A study designed to find a definitive answer to the question of whether there is a link between the xenotropic murine leukaemia virus (XMRV) and chronic fatigue syndrome has come up with an unequivocal no. The answer was delivered at an 18 September news conference in New York City, and published in the online journal mBio1.

A 2009 paper by Judy Mikovits published in the journal Science,2 and a subsequent paper by Harvey Alter in Proceedings of the National Academies of the United States of America that identified a similar murine retrovirus, claimed to have established a causal relation with chronic fatigue syndrome.3

Mikovits subsequently was involved in convoluted …