Next move by Professor CBT to dismiss ME as a severe neurological disorder

Picture kindly supplied by HR.

by Wildaisy Fl on Thursday, February 3, 2011:

PROTEST: Myra McClure appointed to NIH SEP Committee which approves NIH Grants for CFS

Please feel free to copy and paste this letter or any part of it to post or to send to anyone you want.

I sent the letter below to Kathleen Sebelius, Francis Collins, Dennis Mangan, Wanda Jones, my two US Senators from Florida and my Congressional Representative.

You can see discussion of this issue here: http://www.mecfsforums.com/index.php/topic,5276.0.html


Letter:

Myra McClure, Ph.D. has been appointed to membership on the Center for Scientific Review Special Emphasis Panel, ZRG1 CFSH80 2/22/2011-2/23/2011 meeting.

I protest this appointment for the following reasons:


1) Dr. McClure is not a United States Citizen. Why should a United Kingdom resident be deciding which applicants receive research grants in the United States?

In addition to questions of legality which arise from this, there are further questions of expense, since Dr. McClure's travel expenses will, of necessity, be higher than those of a United States resident.

2) Dr. McClure has publicly stated that she has no interest in research in the area of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

“Nothing on God’s Earth could persuade me to do more research on CFS.”

Source is this article http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5987/18.summary

3) Dr. McClure has publicly stated that she is biased as to study of the XMRV retrovirus, which is a active area of research in the area of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.


"Professor McClure was a co-author of the paper published in Plos One in January 2010 titled, “Failure to Detect the Novel Retrovirus XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.”

As the paper’s name suggests, this study found no evidence of XMRV or MLV in CFS patients or controls. This study can be found here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008519

Professor McClure has publically stated on many occasions that there is a high possibility that the XMRV/MLV related virus findings being implicated in CFS are a consequence of contamination."

See http://livingwithchronicfatiguesyndrome.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/conversing-with-professor-myra-mcclure-about-xmrv-and-contamination/

I ask that Dr. McClure be removed from this committee and that a qualified retrovirologist who is a resident of the United States be appointed instead.

Cordially,

Here is the list of email addresses to send your protests to:

kathleen.sebelius@hhs.gov

francis.collins@nih.gov

dennis.mangan@nih.gov

Wanda.Jones@hhs.gov

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

President Obama's Science Advisor, John Holdren, at AskDrH@ostp.gov

find your congressperson https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

find your senator http://www.senate.gov/ (search in top right corner)
Brian Hoshaw NIH/CSR Scientific Review Officer for CFS, FM, Temporomandibular Disorders hoshawb@csr.nih.gov

Dr. Antonio Scarpa CSR Director
toni.scarpa@nih.gov