From the Chicago Tribune, 4 October 2011 (story by Trine Tsouderos).
Lead researcher fired as journal, institute investigate alleged figure manipulation
The journal that published a high-profile paper linking chronic fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus is now investigating allegations that a figure in that report was manipulated.
The appearance in Science of the 2009 paper caused an immediate sensation among patients who have yearned for an explanation for their condition. Its authors said they had found evidence of a retrovirus called XMRV in the blood of people with chronic fatigue syndrome more frequently than in the blood of their healthy peers.
The report included a figure purporting to depict lab test results from seven blood samples, including two from chronic fatigue syndrome patients whose blood appears to show evidence of XMRV and five from healthy people whose blood does not.
But the leader of the team that authored the 2009 paper, researcher Judy Mikovits, apparently presented the same figure – carrying different labels and supporting a different point – in a talk given at a conference on Sept. 23 in Ottawa…
Why post this trash?
The blogger Abbie Smith has images on her blog that do not correspond with the picture from the slide from Ottawa or the gel from Lombardi et al.
Abbie will not have been given access to the originals at all. They are therefore fresh creations by an artist.