Lois Hart, an attorney for Dr. Mikovits denies that her client has any notebooks or other proprietary items. Age of Autism must note the unusual circumstances which would cause the WPI to arrest Dr. Mikovits when a hearing on the preliminary injunction had already been set. After her arrest on Friday, November 18, Dr. Mikovits was not allowed to post bail and has spent the weekend in jail. A hearing for Dr. Mikovits in Ventura, California will take place on Tuesday, November 22 at the Ventura County Government Center, Hall of Justice, Room 13 at 1:30. She remains in jail at the time of this writing.

Dr. Mikovits was the research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Diseases in Reno, Nevada until she was fired on September 29, 2011. Upon being fired she returned to her home in southern California where her husband was staying. On November 4, the WPI filed suit against Dr. Mikovits, claiming she had kept lab notebooks and other information in her laptop, flash drives, and in her personal e-mail account. A preliminary injunction on this matter was to be held in Nevada's Second District Judicial Court on November 22, 2011.

According to Science magazine writer Jon Cohen in an article entitled " Controversial CFS Researcher Arrested and Jailed ", Dr. Mikovits was arrested on "felony charges that she is a fugitive from justice."

The editors and writers of Age of Autism express their concern over media reports of the arrest and jailing of Dr. Judy Mikovits on Friday, November 18, 2011 in Ventura, California.

Another curious aspect to this case is that Dr. Mikovits was supposed to speak at a panel discussion the weekend of November 19-20 on chronic fatigue syndrome/ME at Mt. Sinai Hospital where a chronic fatigue/ME center had recently been established under the guidance of Dr. Derek Enlander. It had also been rumored that Dr. Mikovits might end up collaborating with Dr. Enlander.

Dr. Mikovits was unable to attend this conference in New York because she was in a jail cell in California. Is anybody else seeing a pattern?

According to reports circulating in the chronic fatigue syndrome/ME community, Dr. Mikovits was fired after work on September 29, 2011 by a call to her cell-phone while she was outside her condo in Reno. When Dr. Mikovits returned to her home in southern California she spoke with Lilly Meehan, a CFS/ME advocate. At some time near the arrest of Dr. Mikovits, nine policeman appeared at the home of Lilly Meehan in California, and executed a search of her home. Nothing was found.

Many in the autism community have become familiar with Dr. Mikovits and her belief that autism may share many similarities with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME and that both may turn out to be neuro-immune diseases. It must be noted that the majority of the autism community is still undecided about the likelihood of such a link, although they eagerly await further evidence.

But the autism community stands united with the chronic fatigue syndrome/ME community in support of scientific freedom and the protection of research scientists from witch hunts and criminal persecution. While it is clear that all of us in the autism and chronic fatigue syndrome/ME community await the truth of the allegations against Dr. Mikovits, there is a way in which these matters are to be resolved.

The normal manner of resolving such disputes has not been followed in this case. Senior scientists do not rank the risk of incarceration on the list of fears which attend losing a position, especially prior to any charges being proven in a court of law.

The jailing of Dr. Mikovits without bail for at least five days prior to any legal proceedings raises suspicions of what is ultimately at stake in this case.

We urge anybody in the southern California area to attend the hearing for Dr. Mikovits which takes place on Tuesday, November 22 at 1:30 p.m. at the Ventura County Government Center, Hall of Justice, 800 S. Victoria Avenue, Room 13, Ventura, California 93309.

Update from Lilly Meehan:

I have just spoken to David, Judy's husband, who asked me to get the following message out to the patient community. Dr. Mikovits and the WPI are in negotiations right now, and the criticism coming from the patient community towards the WPI is not helping Dr. Mikovits. They ask that everyone please hold off on their criticism of the WPI for the sake of Dr. Mikovits and the negotiations in progress. Many have asked me what they can do to help, and at the moment this is what you can do: please, everyone, despite the strong feelings everyone is experiencing, please back off in the furor being expressed online and in direct contact with the WPI. Please stop and urge your friends to stop. Later today Dr. Mikovits' husband is planning to send a direct message, but for now has asked me to convey this message to all of you. Permission to repost

This message has been reviewed and approved by David, husband of Dr. Mikovits.

Thank you everyone,

Lilly Meehan

New Update:

Bail has been granted for Dr. Mikovits. Age of Autism hopes for a speedy resolution of these claims between all parties.

And yet another update:

Last night attorneys for the Whittemore-Peterson Institute made legal filings, including affidavits. These allege that Dr. Mikovits had her researcher whose work she supervised, May Pfost, enter the WPI and remove laboratory notebooks. There are also a claim that Dr. Mikovits kept one or more laptops containing information which was the property of the WPI. Age of Autism looks forward to a resolution of these claims.