Much of Alzheimer's Research based On A Fraud?

[Ian S]

Yikes! A shocking revelation by the prestigious Science.org is casting doubt on much if not most Alzheimer's research - and drug development for that disease - since 2006: https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease

They concurred with his overall conclusions, which cast doubt on hundreds of images, including more than 70 in Lesné’s papers. Some look like “shockingly blatant” examples of image tampering, says Donna Wilcock, an Alzheimer’s expert at the University of Kentucky.

The authors “appeared to have composed figures by piecing together parts of photos from different experiments,” says Elisabeth Bik, a molecular biologist and well-known forensic image consultant. “The obtained experimental results might not have been the desired results, and that data might have been changed to … better fit a hypothesis.”

If this turns out to be truly scientific fraud, the cost will have been enormous in terms of research dollars wasted not to mention drug development costs. Then there's the wasted years spent pursuing a possibly erroneous cause of the disease. I wonder if the additional Medicare premium due solely to the insane cost of one Alzheimer's drug can be more quickly reversed than they were planning.

 

[braumeister]

Alas, that sort of thing is all too common.

The first problem is the "publish or perish" rule.
The second one is that confirming the null hypothesis stands very little chance of getting published.

 

[MichaelB]

A decade ago researcher John Ioannidis affirmed that 90% of medical studies were wrong. A few years ago another research team suggested that 70% of all research studies cannot be replicated. A year ago with Marc Andreessen affirmed the same statistics, but added it was not new and this has been an issue for many years.

Alzheimer’s disease is very difficult just to diagnose, much less treat, so I’m very skeptical when I read anything regarding its prevention or treatment.

 

[razztazz]

A decade ago researcher John Ioannidis affirmed that 90% of medical studies were wrong. A few years ago another research team suggested that 70% of all research studies cannot be replicated. A year ago with Marc Andreessen affirmed the same statistics, but added it was not new and this has been an issue for many years.

And people like to immediately dismiss "conspiracy theories." Of course it's a conspiracy. As long as money is the objective this is what you'll get. Unless someone actually does invent a better mouse trap. That should speak for itself. But ...uh..., just in case......

Alzheimer’s disease is very difficult just to diagnose, much less treat, so I’m very skeptical when I read anything regarding its prevention or treatment.

A piece I read about 10 or so years ago by a doctor said there would never be a cure for it because it's not a disease. It's normal brain aging. People age at different rates. Gray hair, wrinkles, loss of reflexes, needing reading glasses, all the signs of aging, occur in everyone with age, but of course some people do seem to age faster and some are surprisingly spry at advanced ages, even correcting for the usual smokin', drinkin', diet et al. There's no reason to think the brain is any different.

That sounded logical but I don't think that, in itself, precludes developing a treatment to delay onset / slow progression.

 

[Aerides]

I remember reading a long form piece about the people behind Pom Wonderful, and the whole embracing of pomegranates and a great health fruit in the late 90s I think it was.

Basically, already-super-rich couple (they of the Franklin mint late night infomercials and such of the 80's, and FIJI water) inherits a Pomegranate farm. What can we do with this hmm? So, they pay to have studies made, funding UCLA and the likes that say it's super good for you. And they know marketing, so they get those studies in the edges of the news, puff pieces and so on, and pretty soon everyone starts buying their juice.

Is it all legit and really good for you? I have no idea....many of these studies are made to support a profit premise. Look to see who funded them, and you have your answer.

 

[ls99]

Shocking, just following the science. Until debunked.

 

[HenryD]

Is it all legit and really good for you? I have no idea....many of these studies are made to support a profit premise. Look to see who funded them, and you have your answer.

POM paid for a study, found no benefit, lied about the results in marketing, then argued that the first amendment entitled them to lie about it. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-pomegranate-juice-that-wonderful/

 

[Silver]

I worked in health care for 35 years. My own opinion, discerned after years of observation and involvement, is that surgery is fairly clear on what can be done, and how it can help.

Medical intervention, however, is little more than a well-intentioned best guess.

 

[mickj]

Thank goodness none of this has happened with any Covid research.

 

[braumeister]

An interesting aside is that somehow I would expect this sort of thing more in the social sciences than the hard sciences, but in fact it's pervasive throughout. All we lesser beings can do is to read the studies as best we can (not just the abstracts, and certainly not the reporting of them), and try to winkle out any possible biases. It's very difficult.

 

[JoeWras]

An interesting aside is that somehow I would expect this sort of thing more in the social sciences than the hard sciences, but in fact it's pervasive throughout. All we lesser beings can do is to read the studies as best we can (not just the abstracts, and certainly not the reporting of them), and try to winkle out any possible biases. It's very difficult.

But the hard sciences are rapidly becoming used as a type of social science.

As someone mentioned above, there's no incentive to confirm the null, or to recreate the results. Science can be become an echo chamber. Science is broken.

 

[audreyh1]

From what I have read, Alzheimer’s research has been stuck on the protein tangles/plaque hypothesis for a couple of decades and other avenues haven’t gotten the funding*. But any drugs that help with reducing this brain waste product haven’t been successful at improving cognition. Trying to reduce a side effect doesn’t help with the root cause. They didn’t know if it was a cause or a side effect, but the work was focused on removing this symptom.

I get the impression that certain areas go “into fashion” and all the people trying to make a name for themselves and all the funding rushes in that direction. It can tie up resources for decades going in an ultimately ineffective direction.

The brain is clearly starved for energy in Cognitive Decline causing the hypothalamus to shrink and impairing memory and cognition. I think most researchers today agree with this energy starvation idea. Ketones as an alternative fuel for the brain has shown real promise as experiments show improved cognition in those suffering from dementia.

*p.s. if this massive resource commitment to amyloid beta plaques as the cause of Alzheimer’s has been driven by the fraudulent early papers pushing this hypothesis, then that is just so sad!

 

[aja8888]

Great article!

You would think that the smart scientist who "doctored" all those images would have had someone check his work before he made it public!

 

[ncbill]

Yep, I was always skeptical of the plaque theory of causation.

Mainly because with the dementia that was affecting my mom by her early 40s you don't see plaques in the brain tissue but instead protein malformations within the neurons themselves.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Dale Breseden has published studies showing improvement in cognitive decline by testing 36 key areas and then correcting what is off. He call them 36 holes in the roof. Alzheimer's researchers want a single pill they can patent and get rich off of. But Breseden says that people showing signs of cognitive decline often have 10 - 25 blood chemistry values off, compared to others who often only have 3 - 5 values off. It is really unlikely 1 pill is going to correct 25 health issues.

But his 36 holes is really even a simplistic number, because one of those might be heavy metal or mold testing, and if either one of those is off, that could be a complicated correction process.

 

[mickj]

This also reminds me of the recent study that shows serotonin levels aren’t correlated with depression. Even with this knowledge, psychiatric medicines, probably won’t change for another 30 to 40 years.

 

[jimbee]

Science works well but people are fallible. And irrational. And sometimes dishonest. And so on.

 

[audreyh1]

Science works well but people are fallible. And irrational. And sometimes dishonest. And so on.

Yep, we’ll said. Researchers and research organizations are subject to bias, ideology, ambition, financial pressures, career pressure, etc., just like everyone else.

This also reminds me of the recent study that shows serotonin levels aren’t correlated with depression. Even with this knowledge, psychiatric medicines, probably won’t change for another 30 to 40 years.

Yeah, that one was a doozy! And I agree, most of those in medical practice will just keep on doing things the same old way for a long time.

 

[jimbee]

Oops, I goofed.

 

[Scuba]

Thank goodness none of this has happened with any Covid research.

[emoji23]

 

[donheff]

Rey interesting article.

 

[Koolau]

Science works well but people are fallible. And irrational. And sometimes dishonest. And so on.

Good to remember in "science" areas of all kinds.

 

[Koolau]

A decade ago researcher John Ioannidis affirmed that 90% of medical studies were wrong. A few years ago another research team suggested that 70% of all research studies cannot be replicated. A year ago with Marc Andreessen affirmed the same statistics, but added it was not new and this has been an issue for many years.

Alzheimer’s disease is very difficult just to diagnose, much less treat, so I’m very skeptical when I read anything regarding its prevention or treatment.

At the time of my parents deaths (supposedly from Alz.) I was informed that we could have autopsies to confirm the diagnosis. IOW, it wasn't possible at that time to diagnose with OUT an autopsy. I don't know if that is still true. (We declined autopsies.)