Nobody wants a repeat of the Stephen Straus debacle

urbantravels wrote, in response to Kay (unregistered):

I hate to use that fatuous phrase "That's how science works," but, well, that's how science works. Even negative results add to the body of knowledge. Even results that later turn out to be mistaken or misleading add to the body of knowledge. (The reason I call the phrase 'fatuous' is because it's been used as a weapon of condescension against patients who are anxious about political considerations or other factors hindering the course of research. Conspiracy theorists go way too far with this, of course, but it's perfectly correct to say that politics HAS hindered the course of research on this disease in the past, and patients' concerns that ME/CFS research might go back to being neglected entirely if the XMRV line of inquiry doesn't pan out...well, they're based on history. Nobody wants a repeat of the Stephen Straus debacle.)