October 2011, California.
Judy had just been fired from the institute she had co-founded, based at the University of Nevada. She had been employed by a man named Harvey Whittemore, who was deemed to be one of the most influential individuals in the state. However, she had three houses, several cars, savings in the bank, a boat and several interesting job opportunities on the horizon, and her husband had a good pension, so she was not unduly concerned. In 2013, Whittemore was sentenced to eighteen in prison, having been convicted of three felonies including giving illegal campaign contributions in the attempt to influence a powerful senator.
Judy admits to being initially quite naïve about the ‘dark’ forces that influence science or that anyone would want to harm her. As a ‘lab rat’, oblivious to other concerns, her life centred around her academic work.
Judy outlines the great influence her colleague and mentor, Frank Ruscetti has had on her professional life. Specifically, his insistence on rigour and thoroughness in research and presenting all findings not just those that are favourable to your hypothesis, the joy of intellectual combat in standing up to defend your research and fierceness, resilience and courage. It is obvious that Judy has the greatest of respect for Frank personally and professionally.
As readers, she maintains, we are jury members considering the evidence that Judy is presenting. She clearly states that ‘science is being corrupted by the influence of corporate money’. Specifically, she maintains that pharmaceutical, agricultural, petroleum and chemical companies have billions of dollars at stake regarding the research done and conclusions reached by scientists. They have immense financial clout to buy and influence the media, government, academic institutions and the public in general. Massive donations can be made to politicians who will then support favourable legislation (as Harvey Whittemore above unsuccessfully attempted to do).
Judy states this corruption is the cause of public ill-health whether it be due to autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, obesity, multiple sclerosis, different types of cancer or mental illness amongst the young. Judy compares herself to the boy in Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ pointing out the truth to the deluded public.
You don’t need to be the brain of Britain to notice the percentage of adverts on television advertising pharmaceutical products for example. (According to figures from the Standard Media Index, for the first six months of 2020, Big Pharma spent 5.5 Billion dollars on TV advertising most of which was on drug products.) This accounted for 75 percent of the total amount of money spent on advertising of all types in that same year.) Even the most alert and critical viewer could be forgiven for being subliminally influenced by such an onslaught! Feeling off colour? Just pop a pill!
Judy states plainly her belief in God as a Christian and that one day she will stand in front of him and be answerable for her actions. Surley it is faith that has enabled her to continue and maintain her sanity and courage despite public vilification.
Ian Fleming himself would have loved to have created such an exciting scenario for 007 as Mikovits recounts being stalked and escaping incognito in a speedboat from her home! Mikovits displayed considerable resourcefulness during this ordeal not to mention a soupcon of sang froid! As mentioned above, Mikovits stated that she found it hard to believe that anyone would want to harm her and was therefore slow in appreciating the danger she was in. However, after phonecalls to Ken Heckenlively her co-author and Frank Ruscetti her colleague and mentor, it dawned on her that she was in a serious situation. Strangely, Mikovits had received an A4 package a few months earlier from a ME/CFS patient and autism mother who seemed to have uncannily intuited Mikovits vulnerable position. On the package was written ‘You really don’t understand but you are going to need these’. Indeed, the items enclosed aided in her escape – several hundred dollars in cash, a fake pen with a recording device in it and a mobile phone with minutes on it.
Mikovits then goes on to introduce the research of Dr. Robert Silverman of the esteemed Cleveland Clinic. She maintains his research was dishonest in that he didn’t disclose essential information about his findings regarding XMRV which subsequently had an extremely negative effect on Mikovits and her credibility as she had unknowingly included details of his research in her work unaware that it was inaccurate and incomplete. Specifically, Silverman had not isolated a complete XMRV virus but had only found some components of the virus. These had been found in samples taken from male patients who had prostrate cancer. Silverman had discovered nucleic acid sequences
#At this point for us laymen a brief description of the structure of DNA is needed to understand the above. Three researchers Watson, Crick and Wilkins received a Nobel Prize in 1962 for the discovery that DNA had a double helix three-dimensional structure like a twisting ladder. However, their efforts were the culmination of discoveries regarding DNA and its structure that had begun in the 1860s. DNA is the blueprint and coding mechanism that determines inherited characteristics like eye colour and blood type but it is also responsible to a large degree to the intellectual capabilities, personalities and psychological make-up of children. Hence the expression ‘like a chip off the old block’. A gene is a short section of DNA.
The ‘side rails’ of this ladder consist of phosphoric acid and a sugar called ‘deoxyribose’. DNA stands for Deoxyribose Nucleid Acid. The rungs of the ladder consist of nitrogenous bases which are combination of four different chemical compounds.
Silverman had detected a few hundred base pairs of the murine virus in his patients with prostrate cancer which they named XMRV. However, a complete virus could contain over a thousand base pairs or many thousands. So, Silverman had to cobble together viral sequences from several biopsies of different patients. DNA was taken from three different patients and spliced them together in a ‘Frankenstein fashion’ as Mikovits puts it to create a cloned copy of the virus containing over eight thousand base pairs. The typical retrovirus can have anything from between 8,000 to 10,000 base pairs. This synthesized clone which had never existed in nature was called VP62.
In fact, it was Mikovits and Ruscetti themselves who were the first to identify and isolate the virus complete from humans hence their article to that effect in the Science journal in October 2008. The article discussed its link with ME/CFS.
However, Silverman did not share this information until five years later. Conscientious and rigorous scientists as they are, Mikovits and Ruscetti included all their findings together with the inconsistencies and uncertainties. Silverman’s ‘deceit’ as Mikovits puts it, came to light as a result of their research at this point. Mikovits states that she believes Silverman had committed a ‘crime of the greatest magnitude’ in not disclosing at the outset the true composition of his VP62 virus and that he should have been ‘driven out of science’.