do not seem to be concerned at all because our immune system is so strong. But what about the people who have problems with their im
mune systems?
Doctor David Kessler, who ran the FDA from 1990 to 1997 when OxyContin came out on the market, now says, “The opioid epidemic is one of the great mistakes in modern medicine.”24
Judy does not believe it was a mistake.
I wonder, Why didn’t they do their job more thoroughly? It only took them twenty years to figure that out. And what happens to these decision-makers with blood on their hands, like David Kessler?
Kessler got another job as the chief science officer of the White House COVID-19 response team. So much for accountability in science.
All these drug companies are facing huge penalties to pay off lawsuits.
One company is allowed by the FDA to use future drug sales, including OxyContin, to pay off lawsuits.25 That’s right! Kill and harm more people to pay off the people you’ve already killed or harmed. The same goes for chemicals like glyphosate and the weed killer, Round-Up, or aluminum-laced talcum powder.26
Personally, I do not think the argument over the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is important, except that Anthony Fauci has misrepresented every other important public health issue since he was appointed director of NIAID in 1984. Public health officials send so many mixed messages, it’s a wonder anybody believes them. We and our enemies have been making bioweapons long before anybody heard of Wuhan. And they are often released, through stupidity, often into the world.
We must admit that public health is a global problem. AIDS is still a pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa where it is the leading cause of death for women of child bearing age.27 Until we have the will to support these people’s basic needs—clean water, clean air, and good food—there will not be much change. The vaccines Bill Gates keeps trying to force upon the world will not help alleviate basic needs. In this country, we need to look at our Native American reservations and the poor in Appalachia, and the shame of our inner cities.
During all the XMRV fallout, I heard from an old friend, Dr. Connie Faltynek, from the Biological Response Modifiers Program and our interferon trial days. She went to work for the pharmaceutical industry to find a drug that worked for pain and had fewer of the side effects of opioids. She found that:
Antagonists of the capsacin (active ingredient of hot chili peppers) and cannabinoid receptor TPRV (transient receptor vanilloid type 1) have efficacy in many preclinical pain models. However, the data suggested potentially profound drug induced thermosensory impairment.28
The drug decreased pain, but also sensitivity to heat. Judy recognized that CBD (cannabinoid) could interact with TRPV1 therapeutically and decided to work on it with compassionate producers in California. Science works better when we all work together.
I have become intrigued by the health benefits of natural products like cannabis, mushrooms, probiotic bacteria, short chain fatty acids, and bacteriophages.
It’s everybody’s obligation to do something with the gifts they are given. Although I am officially retired, I continue to pursue these questions.
***
I hope that what you’ve read from me lets you know what it was like for a scientist on the inside who spent thirty-eight years in government research. Unlike Judy, I have never spoken publicly about these issues. I don’t know if that gives me greater credibility or less, because I have remained in the shadows for so many years.
All my adult life, I have only wanted my body of work (the data) to speak for me, but perhaps that is not enough since I’ve come to the realization that nothing in life is of value unless it is shared with others.
I have simply provided professional and private data for my story.
The interpretation you put on that story is up to you.
Plates
Frank receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from the National Institutes of Health in 1992, the highest honor a scientist can be given by the agency.
Everywhere we went it seemed people wanted books.
When Plague of Corruption hit #1 of all books on Amazon, Kent had to memorialize the occasion.
Judy and Kent spoke at an anti-lockdown protest at the California State Capitol in June 2020.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined us at the protest and took this picture with our book, for which he wrote a wonderful foreword.
David has always been my rock!
Mikki Willis really helped us with his twenty-six minute interview of me which reached a BILLION views, even under relentless attack from the social media giants.
Since 1983, Frank and I have talked almost every day, usually arguing like cats and dogs over what the data mean, but never ignoring the data. (Courtesy of Taylor Mohr Photography)
Ever since I met and fell in love with David in 1999, Southern California is home for me. (Courtesy of Taylor Mohr Photography)
Frank and I are quite the pair. Once at a conference some people saw us arguing very heatedly about some data and became concerned. “Don’t worry,” said somebody who knew us well, “That’s just the way Judy and Frank are. They really love each other.” (Courtesy of Taylor Mohr Photography)
The churches have been the most welcoming of all groups, understanding the evil at the heart of this corruption of science.
Kent and I onstage at Calvary Church in San Jose, California, a center of the resistance against the insane COVID-19 lockdowns.
Over ten years Kent and I have written four books to try and end this corruption of science. Nobody is Superman in this fight, but together we can be a team of Avengers and restore faith in science.
PART TWO
Judy’s Perspective
All who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down before pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.
—Albert Camus, The Plague
PROLOGUE
Keep it Simple, Judy!
People often say to me, “Judy, I know you’ve been in science for more than forty years. But I haven’t. Can you simplify your ideas for me so I can follow along?”
It’s a complaint I’ve heard more times than I care to admit. Once, after giving a talk, a woman came up to me and said, “Dr. Mikovits, that was the best talk on any subject I have ever heard in my life.”
I stood a little taller and replied, “Why, thank you. What did you like best about it?”
She cheerily replied, “Oh, I didn’t understand a word of it. It’s just the way you said it.”
I was crushed, mortified, and thankful Frank Ruscetti had not heard it. He spent so many years trying to teach me transitions and how to make slides that everybody could understand. Yet, in 2010, in London, I had completely and utterly failed.
In 2021, I’m in a unique position, trained in speaking to other scientific experts, and yet thrust into the public limelight of the thirty-second sound bite and media attack. When your opponents can’t win the argument, they censor you. Previous critics of our books said I used jargon.
Thank God in 2021, PCR is no longer considered jargon, and many people express strong opinions about the use of PCR tests for COVID-19.
I’m doing my best, sharing the data, at a time when the mainstream media doesn’t want to let people like me speak, because if the public understands what we’re saying, it will threaten some very powerful corporate and governmental organizations.
Besides writing books, where my wonderful coauthor, Kent Heckenlively, does his best to simplify the science and yet keep it accurate, I often give talks, such as I did in October 2019 in Anaheim, California at The Truth About Cancer conference. I meticulously prepared my slides, listing my claims, as well as the scientific publications, which back up what I’m saying.
But most of all, I tried to keep it simple.
I did not know it, but this conference would be like no other with respect to the impact it would have on my life. A little background is necessary. The invite came by email from my dear friends, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, in January of that year. My mother was in her last days on Earth so I wasn’t paying much attention to email. I saw the invitation and quickly looked at the date of the con
ference, as to whether it was even possible for me to attend.
October 12–15, 2019 in Anaheim, California was perfect, just a few days after my wedding anniversary. I also appreciated the $2500 travel stipend and honorarium. I did not think about it much as my mother passed away on January 22. She requested of my siblings that the funeral be quick so I could continue my important work exposing and ending the plague of corruption in medicine that prematurely ended her life.
So, I did not think much of it as I was to participate in an ACIP (American Committee on Immunization Practices) meeting from February 27–28; a stem cell meeting March 22 –24; and had a late summer deadline to complete our book Plague of Corruption, before fall meetings starting with one of my favorite groups, the Health Freedom Idaho Conference from September 21–23. It was a busy time and I welcomed it to get my thoughts off of my mother’s death.
I got an email reminder that my slides for The Truth About Cancer conference were due the next day. Not a problem, I thought. I’ll just flip the slides from Idaho, and instead of discussing causes, I’ll focus on cannabinoids and natural products. Then I saw the title of the talk they wanted me to deliver: Persecution and Cover-up.
“Not again,” I thought. I wondered if I’d ever be allowed to simply move forward and enjoy my passion: formulating natural products as medicine.
Almost immediately I got a text from Frank, which read, “Dr. J., how can I help?”
Good ole Frank. I guess he saw the email and read my mind.
I texted back: “Yeah, can you find that mug shot in Science?”
“F**K NO!” he texted back. “I’m not ruining my weekend!”
For the first time since 2011, I was going to have to do this myself. I opened my web browser, typed in sciencemag.org, then put in my name and Jon Cohen, the writer who had apparently been tasked with the job of destroying my scientific reputation.
Ending Plague Page 15