Tuesday, July 6, 2010

XMRV: Still in the dark

This in from Mindy Kitei of CFS Central
CFS Central has learned that it was the CDC that made the initial request to pull the FDA/NIH XMRV paper after the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) accepted it. Sources have told CFS Central that higher-ups in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made the ultimate decision to hold up the study. In addition, insiders said that HHS can keep any government study from being published—no matter how solid—and that it is anyone’s guess whether the FDA/NIH paper will eventually be published.
Full article here.

My hope is that CFS Central's anonymous sources begin stepping out of the shadows. To those of us who are familiar with the history, all of the above sounds absolutely credible. To everyone else it's the stuff of tinfoil hats. We need solid evidence that Department of Health and Human Services is censoring scientific research.

Or, if we really are just being paranoid, then we need clearer explanations as to what's going on. Because the information we've been getting is contradictory.

How about it, NIH? How about it, PNAS?

5 comments:

Perpetua said...

Please sign the Petition To have the NIH XMRV study released!

http://healthcare.change.org/petitions/view/xmrv_allow_science_to_progres

cinderkeys said...

Hi Judson,

I signed this petition -- or one very similar to it -- back when neither study had been released. Is this a brand new petition, or should I not sign if I responded to the first one?

DeppityBob said...

I don't understand what the vested interest is. Is this at the behest of the insurance industry, which doesn't want to cover ME/CFS treatment? I hate the idea, but that seems to most obvious and logical.

DeppityBob said...

"...to BE most obvious and logical." Duh.

Jeff Shattuck said...

I love that the CDC gets to make decisions without accountability -- so very government of them.

I'm going to wager that the study got squashed by some sort of lobbying effort.

Jeff