Article- WPI Lawsuit Filed Against Judy Mikovits

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http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/11/lawsuit-filed-against-chronic-\

fatigue.html

Lawsuit Filed Against Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Researcher by Former Employer

by Jon Cohen on 14 November 2011, 5:46 PM

The protracted saga of Judy Mikovits, the lead researcher who tied a

mouse retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), has taken yet

another dizzying turn.

A little more than 1 month after firing Mikovits, the Whittemore

Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) on 4 November filed

suit against its former research director. According to WPI, after

Mikovits was terminated on 29 September, she wrongfully removed

laboratory notebooks and kept other proprietary information on her

laptop and in flash drives and in a personal e-mail account. WPI, a

nonprofit organization that's based on the campus of the University of

Nevada, Reno, also won a temporary restraining order that forbids

Mikovits from " destroying, deleting, or altering " any of the related

files or data.

Mikovits attorney, Lois Hart, said her client cannot speak to the

media about the case, but she strongly denies any wrongdoing. In an

e-mail to ScienceInsider, Hart stressed that " Dr. Mikovits' integrity

goes to the bone. "

Hart rebutted the charges against her client in a 4 November letter to

WPI's counsel that appeared on CFS-related Web sites. (Hart said she

did not release the letter, but verified its contents to

ScienceInsider.) " All of the allegations of theft, misappropriations,

withholding of data and various intellectual property, and items, are

incorrect, and untruthful, " Hart wrote.

The complaint filed by WPI focuses on the laboratory notebooks kept by

Mikovits and her assistants, which she stored in a locked desk drawer.

WPI had a representative from the company that manufactured the desk

open the drawer after her firing and, the complaint states, then

discovered that " the Notebooks were missing. " The suit, which alleges

breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets, claims that

" Mikovits had the only key to the locked desk drawer in her office. "

Hart's rebuttal letter to WPI's counsel contends that Mikovits was not

in her office when she received the phone call that told her she was

terminated and that she never returned to the institute. " A number of

individuals have keys to the office and lab, including the

administrative staff, lab staff and custodial, " Hart wrote. " Your

client's concern as to the location of those notebooks, and

intellectual property, should be directed elsewhere. "

Mikovits worked for WPI since its inception in 2007. Established by

Annette and Harvey Whittemore, whose daughter has CFS, the institute

also studies fibromyalgia, post Lyme disease, and Gulf War illness.

The data Mikovits " absconded with, " alleged WPI in court documents,

could harm the institute's future efforts. " Without these materials,

WPI's ability to continue its important research on finding a cure for

these terrible diseases impacting over 4 million Americans each year

is severely hampered, " the complaint states. It contends that a

Proprietary Information and Invention Agreement that Mikovits signed

states that WPI owned the notebooks that she and others in the lab

created.

Charrow, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig in Washington, D.C.,

who specializes in cases involving scientific research, says academia

and industry have different standards about researchers retaining

their own notebooks and data. Although Charrow stresses that he is not

familiar with the specifics of this case, he says industry typically

forbids researchers from taking data with them. " In academic

institutions, researchers are requested or required to give a copy of

their material or their data to the institution, and they can retain a

copy for themselves, " says Charrow. " That's how it's usually done and

that's why there aren't more pissing matches. "

Mikovits and her co-workers made international headlines following

Science's online publication on 8 October 2009 of an article in which

they reported that they had found a recently discovered mouse

retrovirus dubbed XMRV in the blood of 67% of the CFS patients they

examined. Several subsequent studies, including one that WPI

participated in, could not replicate the finding. A separate study,

also published in Science, provided evidence that XMRV was

accidentally created in a laboratory experiment with mice and

questioned whether it even infected humans. Science's Editor-in-Chief

Bruce Alberts issued an Editorial Expression of Concern about the

paper's veracity on 31 May. Science later published a partial

retraction to the Mikovits's group original paper after one of the

labs that contributed to it said a contaminant marred its results.

Nevada's Second Judicial District Court will hear a preliminary

injunction against Mikovits on 22 November.