NIH grant goes to Lombardi

[bluebonnet]

Obviously, your purpose here is hostile, as your posts disclose. That is a game I will not play.

Nor will I.  IVI is a frequent (and not particularly friendly) poster on ERV's blog.  That says a lot to me.

[Phyfe]

We are a group of ME patients and the goal of this forum is to support each other emotionally as well as discuss research and advocacy efforts.

This thread left the discussion on “NIH grant goes to Lombardi” on page 6.  Could we split it off and put the last pages under a new heading?  (Maybe the title could be “The Trolls Speak”   ).  That way those of us who are actually patients and care givers can get back to the business of actually doing what this forum was meant to do, which IS support patients and care givers. 

I for one would like to read threads that actually discuss what is in the subject line and not be subjected to more abuse by trolls who actually have other obvious reasons for being here.

[Katrina]

http://chronicfatigue.about.com/b/2012/02/13/group-behind-retracted-xmrv-paper-holds-on-to-grant-money.htm

[Robyn]

Yes and it will always be known who did all the work and fought for the patients. And that fact will never be changed, you can't change history.  Now let's just see how long they hold on to it given the recent turn of events.  And the fact taxpayer money is involved.

Oh and there is this little problem: http://www.lasvegasgleaner.com/las_vegas_gleaner/2012/02/oh-right-your-legislature.html

Finally, one-percenter and erstwhile legislative lobbyist Harvey Whittemore may have paid his fellow one-percenters and juice brokers at R&R Partners as much as $70,000 a month over five years for -- public relations? Advertising? Persuading every politician in a 600-mile radius that Harvey Whittemore likes them? -- because that's how these people roll.
 
That money is but chicken poop compared to the jillions that may or may not have been his and that Whittemore reportedly threw around indiscriminately in the course of failing to develop the Hilariously Most Ridiculous Idea in the History of Western U.S. Real Estate, or as the media insists on calling it, "Coyote Springs."

For Public Relations?  Really? That was not money well spent.

[bakercape]

I could be wrong of course but to me this is a sign that the WPI will not be pursueing HGRV's as this does not seem to be his background. Although I think his background includes working in the stock market so.......

[Robyn]

I could be wrong of course but to ne this is a sign that the WPI will not be pursueing HGRV's as this does not seem to be his background.

Yes I would say more fitting for the likes of the CAA.  But isn't that how they make their money.  Just keep us sick and it worked for them for what say 25 years or so?

[Wildaisy]

If you have not yet signed, please sign today!


Petition to Investigate Possible WPI/UNR Misuse of Taxpayer Funds

To sign:  http://www.change.org/petitions/investigate-possible-wpiunr-misuse-of-taxpayer-funds

[Eric]

Yes I would say more fitting for the likes of the CAA.  But isn't that how they make their money.  Just keep us sick and it worked for them for what say 25 years or so?

This incentive should be fairly modest (certainly not minute though), since I would guess they could largely get hired to work on other diseases if CFS were cured or half-cured? Especially as CFS wouldn't be stigmatized anymore if that happened, it would be valorized. I think their lousy behavior is mostly just, they're just that lame.

[Eric]

I'm thinking of non-technical people though. Scientists, being very specialized, would have a somewhat harder time switching research pursuits. Activity by subfield X scientists/pseudoscientists as a group could thus come under a fairly strong incentive to not cure the disease (or at the very least to not accept significant costs to themselves in pursuit of curing it); fortunately they are rather moral on average and (more importantly) have strong incentives as individuals to do good work.

I guess what they have is mostly non-technicals.

This is perhaps a good reason for a relatively authoritarian or steeply-hierarchic structure in grant-giving. I assume most of the study sections at NIH (that give out the dough) consist of rather few people. Perhaps it would be wise to give some formal acclaim to the people that voted to fund a project, if it causes a breakthrough. I assume they get concrete perquisites if they perform well in such a way, in addition to the fact that they'll be like "damn I'm good and everyone knows it", which itself is no mean perquisite at all. When there are fewer people holding the power, the concrete and abstract perquisites of doing a good job will not be spread as thin, so the incentive they exert is greater. Whereas the incentive that researchers as a body have to not improve the treatment of a disease, or to not accept personal costs in exchange for improving it, is the same no matter how the study section's power is arranged.

(That whole strain of analysis is pretty typical of "anti-bureaucratic" political thought.)

While I do think scientists are quite trustworthy and upright on average, that doesn't mean they don't respond self-interestedly to incentives at all. I'm sure that they do.