Judy Mikovitz /Las Vegas Sun

November 28, 2011

Dec. 19 extradition hearing for Nevada researcher

The Associated Press

Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 | 2:13 p.m.

A California judge will decide next month whether a world-renowned

cancer researcher will stand trial in Nevada on charges she stole

samples and notes from a lab at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Judy Mikovits, 53, was released from the Ventura County Jail last week

after posting a $100,000 bond. Ventura Superior Court Judge Bruce A.

Young set her extradition hearing for Dec. 19.

Mikovits, who lives near Oxnard, Calif., is the former lead researcher

at the Whittemore Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that the institute fired her in

August and filed a lawsuit against her alleging she " wrongfully

removed laboratory notebooks and kept other proprietary information "

from lab officials.

Mikovits made headlines two years ago with research linking chronic

fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus. But the findings since have been

questioned, and subsequent studies have failed to replicate the results.

Lois Hart, a lawyer for Mikovits, said the scientist neither stole

research items nor did anything else wrong. She said Mikovits was

never a fugitive and was always available to talk to authorities.

Mikovits' husband, Nolde, told the Ventura County Star he thinks

his wife and the institute will settle their dispute out of court.

" It's being worked out between the two sides, " he told the newspaper

last week. " Judy is a committed dedicated scientist known all over the

world. Her only concern is the patients and the science. "

Mikovits formerly worked at the National Cancer Institute. Her team at

the institute in Reno announced its discovery in 2009 that people with

chronic fatigue syndrome also were prone to a retrovirus in their

blood called XMRV, opening the possibility of new treatment options.

But in May, the journal that published the findings, Science, ran what

it called an expression of concern about the discovery it said is now

" seriously in question. "

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