Mady Hornig, M.D. vs Trustees of Columbia University and Walter Ian Lipkin, M.D.

Remy

Administrator
Unbelievable what women are subjected to in the workplace. I hope this ends as well as possible for her considering the heavy toll lawsuits always take on the wronged party.
 

AquaFit

Active Member
I'm not too shocked. Every researcher working on the infectious or psychiatric angle after all these years is, IMHO, just tailoring their research to what the government will fund, not to what needs to be researched. Any researcher trying to explore what drugs, antibiotics, pesticides etc in our food does to our bodies goes unfunded. They've helped people to some extent on the one hand, but they'll allow themselves to turn a blind eye to whatever's not politically convenient even though they know by now that we could be helped much much more and very quickly. This is a fight about money, not helping people. Hypocrisy in professional life spills over to the personal. These people are not my heroes.
 
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Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
What a shame all the way around. For Mady - who seems wonderful - for Lipkin - who's work is now threatened - and for us who need them both.

We only have Mady's side of this so far but the lawsuit asserts that Dr. Lipkin had the opportunity to change his ways - and the University suggested that he do so - but he didn't and now valuable future and past ME/CFS research has gotten caught in the middle. If that's true then what shame that things weren't worked out.


One thing is clear - that Dr. Hornig felt compelled to take what amounts to a "nuclear option" - publicly suing Lipkin and the CII - which amounts to putting her career at risk. She apparently didn't see any other way out.

I imagine this will have an impact of the CII's attempt to become an NIH research center; another shame given their reputation and resources. I would have picked them to be one of the top three.

If we could get over the XMRV thing, then we can get over this but it does not help! Sometimes life interfers
 
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Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
Unbelievable what women are subjected to in the workplace. I hope this ends as well as possible for her considering the heavy toll lawsuits always take on the wronged party.

It's a huge risk but I imagine that she felt she had no other options. I remember leaving my last employ I simply forsaw a miserable, miserable future ahead - and given that - there was no other option to take. Anything was better than that. Since Lipkin, she says, was cutting her off anyway - she had no future at the CII - her career was toast - so why not sue?

I just wonder what the remedy is if the lawsuit is successful? I imagine that what she most wants is to have a successful career....Does a court get oversight of his lab and his relationship with her or does she get a money payout or ???
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
It's a huge risk but I imagine that she felt she had no other options. I remember leaving my last employ I simply forsaw a miserable, miserable future ahead - and given that - there was no other option to take. Anything was better than that. Since Lipkin, she says, was cutting her off anyway - she had no future at the CII - her career was toast - so why not sue?

I just wonder what the remedy is if the lawsuit is successful? I imagine that what she most wants is to have a successful career....Does a court get oversight of his lab and his relationship with her or does she get a money payout or ???
It's not gotten in the major media! I was hoping that wouldn't happen - and guess what - we are in the headlines. If it wasn't for bad luck......

Lawsuit at Columbia University roils prominent chronic fatigue syndrome research lab - http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...ominent-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-research-lab

I wonder how far this is going to spread....
 
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AquaFit

Active Member
It's a huge risk but I imagine that she felt she had no other options. I remember leaving my last employ I simply forsaw a miserable, miserable future ahead - and given that - there was no other option to take. Anything was better than that. Since Lipkin, she says, was cutting her off anyway - she had no future at the CII - her career was toast - so why not sue?

I just wonder what the remedy is if the lawsuit is successful? I imagine that what she most wants is to have a successful career....Does a court get oversight of his lab and his relationship with her or does she get a money payout or ???
The court wouldn't oversee a lab or a relationship.

Cort, why would you put this lab in the top 3? In 3 sentences or less. What have they discovered that no one else has in the past?
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
The court wouldn't oversee a lab or a relationship.

Cort, why would you put this lab in the top 3? In 3 sentences or less. What have they discovered that no one else has in the past?
The groups that I know of are

  • Ron Davis
  • Nevada - Lombardi
  • Klimas - NSU
  • Hanson - Keller - Workwell- Cornell
  • Montoya - Stanford
  • Lenny Jason - Chicago
  • Natelson-Cook-Younger
  • Lipkin - Hornig

There are actually ten of them and I'm blanking on a few

Lipkin has a big name, a big lab and he and Hornig have a really big vision for what they want to accomplish. They had a huge set of studies laid out if they could get the money.

The two biggies are the short/long duration immune issues in ME/CFS, the atypical subset. Recently they found the IBS subset. When they did that they used a technique which nobody else has used which allowed them to get at lots of gut species. In their work with the spinal fluid they found almost as many abnormalities in ME/CFS as in MS....

Basically they have the technology and Lipkin is a prominent researcher on his own working at an excellent University. He was a big selling point for ME/CFS. The stars seemed to be lining up...
 

Anomie

Active Member
Cort,
As I was reading that science mag article I was reminded of some information that Dr Lipkin had mentioned to you in this Dec 2015 article that you wrote:

http://simmaronresearch.com/tag/lipkin/

  • Preliminary evidence suggests that levels “X” and “Y” metabolites and, at least, one immune protein are significantly altered in ME/CFS. (Lipkin embargoed this information pending publication of the paper. One of them is a shocker.)
Did anything ever come of this? I'm wondering if this was amongst some of the publications that got delayed.
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
Cort,
As I was reading that science mag article I was reminded of some information that Dr Lipkin had mentioned to you in this Dec 2015 article that you wrote:

http://simmaronresearch.com/tag/lipkin/
  • Preliminary evidence suggests that levels “X” and “Y” metabolites and, at least, one immune protein are significantly altered in ME/CFS. (Lipkin embargoed this information pending publication of the paper. One of them is a shocker.)
Did anything ever come of this? I'm wondering if this was amongst some of the publications that got delayed.
Thanks for reminding. It might. That definitely never came out...
 

JennyJenny

Well-Known Member
  • Ron Davis
  • Nevada - Lombardi
  • Klimas - NSU
  • Hanson - Keller - Workwell- Cornell
  • Montoya - Stanford
  • Lenny Jason - Chicago
  • Natelson-Cook-Younger
  • Lipkin - Hornig

I like:

Ron Davis
Montoya - Stanford
Natelson-Cook-Younger

It isn't that I don't like the others, I just like their work more. I like Davis' Metabolic studies, Montoya's brain scans and Younger had the idea of using a cheap "temperature" brain scan for diagnosis. (Although it was not brain temperature but another signature of some sort.) AND I think it is Younger who believes he can prove Fibromyalgia is auto-immune. Also, I think Montoya did a Cytokine paper with Hornig so maybe he can carry on or she can join him at Stanford. But I do fear her career options will be limited after this so I hope she gets a big chunk of money.

I think Klimas is wrong about GWI and I think the experimental vaccines had EVERYTHING to do with these men and women that got sick due to anything that came down the pike that could have impacted the immune system. I mean, they found everything caused GWI BUT the vaccines. No, I believe the vaccines set their immune systems up to fail with any environmental impact you can name. She validated GWI was an immune system problem and that is still great for the Vets suffering but I think she is wrong about causation.

No on Lipkin for all too obvious reasons. Columbia trustees involved in misappropriation of Autism funds. :banghead:

I do like Hanson but I don't like Workwell. I still don't trust their view with exercise. I don't like Klimas' view on exercise either. It's got to stop.

But I don't think they will choose both Davis and Montoya as they are both Stanford and if they are going to fund three they will be spread out around the country. So, if Hanson separates from Workwell she is my pick or Jason who is also very good.
 
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AquaFit

Active Member
Seanko - That's pretty funny at first glance (what the heck is this on my butt?). I hope both parties find fairness and resolution. I'm fairly familiar with the academic world and the media world, and both can over-exaggerate and both can be like children. I like to think that this embarrassment will spur Dr. Lipkin on to work harder and find a medical breakthrough for ME which will distract from his personal troubles. Office romances have a potential to blow up like this. It's all conjecture at the moment so Lipkin's innocent until proven guilty so I imagine he has his head down and is working hard right now.

Cort - I like that Ron Davis is looking into Ehlers Danlos genes now. I hope that he expands that into other connective tissue investigations.

As for Leonard Jason, his "limbic kindling" theory (and other similar CNS theories) has been used as a basis for stopping medical investigation and opiod treatment for chronic pain of more than three months, FM and the pain and fatigue of ME/CFS. Jason's guaranteed a lot of work for his field in suggesting in his studies that psychotherapy be a treatment for CFS, chronic pain, oh and sex work. Really. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4876662/pdf/nihms781849.pdf It seems he has a formula; childhood and or other trauma = psychiatric problems = behavioural problems of the conscious and unconscious (latter being central nervous system activation) = need for gov't to fund psychotherapy. All while using words that makes the targets of treatment happy and "validating" them. (What I don't like about the sex work studies Jason did was that the participants were recruited from jail or "treatment centres" after being arrested. This would skew his findings of trauma as well as taking advantage of subjects who have the choice of jail time or participation in a study and "treatment". A more impartial and scientific study would have been to recruit sex workers from legal brothels in Nevada or via ads in countries where sex work is legal.)

I personally think that what Jason went through was nervous exhaustion. It may be all psychosomatic for him. Which would explain why he never clued into the obvious signs of connective tissue disorders when talking about "limbic system kindling". Acetylcholine depletion and problems with complement in plasma should have been big giveaways. What many researchers call an immune system overreaction from a previous infection sounds more and more like dysfunctions of blood plasma and connective tissues covering the brain, etc. (plasma is connective tissue). I note that Jason is working with a multiple sclerosis researcher; hopefully he'll start to clue in but I'm suspecting that he may twist things around or selectively cherry pick evidence to claim that connective tissue disorders are a product of trauma too! At this rate Jason may be able to cure cancer with psychotherapy.

Finally, Jason overstates division between ME/CFS patients in media, calling it a "vicious" division. http://gizmodo.com/the-battle-to-finally-understand-chronic-fatigue-syndro-1741658406 The definition of vicious is deliberately cruel or violent. That's the word he uses to characterize ME/CFS/SEIDS patients to the world? Dr. Jason is a highly educated wordsmith. I don't think he used that word by mistake. I feel it's part of an ongoing narrative he's developed over the years to keep a marginalized group misunderstood and sectioned off from help from the medical field and gov't as far as he is able. I don't know if I'm right, but that's what I feel. He goes on and on about how patients are unhappy with the different names of ME/CFS/SEIDS. As if that's the most important thing to be talking about. It is completely normal for groups that have something in common but lack of agreement on key points to have emotional debates and disagreements. You do a better job of bringing people together with a common purpose, Cort! :)

There's a site called inspire.com with an Ehlers Danlos section which some here are aware of and I thought I'd mention - very relevant to all of us here. Thank goodness for the internet - all it takes is for a few "rare" patients to get together from around the world to realize more than doctors ever did or maybe want to.
 
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Remy

Administrator
Office romances have a potential to blow up like this.
They do for sure, but unfortunately the men in this position historically have not suffered the same blows to their career and reputation as the women invariably do. I'm not suggesting we hang Lipkin up without due process of law, but to seemingly shrug off serious accusations as just an unintended consequence of a love affair gone wrong is no good either.
 

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