Researcher who linked chronic fatigue syndrome to mouse virus is arrested

Judy Mikovits, the researcher who led the team that linked a mouse virus with chronic fatigue syndrome, has been arrested at her home in Ventura, California.

The arrest follows a lawsuit filed against her by her former employer, the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nevada, which alleges that after she had been fired by the institute in September she had removed laboratory notebooks and other information that the institute claims it owns (BMJ 2011;343:d6541, 11 Oct, doi:10.1136/bmj.d6541).

Through her lawyer, Lois Hart, Dr Mikovits has denied the charges. “All of the allegations of theft, misappropriation, withholding of data and various intellectual property, and items, are incorrect and untruthful,” Ms Hart wrote in a letter to …