4 ms·

> First there was the beta amyloid theory First? Isn't the beta-amyloid cabal still blocking all Alzheimer's research unless the researchers find a way to even

> First there was the beta amyloid theory First? Isn't the beta-amyloid cabal still blocking all Alzheimer's research unless the researchers find a way to even tangentially support that long disproven theory?

light_hue_1 2y ago
It was not a cabal. It was scientific fraud. Karen Ashe and Sylvain Lesné at Minnesota published a fake paper that redirected billions of research into the trash bin. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/faked-beta-amyloid-data-what-does-it-mean https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/faked-beta-amyloid... Amazingly both still have their jobs for life, both still publish, Ashe is still a member of the National Academy of Medicine, both are still getting grants.
- atombender 2y ago
  This is a mischaracterization of the scope of the fraud. Lesné clearly committed fraud, but his work was not foundational. The fraud did not "redirect billions".
  - light_hue_1 2y ago
    Yes it very much did lead to billions of wasted dollars and that's if you count us public funding alone. Tens of billions of you count non us and private funding. From https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabricatio... The Nature paper has been cited in about 2300 scholarly articles—more than all but four other Alzheimer’s basic research reports published since 2006, according to the Web of Science database. Since then, annual NIH support for studies labeled “amyloid, oligomer, and Alzheimer’s” has risen from near zero to $287 million in 2021. Lesné and Ashe helped spark that explosion, experts say. The paper provided an “important boost” to the amyloid and toxic oligomer hypotheses when they faced rising doubts, Südhof says. “Proponents loved it, because it seemed to be an independent validation of what they have been proposing for a long time.” This is also a fun read https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/opinion/alzheimers-missed-opportunities.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/opinion/alzheimers-missed...
    - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
      From your description, it sounds like a large complex ecosystem (of which Lesne and Ashe were important parts) redirected billions. I think it’s a bit overselling it to say that their results alone redirected billions
eesmith 2y ago
As unavoidable mentioned, there are viral theories. In Science, from July, "Can infections cause Alzheimer’s? A small community of researchers is determined to find out. Following up tantalizing links between pathogens and brain disease, new projects search for causal evidence", https://www.science.org/content/article/can-infections-cause-alzheimer-s-small-community-researchers-determined-find-out https://www.science.org/content/article/can-infections-cause...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Yet another reason to get your shingles vaccine.
unavoidable 2y ago
I mean, that's the point - in pharmaceutical sciences there's _so much noise_ including fraud that it's really only easy in hindsight to pick out "the guy" who was the "genius". It's hard to take one story like this and make it a repeatable success.

light_hue_1 2y ago

It was not a cabal. It was scientific fraud. Karen Ashe and Sylvain Lesné at Minnesota published a fake paper that redirected billions of research into the trash bin. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/faked-beta-amyloid-data-what-does-it-mean https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/faked-beta-amyloid... Amazingly both still have their jobs for life, both still publish, Ashe is still a member of the National Academy of Medicine, both are still getting grants.

atombender 2y ago
This is a mischaracterization of the scope of the fraud. Lesné clearly committed fraud, but his work was not foundational. The fraud did not "redirect billions".
- light_hue_1 2y ago
  Yes it very much did lead to billions of wasted dollars and that's if you count us public funding alone. Tens of billions of you count non us and private funding. From https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabricatio... The Nature paper has been cited in about 2300 scholarly articles—more than all but four other Alzheimer’s basic research reports published since 2006, according to the Web of Science database. Since then, annual NIH support for studies labeled “amyloid, oligomer, and Alzheimer’s” has risen from near zero to $287 million in 2021. Lesné and Ashe helped spark that explosion, experts say. The paper provided an “important boost” to the amyloid and toxic oligomer hypotheses when they faced rising doubts, Südhof says. “Proponents loved it, because it seemed to be an independent validation of what they have been proposing for a long time.” This is also a fun read https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/opinion/alzheimers-missed-opportunities.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/opinion/alzheimers-missed...
  - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
    From your description, it sounds like a large complex ecosystem (of which Lesne and Ashe were important parts) redirected billions. I think it’s a bit overselling it to say that their results alone redirected billions

eesmith 2y ago

As unavoidable mentioned, there are viral theories. In Science, from July, "Can infections cause Alzheimer’s? A small community of researchers is determined to find out. Following up tantalizing links between pathogens and brain disease, new projects search for causal evidence", https://www.science.org/content/article/can-infections-cause-alzheimer-s-small-community-researchers-determined-find-out https://www.science.org/content/article/can-infections-cause...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pfdietz 2y ago
Yet another reason to get your shingles vaccine.

unavoidable 2y ago

I mean, that's the point - in pharmaceutical sciences there's _so much noise_ including fraud that it's really only easy in hindsight to pick out "the guy" who was the "genius". It's hard to take one story like this and make it a repeatable success.