Fired scientist back to peddling anti-vaxx COVID-19 conspiracy theories

Back in 2011, we covered the strange story of biochemist Judy Mikovits, who co-authored a controversial (and subsequently retracted) paper in the journal Science and eventually lost her prestigious position with a research institution. Now Mikovits is back in the news, having spent the ensuing years reinventing herself as a staunch anti-vaccine crusader.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given her a new conspiracy to tout, this time targeting Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, who has become a prominent public spokesperson during the outbreak. Two interviews in particular have been spreading rapidly on social media, prompting YouTube and Facebook to remove both video clips for spreading medical misinformation during a global pandemic—a violation of their current policies

In 2007, Mikovits met Robert Silverman at a conference. Silverman had co-discovered a retrovirus known as XMRV, closely related to a known virus from mice. He told her he had found XMRV sequences in specimens from prostate cancer patients, although other labs, using different sets of patients, could find no evidence of a viral infection. Nonetheless, this prompted Mikovits to use the same tools to look for XMRV in samples from patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)—a disorder some had claimed was purely psychosomatic. 

In 2009, Mikovits co-authored the now-retracted Science paper, reporting evidence of the XMRV retrovirus in samples from patients suffering from CFS, suggesting it might cause the condition. It was retracted after other laboratories failed to replicate the results, and subsequent tests revealed the original results to be the result of sample contamination.

But Mikovits refused to back down from her claims. She was fired as research director of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease for “insubordination” after refusing to supply a cell line used in her work to a former collaborator. In perhaps the strangest twist of all, Mikovits was briefly arrested after absconding with her lab notebooks and computer files—legally the property of the institute.

This transformed Mikovits into a martyr for the cause in the eyes of many CFS sufferers, frustrated at having their disorder repeatedly dismissed and eager to latch onto a possible concrete biological cause. She became their champion, and their efforts to defend her sometimes turned dark. The most aggressive actions included bombarding researchers with freedom of information requests, lodging complaints with university ethics committees, and falsely accusing individual scientists of being paid by drug and insurance companies. Occasionally, there were even death threats. As Ars’ John Timmer observed nine years ago:

It’s no surprise that patients who frequently had their disorder treated with dismissiveness would respond positively to indications that it had a concrete, biological cause. But demonizing scientists who don’t support something that appeals to you is never going to end well, especially when all indications are that the scientists are being careful and thorough. Unfortunately, we’re now seeing more of this sort of behavior in areas as diverse as climate change, vaccine safety, and animal research.

Now Judy Mikovits is back as a patron saint of science denial. According to Retraction Watch, she spoke at the 2014 Autism One conference. Her talk included a slide with the self-aggrandizing title, “The best scientist in jail story since Galileo.” Last month, she published a book with Autism One co-founder Kent Heckenlively. Like most authors, she has been aggressively promoting it, repeating all manner of outlandish claims in the process.

In addition to appearing in a 25-minute YouTube clip from a forthcoming antivaxx pseudo-“documentary” called Plandemic, Mikovits was recently a guest on Patrick Bet-David’s popular YouTube podcast. She claimed that the current pandemic is caused by a flu vaccine from the 2010s and that wearing a mask would somehow activate the coronavirus. She also claimed that Fauci—whom she blames for “sabotaging” her CFS research—should be charged with treason. (Another attempt to smear Fauci with allegations of sexual assault backfired when the accuser had second thoughts and admitted she had been paid to make the accusation.)