December 23, 2011

(My apologies! (Another CFS moment…) The last blog contained a draft on the first story – not the completed version. Thanks for your patience….)
When it rains it pours. Events regarding XMRV, Dr. Mikovits and the WPI have come hot and heavy during the last week.
WPI’s Civil Lawsuit Against Dr. Mikovits - First some background. Dr. Mikovits was terminated from the WPI in late Sept for refusing to share a cell line with Dr. Lombardi. According to spokesperson from the WPI’s legal team Dr. Mikovits was terminated not because she refused to share her cell line with Dr. Lombardi, as has been reported, but because she took a cell line that had been addressed and sent to Dr. Lombardi from Dr. Lombardi and refused to return it.
The day after Dr. Mikovits termination research notebooks and other data dating back five years disappeared. Dr. Mikovits stated she did not know where the notebooks and data were.
Several weeks later, however, Max Pfost, a graduate student working at the WPI, said in an affidavit, that shortly after her termination Dr. Mikovits asked him to remove the laboratory notebooks and patient samples from the WPI. According to a member of the legal team representing the WPI, Pfost swept the cupboards bare, taking every notebook present including the work of other researchers. A silver research laptop was also taken. Pfost stated that he later transferred the notebooks to Dr. Mikovits.
This is a preview of
err..Correction! WPI Wins Lawsuit/Science Retracts XMRV Paper/Mikovits Back to Work on XMRV
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December 21, 2011
Chapter 4 of How to Be Sick – The Universal Law of Impermanence
There’s just no getting around universal laws. They’re like gravity – you cannot like gravity, you can protest against gravity, you can pretend gravity doesn’t exist but as soon as you roll out of bed there it is – gravity.
The Buddhist law of impermanence – that nothing is permanent – that everything changes – is like that. Is suggests that you can’t count on anything…and you really shouldn’t try because at some point it’s all going to disappear anyway. Your health, for instance, is going to disappear completely at some point. That’s a guarantee! There are no other guarantees; there’s no guarantee, for instance, that while you live you’ll be healthy or without pain or live in the circumstances you wish. That guarantee, unfortunately, did not come with the package.
At the end of the chapter Toni refers to ‘broken glass’ practice which is based on the realization that we are all glasses which will eventually be broken; i.e., brokenness or ‘ill’-ness is baked into and is an inherent part of being human. It may come earlier or it may come later; it may last a long time or a short time but it’s part of the package; if you’re human you’re going to have to deal with illness, physical decay and parts that don’t work the way you expect them to.
This is a preview of
It’s Just the Weather, Baby! Reading Toni Bernhardt’s ‘How to be Sick’ #3
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