One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)

There is a sad but also compelling reason Plague is such a page turner: it's true. Mikovits and Heckenlively lift the veil so that anyone who cares to look may see for themselves the heartbreaking truth that economic and political interests have hijacked science today. Federal health authorities, major universities and hospitals are all eating at the pharmaceutical trough so it is incumbent on each and everyone of us to inform ourselves using independent science on so much that we have taken for granted for so long: that vaccines are totally safe and effective, that pesticides and herbicides are safe, that fluoride is safe, that mercury amalgams and mercury in vaccines is safe, that GMOs are safe, that steroids, hormone and drugs in our food are safe. The list goes on. Today more than ever we must abide by the adage "buyer beware".

Everyone who has an interest in science and the truth should read Dr. Mikovit's story. It is a story of intrigue, corruption and betrayal. I hope one day that Dr. Mikovits will see justice for the wrongs done unto her. She is a brilliant scientist with much to offer and once day everyone will know what happened and see the truth. Thank you Dr. Mikovits.

This is an environmental heath attorney and advocate. This book is powerful, riveting and amazingly true. This must read book will help any family find answers to many health problems our health professionals are not aware of.

Plague Reveals Government Science’s Great Deceptions
“Plague” by Dr. Judy Mikovitz and Ken Heckenlively is a ground breaking book that exposes the deceptions of government funded infectious disease research. These deceptions are intended to protect the status quo of the vaccine program and other pharmaceutical treatments that rely on human blood products and/or animal tissue cultured products that eventually make their way into human medical products. This story behind the Frankenstein science Dr. Mikovitz tried to expose and that continues to dramatically jeopardize people’s health and is being hidden by those in positions of power and trust, has been written with the intention of helping suffering patients, as her story dedicatedly demonstrates.
Plague exposes the incredible health catastrophe posed by contaminated vaccines and human tissue culture used to manufacture those vaccines. The health challenges Dr. Mikovitz researched, chronic fatigue syndrome, autism, cancer, autoimmune diseases have been documented by voluminous research.
This well written fast paced true life drama exposes the practice of using threats, intimidation, publicly funded sham science and even jail to intentionally suppress and threaten a brilliant and courageous experienced senior scientist and her fellow researchers who discovered a new retrovirus infecting millions of sick and asymptomatic patients. Failure to acknowledge this discovery and apply further research to its true prevalence and potential to destroy human health threatens the health of every citizen should be exposed.

Dr. Mikovitz, for her dedication to the CFS patients she sought to help, is now looked upon in Scientific Circles as a heretic, because like Dr. Andrew Wakefield, she will not be silenced about her discoveries. This virus, XMRV, continues to be spread through blood products and likely through medicines that use mice genes such as monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies have become the big buzzword in cancer treatment, and are a lucrative new revenue source for pharmaceutical companies who have spent hundreds of millions developing mouse/human hybrid therapies.
As a result of her brilliant research, her lab work was the target of sabotage, in a twisted plot of bribery, greed, misappropriation and other illegal acts by those involved in trying to cover up their own crimes and scientific misconduct. This book reveals how little the NCI, NIH and other agencies agendas really care about protecting the public’s health. This book documents the extent to which the leaders of these agencies and heads of research programs care only about protecting the decades and in some areas century’s old status quo which makes these groups money and protects them from liability. This deception has continued to pull the wool over the public’s eyes despite obvious research that contradicts the safety of the pillar of of our public health system, vaccines.
Dr. Mikovitz quickly discovered what happens to a scientist who does not “toe the line” and puts patients over policy. She was illegally kidnapped from her home and put in jail for 6 days, and was deprived of her civil rights to legal representation and a hearing. What happened to her could happen to anyone who tries to follow the law, follow the science and follow their conscience.
Plague tells a very complex story, and despite the high level of science and intricate maze-like plot, the authors convey this important story in a way the general public can understand. It provides the hope needed to millions suffering from inexplicable health conditions and allows a light to be shined on those who have carried out these evil deeds in the darkness of the clubby and intimidating world of government and industry science.
This is a must read book if you want to protect yourself and your loved ones from a fate of chronic and debilitating illness, if you appreciate truth and justice, and if you like a science based true life “who-done-it”.

This story can be a good documentary, a good hollywood action movie as well. Yet, I have two comments to make:

1) Despite best efforts the language is still very academic and scientific. So not for everyones taste.

2) I was hoping to find some solutions in the book, like, what to when there is CFS, vaccine damage etc... But, the book is only about discovery process of the causation. Does not offer a practical solution (other than indirectly saying "dont vaccinate"). There is a mentioning of ART therapy, but not giving directions how to get it etc.

I would have preferred a less scientific but more solution (guiding the sick people) oriented book.

“[O]ne important manifestation of the principle of free speech is that one who chooses to speak may also decide ‘what not to say’ ” and “tailor” the content of his message as he sees fit. Id., at 573 (quoting Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n of Cal. , 475 U. S. 1, 16 (1986) (plurality opinion)). This rule “applies not only to expressions of value, opinion, or endorsement, but equally to statements of fact the speaker would rather avoid.” Hurley, supra, at 573. And it “makes no difference” whether the government is regulating the “creati[on], distributi[on], or consum[ption]” of the speech. Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. , 564 U. S. 786, 792, n. 1 (2011).
...
 States cannot put individuals to the choice of “be[ing] compelled to affirm someone else’s belief” or “be[ing] forced to speak when [they] would prefer to remain silent.” [PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U. S. 74, (1980)], at 99.
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U. S. ____ (2018) (Concurring opinion of Thomas, J.)  (Emphasis added.)
This Supreme Court opinion was issued one week ago, on June 4. That was just ten days after Doreen was released from a second imprisonment for "decid[ing] 'what not to say'", for refusing to be "compelled to affirm someone else's belief" (or alleged belief), and for asserting her right to not "be forced to speak when she would prefer to remain silent."
And of course, this latest expression by the Supreme Court on the subject is only the most recent of an endless chain of 100% consistent rulings over the entire history of the USA. In fact, the same month Doreen was indicted in May of 2013 the court said this in a different ruling, again citing to many of its previous rulings saying the same thing:
“It is, however, a basic First Amendment principle that “freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.” Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U. S. 47, 61 (2006) (citing West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnettei, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943), and Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 717 (1977)). “At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for himself or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence.” Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 641 (1994); see Knox v. Service Employees, 567 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2012) (slip op.,at 8–9) (“The government may not . . . compel the endorsement of ideas that it approves.”).
...
“[W]e cannot improve upon what Justice Jackson wrote for the Court 70 years ago: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Barnette, 319 U. S., at 642.”
Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2321 (2013) (Emphasis added.)
Four days after the October 20, 2016 denial of the petition to the same Supreme Court for review of Doreen's conviction for taking these pronouncements seriously, a federal judge in Texas offered her own summary of the most well-settled law in American jurisprudence:
It is well settled that the First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but also the right not to speak. For this reason, government compulsion of speech has repeatedly been found to violate the Constitution. See Riley v. Nat’l Fed’n of the Blind of N.C., Inc., 487 U.S. 781, 797 (1988) (overturning law requiring fundraisers to disclose retained revenues to potential donors); Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 714 (1977); W.Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943); see also Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U.S. 47, 61 (2006); Tex. State Troopers Ass’n v. Morales, 10 F. Supp.2d 628, 634 (N.D. Tex. 1998).
...
Once First Amendment rights have been chilled, there is no effective remedy, and it is well established in the Fifth Circuit that infringement of First Amendment rights, standing alone, constitutes irreparable harm. See Texans for Free Enter. v. Tex. Ethics Comm’n, 732 F.3d 535, 539 (5th Cir. 2013) (“We have repeatedly held . . . that the loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”) (and accompanying citations); accord Opulent Life Church v. City of Holly Springs, Miss., 697 F.3d 279, 295 (5th Cir. 2012).
ASSOC'D BUILDERS AND CONTRACTORS OF SE TEXAS, et al. v. ANNE RUNG, Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Office of Management and Budget, et al., EDT NO. 1:16-CV-425 (2016)

Plague would make an interesting longish artical but not a long book. There is too much information describing people and conferences (what they wore, how they looked, suppositions about how they felt.) I go lost in the sea of names of minor players mixed in with those Important to the point of the book. I gave it a shot because I was interested in the subject but stopped reading after a while.

Know anyone with Autism or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? My guess is yes. Want to avoid those diagnoses for yourself, your children, and your loved ones? Reading Chapter 5 of Plague might just help you to see how Autism and CFS are related, how their joint origins go back to the 1930s, and how decades of cover-ups have led to their continuance and increase.

Have you priced Autism lately? What about CFS? Here's what I can tell you. The $20 cost of this book is WAY cheaper than either, so read up and wise up. You'll be glad you did, and you'll be armed with information that you are NOT going to hear from your doctor, our government, or mainstream media.

Thank you, Kent and Judy, for writing this book.

ME is a catastrophic disease that robs its victims of their health, their career, their friends and social network, their homes, their financial security and any hope of a fulfilling life. What it leaves in its wake is a devastating illness, severe muscular weakness, weapon-grade insomnia, debilitating cardio-vascular dysfunction, fluctuating neurological and immune problems, and other multi-organ malfunction. Its victims also have one other devastating disability to overcome: a vacuum of medical understanding and consequential social stigma that severs them from the basic support needed for survival. Ignored and stigmatised, patients as sick as those in end-stage AIDS or heart disease are deprived of even basic medical and welfare support. The treatment of this group of patients is one of the worst medical scandals of the modern era.

It is said that this complex disease demands the attention of the most intellectual clinicians and scientists, but it also demands two other attributes: immense courage and integrity. Such is the stigma and scorn surrounding the disease that only exceptionally dedicated scientists and clinicians dedicate themselves to these patients as any who stray into the field of ME research commit career suicide. Dr Judy Mikovits is one such scientist. This remarkable and brilliant woman discovered the footprints of a family of new pathogens in the blood of patients with this neuroimmune disease: a group of gamma retroviruses.

Like those before her who identified a retrovirus in these patients, Dr Mikovits's work was closed down, ridiculed and destroyed in the most dramatic way. Such was her integrity and devotion to science and the patient community, she refused to give way and had to endure false imprisonment, and to clear her name and protect the patients a corrupt legal and scientific system drove her to bankruptcy. Stripped of all she has worked for over the past thirty years Dr Mikovits, although deprived of her career and a laboratory, continues to fight for the patients. Her book is a riveting story that reveals the truth about this most political of illnesses and the probable reasons for the cover-up that has destroyed the lives of millions of people. It is not only essential reading for all who suffer from this group of diseases, but all committed scientists and clinicians who need to be aware of the plague of corruption that has infiltrated their professions.

I highly recommend this book.

Thank you Judy and Kent for bringing this ground-breaking story to the world.

This is a fascinating and enlightening book, which reads more like a suspense novel than the real life account of an established scientist trying to do her job. The authors are adept at portraying horrific events with both detailed narrative and a great sense of irony, and the language is written in a simple style in order for those without a scientific background to enjoy. The book is packed with lots of useful information, and it didn’t take long before I filled numerous pages with sticky post-it notes so that I could return to pertinent points at a later time. This book is a keeper!

ME/CFS is a serious and debilitating neuroimmune disease affecting more than a million people in the U.S. alone, and yet the scientific community/government agencies have turned their backs on patients for decades, labeling it as a psychosomatic disorder even though many studies have clearly demonstrated biological abnormalities. The benign sounding name, “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” further marginalizes and dehumanizes patients, as it makes it sound as though patients are merely suffering from a touch of burn out, when in fact many are unable to perform even basic activities of daily living. Hence, those poor souls who succumb to ME/CFS not only find themselves sick and disabled, and unable to work and earn an income, but they also often experience dismissal from their physicians and thus also disbelief and support from their family members and friends who trust the doctor’s opinion. Indeed, it is not uncommon for those afflicted with ME/CFS to commit suicide because they have nowhere to turn. Life is unbearable for them.

Many patients view Dr. Judy Mikovits as someone with the scientific ability and patient understanding to help end their plight. However, in her admirable quest to assist these desperate patients, she instead found herself caught up in a complex entanglement of scientific dispute and political corruption. If all this sounds too fantastic for some skeptics to believe, names such as Harvey Whittemore can simply be typed into a search engine to show various news articles that will attest to his misconduct.

Dr. Mikovits was not only able to reveal that a retrovirus (XMRV) may be at the heart of ME/CFS, but she also saw compelling evidence for a possible link with other serious diseases such as autism and cancer. Lab work also implied that a large number of the population had likely been infected with this retrovirus despite remaining asymptomatic. Hence, they wouldn’t even know they were sick… yet. Although Dr. Mikovits endeavored, as a forthright scientist, to bring these alarming facts to public attention via appropriate scientific dissemination, she soon became aware that not everyone was interested in disclosing the truth. Instead, she faced contempt and various bizarre obstacles that seemed as surreal as those confronted by Alice in her Adventures in Wonderland. Consequently, the theory of retroviral connection to disease seems to have been buried along with the once esteemed reputation of Dr. Mikovits. It is shocking that Mikovits’s important contributions to the medical field of retroviruses has been deliberately sabotaged out of greed and ignorance but I commend both Mikovits and Heckenlively for continuing the fight by bringing this travesty to the world’s attention. I certainly hope the world is listening!

The only small criticism I have is that such a prominent book ought to be without so many typographical errors, as this can spoil its credibility for some readers.

I requested that my library order the book. When they saw Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the title they hit the button to purchase and said lots of people will want to read this. This told me that lots of people are asking for information on the subject so it is not a small number of people being afflicted with this illness. (I highly recommend that everyone make the library request so that everyone in your community will have access to this important information. Go ahead and order your personal copy also because you will want to mark it up with a highlighter.)

My heart goes out to Judy and the pain this has brought to her life. For some reason America loves to take down the good guys/gals, it never used to be that way. How did we get so messed up?

Hiding demons under the rug is not the answer now or ever. Besides we have done it for so long now the rugs has a hump in it, gee no wonder everyone notices the rug.

Thanks to Kent and Judy for a book that should be required reading in government classes. A story that is unbelieveable but I'm old enough to recognize that it is all true.

You know I'm a school bus driver so the technical stuff was tough but I just had to not let that hold me back. Grasp what you can and keep reading. The gist of it was science is for sale and there are many eager buyers. Clearly the Whittemores did not cover Judy's ethics and morals during the interview process or they would have passed her by. The buyers are not used to any opposition to their offers and with power, money and influence their ability to retaliate knows no bounds.

Judy and Kent God Bless You. A terrible story that needed to be told and you executed it perfectly. Thank you.

A book packed with information and integrity, some thing you rarely find these days, espesially regarding such "taboo" subjects.

Clearly we have been liviing in a world where money and politics take precedence over people and health.

Dr Judy Mikovits and Kent Heckenlively have brought us a book bursting with irrefuetable science and a genuine honesty about the struggle to make the public not only aware of all the facts and information about these illnesses but also the personal sacrifices made.

We can only hope that this is the beginning of an avalanche of further inforamtion and an honesty to care for those coping with these diseases.

Thank you.

I know Judy personally and her level of commitment to TRUTH and HONEST SCIENCE is incredible! She lost her career and almost everything in order to bring these issues into public view. If you haven’t read this yet, then you need to! The future of ourselves and our children DEPEND on it!

Recommendations after reading this book:
1- Everyone needs to educate themselves on the true nature of how their immune systems work. Armed with this knowledge, you cannot trust mainstream AMA-certified doctors, or the pharma firms manufacturing vaccines, to keep you informed.

2- Defend you position on vaccines vigorously, esp. if you have chronic fatigue, etc. As Mikovits says in a Utube vid, don't get vaccine injections or eat GMO food. GMO weakens your constitution, as the gene editors don't know all the effects of the changes they make to plant genomes as it affects nutritional value of foods.

I'm a scientist and a teacher. I was disappointed in the chosen language of the book. It was clearly written with other scientists in mind, rather than the general public. I was unable to get through more than a few pages at a time due to the density of the book and the boredom factor. If you need a cure for insomnia, this is your book!

Disgusting revelations about corruption at NIH and CDC.

Time to clean house and use taxpayers monies as intended not to
pay to jail an honest woman scientist who revealed the truth about corruption.

Science cannot be for sale - and honest Scientists must not fear that their research may jeopardize their careers and potentially lives.

This book is full of valuable knowledge and truth regarding the corruption inside the scientific and pharmaceutical community. A must read book by an amazingly brave, intelligent and truly caring scientist who risked her career to save us all!

An extraordinary book-I couldn't put it down. Judy Mikovits is yet another example, like Dr. Wakefield and Dr. David L. Lewis, of a brilliant scientist of impeccable integrity whose career has been ended by the forces of venality, of corruption in the scientific enterprise by commercial interests who now control the levers of power in government, the media, and academia. Inconvenient findings are simply not allowed, and are actively suppressed. What Dr. Mikovits discovered is indeed frightening. The genie is out of the bottle, It is a noble enterprise, science. As a boy, after sputnik.,and later, the space program, all I wanted for Christmas was a chemistry set (and I got it!). Judy Mikovits stands on the shoulders of Newton, T. C. Chamberlain, Karl Popper, Bradford Hill, Richard Feynman, and many others. A real scientist knows that most scientists are wrong about most things, most of the time. A real scientist spares no effort to falsify their own findings. What happened here is a case of suppression by the same sort of pseudo-science that promotes vaccination. This is a riveting story of a scientist of great courage who, like Galileo, was thrown in jail for an act of integrity that should make anyone proud. Please buy it, read it, share it, and if anyone you know or love has children, or is thinking about having them, tell them to do their diligent research before they allow anyone to poke needles into their precious offspring.

As an avid reader of both popular science and the research literature covering numerous chronic diseases, I can report that Kent Heckenlively delivers a superb account of the travails of Dr. Judy Mikovits, and her attempts to uncover the relationship of ME/chronic disease syndrome (ME/CFS) with a retrovirus that might have been spawned during a routine laboratory investigation using nude mice. An "establishment" of governmental, scientific, medical, and public health bureaucrats controlled by the reins of big-money Pharma and the political elite. The Mikovits story is a true one, but one that reads more like a Michael Crichton novel---somewhere between the "Andromeda Strain" and "Prey," Kent Heckenlively and Judy Mikovits' "Plague" is exceptionally well written and a very hard book to put down.

At some not too distant time, the "establishment" decided that ME/CFS was better treated as a lifelong disorder, one to be treated with expensive pharmaceutical drugs and, when needed, institutional care. As you read "Plague," you might agree that that decision probably pivoted on financial rather than human considerations. How else could the U.S. have achieved the ignoble global status of highest in the world in per capita healthcare costs, by a factor of two no less, and at the same time somewhere around 35th in the world in life expectancy?

An amazing book. The reader feels like they are there, in the moment, every step of the way through Judy Mitovits' struggle to share the truth about the XMRV virus. This book is devastating in its honesty and what it says about the state of medical research in this country. Once again, rather than advocating for ordinary Americans, especially sick and suffering people, the NIH and the CDC are concerned only with with pharma and their careers.

Dr Judy Mikovits is a modern day warrior or Truth, refusing to cow down and be bought while so many line up for their payday, like Senator Pan, pushing 'Science is Settled'. Science is NEVER settled, that is the premise, the guiding principle of SCIENCE. I have seen Dr. Mikovits on The Truth About Cancer and The Truth About Vaccines, where she brings her brilliance and history to life with true courage and empathy for those injured by the pharmaceutical industry. She stands up and represents the injured in the private VAERS Court - look that one up - which has paid out over $3.6 BILLION in VACCINE INJURY CLAIMS, since the 1986 law absolving all pharmaceutical companies from any and all liability for vaccine damage caused. If vaccines are safe and effective, why have a VAERS court? Why have paid out billions of dollars?

I have recently learned that the MTHFR gene that many of us have, which a SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN cause for a pharmaceutical adverse reaction, was caused by a tainted batch of vaccines that has now carried on to my child. AND the CDC knows this. And we have no idea when that generational transference will end. Perhaps never. What the WHO, CDC, FDA, HHS, and all of the pharmaceutical industrial complex have perpetrated is unconscionable, and truly evil. I am in awe of Dr. Mikovits' fearlessness, and eternally grateful for her sharing the Truth with the masses. She inspires me to engage and teach the US citizens every day - at the gas station, grocery store, parking lots and malls. I bring copies of the CDC Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary and hand them out. If you STILL cannot believe the CDC is corrupt, look at this document on the CDC Pink Book site, it lists all the toxins in the current CDC schedule" thimerosal (mercury), aluminum, human albumin diploid serum (aborted fetal cell: WI-38 - consider a kidney transplant and the requirement for anti-rejection drugs - and we are giving vaccines containing another human's DNA to a 12 DAY old baby. That IS autoimmune deficiency in the inception) and so many more.

Thank you Dr. Mikovits... Thank you.

This is a fascinating and frustrating look into the politics of the scientific research community and one researcher's nightmare of staying true to her research when it disclosed inconvenient data that didn't gel with the official stance of the powers that be. Somehow I was naive enough to believe in the purity and objective nature of science and research, but in every field there are agendas, ego, budgeted dollars and the darkness of the human heart. Dr. Mikovitz's story reveals this clearly. I admire her willingness to risk her career to stay true to her gut instincts and applaud her for continuing to be a voice for so many suffering the debilitating affects of CFS.

I have just finished reading Plague and want to offer a sincere thanks to Judy and to everyone who has supported her. Thank you for having the integrity not to drink the kool aid with everyone else! Thank you for standing by what you see happening, even when others with power and prominence want to bury the inconvenient truth! You are an inspiration and a beacon of hope and I deeply appreciate the unbelievable sacrifices you have made, I know very few people who have shown this much courage.

There is hope for a brighter future if enough of us are willing to question the status quo, stand up in integrity and really seek the truth and demand it from those we will support in leadership roles.

As pointed out by others, incorrect data was later retracted in published papers:A multicenter blinded analysis indicates no association between chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis and either xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus or polytropic murine leukemia virus.
Alter HJ, Mikovits JA, Switzer WM, Ruscetti FW, Lo SC, Klimas N, Komaroff AL, Montoya JG, Bateman L, Levine S, Peterson D, Levin B, Hanson MR, Genfi A, Bhat M, Zheng H, Wang R, Li B, Hung GC, Lee LL, Sameroff S, Heneine W, Coffin J, Hornig M, Lipkin WI.
MBio. 2012 Sep 18;3(5). pii: e00266-12. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00266-12. Print 2012.
PMID: 22991430 Free PMC Article
Similar articles
Select item 21998366
2.
Partial retraction. Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.
Silverman RH, Das Gupta J, Lombardi VC, Ruscetti FW, Pfost MA, Hagen KS, Peterson DL, Ruscetti SK, Bagni RK, Petrow-Sadowski C, Gold B, Dean M, Mikovits JA.
Science. 2011 Oct 14;334(6053):176. doi: 10.1126/science.334.6053.176-a. No abstract available.
PMID: 21998366
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Select item 21940862
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Failure to confirm XMRV/MLVs in the blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: a multi-laboratory study.
Simmons G, Glynn SA, Komaroff AL, Mikovits JA, Tobler LH, Hackett J Jr, Tang N, Switzer WM, Heneine W, Hewlett IK, Zhao J, Lo SC, Alter HJ, Linnen JM, Gao K, Coffin JM, Kearney MF, Ruscetti FW, Pfost MA, Bethel J, Kleinman S, Holmberg JA, Busch MP; Blood XMRV Scientific Research Working Group (SRWG).
Science. 2011 Nov 11;334(6057):814-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1213841. Epub 2011 Sep 22.
PMID: 21940862 Free PMC Article
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Select item 21940859
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Partial Retraction.
Silverman RH, Das Gupta J, Lombardi VC, Ruscetti FW, Pfost MA, Hagen KS, Peterson DL, Ruscetti SK, Bagni RK, Petrow-Sadowski C, Gold B, Dean M, Mikovits JA.
Science. 2011 Sep 22. [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 21940859

I have witnessed (for over a decade) the struggles which patients with ME/CFS face. It is clear, after reading Plague, that any doctor or person who exposes this disease for what it truly is- will be destroyed. Dr. Judy Mikovits and Kent Heckenlively have brought truth and exposure to illnesses which have remained hidden. They have exposed truths which others have failed to pursue. The book details many events which patients and the public will be shocked to learn. Plague clearly shows how our government and society deal with people and secrets that are not meant to be exposed. The book is amazing!

Author Kent Heckenlively has crafted a compelling portrait of researcher Judy Mikovits and her pursuit of scientific truth regarding the XMRV virus. Heckenlively, an attorney and teacher, masterfully recounts the career rise and fall of Mikovits as she maintained her moral compass while struggling against oppressive political and financial forces -- making personal and professional sacrifices, to the point of being unfairly jailed. This book is in part a cautionary tale for those who naively view the process of scientific discovery as always honest, ethical and direct.

An excellent read for anyone - a great insight into how science can be skewed, controversial and not always as honest as we may expect.
For anyone with a neurological illness, immune dysfunction or other chronic disease then it is a must read, albeit rather sobering.
Kent and Judy weave the detailed science around the personal story of Judy's rise to fame with the discovery of a new human retrovirus, only to be denigrated by her colleagues. In the end it seems the retrovirus itself maybe having the last word, but is that the end?
Thankfully Judy shares her knowledge and continues her work to help the patients.

Let's hope everyone reads this book and demands accountability for what has transpired. This is a MUST READ! I was really blown away by the facts in this book. I hope people reading this book will be moved to help bring about change so that the suffering of so many can be truly alleviated.
Thank you for writing such a powerful book that details the truth about scientific research and what the medical establishments try to conceal from all of us. I am so grateful to the authors that had the courage to write this.

Mikovits' work is pretty thoroughly discredited. Her work was shown to be contaminated and the original papers retracted. The story is well documented in wikipedia. There were several articles detailing the retraction. A quick google search will turn up all of this. The book is not recommended.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judy Anne Mikovits led a research effort that reported in 2009 that a retrovirus known as xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) was associated with CFS and may have had a causal role, however the research came under fire, leading to an eventual retraction on December 22, 2011 by the journal Science.

While the story is interesting enough, I found myself dismayed by the author's insistence upon referring to herself in the third person. Seems like a way to "trick" the reader into feeling sorry for what she presents as her persecution by the medical community. I got fed up with this dissembling early on, and just can't read the book as an objective account. This is more autobiography than the story of a medical discovery.

She did an excellent job at throwing the entire ME/CFS community into turmoil with her tainted lab results. The XMRV Virus is NOT the culprit. We will stick with Dr. Nancy Klimas, Hornig and Lipkin at Columbia Mailman School with their breakthrough Cytokine Research and Dr. Montoya at Stanford with his brain scans that were written about in the NY Times November 2014. Forgotten Plague is a documentary coming out June 2015 and Canary in a Coal Mine will be out June 2017.

Dubious authors. Doubt the book adds anything much.

"Judy Mikovits, a scientist whose claim to fame, a paper in Science, was retracted under a cloud, and who was so untrustworthy that she was jailed for stealing lab notebooks…and she was fired."

[...]

Interesting book that gives insight to the big pharma and research industries. A must read for people who want to not follow the sheep herd and be self informed. Scary and informative because of the manipulation in these industries.