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Scientists like Sylvain Lesné whose alleged misconduct cost us over a decade investigating a dead end hypothesis should face substantial prison time. Considerab

Scientists like Sylvain Lesné whose alleged misconduct cost us over a decade investigating a dead end hypothesis should face substantial prison time. Considerable people have faced the horror of this disease with no hope for a cure in sight because charlatans like this likely manipulated data in the name of making their own careers.

voisin 2y ago
There should be some laws that were broken. Fraud in order to obtain research grants, fraud in order to maintain labs, etc etc.
- delusional 2y ago
  In my mind this very much depends on who was tricked here. If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. If it was public money, then it depends more on the nature of the fraud. I could concieve of a circumstance where I would also argue for a lapse in oversight and therefore a sort of "diffusion" of the responsibility. I don't think it's certain that anything illegal happened here. It was certainly wrong, but wrong how?
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. This is not at all how the law works. You can't fool investors on purpose then shrug it off as "I win, they should have done their due diligence and second-guessed every aspect of my work that I intentionally falsified" lol. What you're arguing for is equivalent to a diffusion of responsibility for accounting fraud, as if the victims deserve it because auditors didn't detect it immediately. I don't know the whole story but deceptive practices (deliberate wrongdoing) need to be punished, if that is what happened here.
    - onemoresoop 2y ago
      That happens all the time in the stock market and rarely anyone gets punished.
      - wakawaka28 2y ago
        That is explicitly illegal in the stock market, and companies are frequently sued over deceptive practices. They have whole PR departments dedicated to making sure that they convey accurate (or at least defensible) information to investors.
        onemoresoop 2y ago
        I know it’s illegal but it’s still happening in various ways. Yes, once in a while investors do sue and win
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        Enforcement is a different matter entirely. I was originally responding to an argument about the legality of deception. A lack of enforcement does not make it more defensible.
    - delusional 2y ago
      I should point out that I'm my reply is not interested in what is likely to happen, but rather what I believe should happen. We have plenty of cases where people have in fact been allowed to fool investors without repercussions. Most famously was the recent collapse of we work. There is in general quite a bit of leeway in the private markets to get creative about how you market your financial products. The public market is of course totally different, and that's also what I'm hinting at in my distinction. I don't think it makes sense for a public entity to audit things that the public can't buy. Private financial institutions are (or at least should be) competent to audit their own investments. The general public are not competent to audit their own investments, and even if they were it would be extremely inefficient, so we should probably have some government entity for that.
matthewdgreen 2y ago
There is an incredibly valuable and interesting comment ranked below yours that gives enormous amounts of context on the Amyloid hypothesis and the state of the field. I don’t have the power to make that the top-ranked comment and all the “we need to punish” comments lower ranked. But I do wish the posters and other readers on HN would help to make that happen.
- ajoseps 2y ago
  thank you for mentioning this comment, it was very in depth and I agree I think it should be ranked higher
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  I read the comment you refer to, and it does have a lot of useful context. That said (and here I'm quoting a reply to that comment), the commenter claims that Lesné was "not that highly cited", though his main fraudulent paper was cited 2,300 times, making it the fifth most highly cited Alzheimer's paper since 2006. That seems bogus on its face. Separately, I think it's legitimate for calls for scientific fraudsters to go to jail to rise to the top. There's no contradiction between wanting this, and wanting a more nuanced understanding of the field.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    My mother has Alzheimer's, so this matters a lot to me, both for her and myself and my kids in the future. It has never felt reasonable to me that a small number of papers (highly cited or not) from 2006 could somehow be responsible for our failure to cure this disease over the past decades. It seems so emotionally tempting to give people a scapegoat that it frankly rings all my "too good to be true" alarm bells. And bluntly, it's just implausible. Like it or not: if we're going to get a cure for this horrible disease, it's going to come out of the scientific community. My fear is that a bunch of non-experts are going to barge in with a weakly-understood idea about what is happening in the field, demand "reforms" with implications they don't understand, and in the process doom millions of people to agony and suffering.
  - bartathe 2y ago
RobotToaster 2y ago
They have potentially condemned hundreds of thousands of people to suffer with this disease unnecessarily. The level of harm they have caused may be far worse than anything Josef Mengele did.
S_A_P 2y ago
No doubt! My father is suffering from Alzheimer’s and I have just been told that I have a few months left due to colorectal cancer. I can only wonder if there are/was/is something delaying better treatments for my condition. I am now on the hunt for alternative treatment options for me, and one of the molecules that has been suggested is highly controversial as it was suggested as a covid treatment.
- melling 2y ago
  Anti-body drug conjugates are a new promising technique in the treatment of cancer. Lots of these in the queue https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/rewriting-cancer/the-exciting-future-of-targeted-therapies https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/rewriting-cancer/the-exciting...
- javiramos 2y ago
  I hope that you can find an alternative treatment that works for you and that however many days you left, few or many, are filled with joy, love, and comfort. My sister just finished her recovery for breast cancer and her journey opened my eyes to the classic 'life is short.'
- jgord 2y ago
  The history of science is full of false starts ... Ivermectin may or may not be effective against various cancers .. but it is a very safe molecule. Look at the research independent of popular and institutional opinion. If you can be part of a well run trial - of any kind, for any treatment - you give us all something of great value. I can only hope things go well for you, and thank you for your courage.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

voisin 2y ago

There should be some laws that were broken. Fraud in order to obtain research grants, fraud in order to maintain labs, etc etc.

delusional 2y ago
In my mind this very much depends on who was tricked here. If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. If it was public money, then it depends more on the nature of the fraud. I could concieve of a circumstance where I would also argue for a lapse in oversight and therefore a sort of "diffusion" of the responsibility. I don't think it's certain that anything illegal happened here. It was certainly wrong, but wrong how?
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  >If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. This is not at all how the law works. You can't fool investors on purpose then shrug it off as "I win, they should have done their due diligence and second-guessed every aspect of my work that I intentionally falsified" lol. What you're arguing for is equivalent to a diffusion of responsibility for accounting fraud, as if the victims deserve it because auditors didn't detect it immediately. I don't know the whole story but deceptive practices (deliberate wrongdoing) need to be punished, if that is what happened here.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    That happens all the time in the stock market and rarely anyone gets punished.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      That is explicitly illegal in the stock market, and companies are frequently sued over deceptive practices. They have whole PR departments dedicated to making sure that they convey accurate (or at least defensible) information to investors.
      - onemoresoop 2y ago
        I know it’s illegal but it’s still happening in various ways. Yes, once in a while investors do sue and win
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        Enforcement is a different matter entirely. I was originally responding to an argument about the legality of deception. A lack of enforcement does not make it more defensible.
  - delusional 2y ago
    I should point out that I'm my reply is not interested in what is likely to happen, but rather what I believe should happen. We have plenty of cases where people have in fact been allowed to fool investors without repercussions. Most famously was the recent collapse of we work. There is in general quite a bit of leeway in the private markets to get creative about how you market your financial products. The public market is of course totally different, and that's also what I'm hinting at in my distinction. I don't think it makes sense for a public entity to audit things that the public can't buy. Private financial institutions are (or at least should be) competent to audit their own investments. The general public are not competent to audit their own investments, and even if they were it would be extremely inefficient, so we should probably have some government entity for that.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

There is an incredibly valuable and interesting comment ranked below yours that gives enormous amounts of context on the Amyloid hypothesis and the state of the field. I don’t have the power to make that the top-ranked comment and all the “we need to punish” comments lower ranked. But I do wish the posters and other readers on HN would help to make that happen.

ajoseps 2y ago
thank you for mentioning this comment, it was very in depth and I agree I think it should be ranked higher
akoboldfrying 2y ago
I read the comment you refer to, and it does have a lot of useful context. That said (and here I'm quoting a reply to that comment), the commenter claims that Lesné was "not that highly cited", though his main fraudulent paper was cited 2,300 times, making it the fifth most highly cited Alzheimer's paper since 2006. That seems bogus on its face. Separately, I think it's legitimate for calls for scientific fraudsters to go to jail to rise to the top. There's no contradiction between wanting this, and wanting a more nuanced understanding of the field.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  My mother has Alzheimer's, so this matters a lot to me, both for her and myself and my kids in the future. It has never felt reasonable to me that a small number of papers (highly cited or not) from 2006 could somehow be responsible for our failure to cure this disease over the past decades. It seems so emotionally tempting to give people a scapegoat that it frankly rings all my "too good to be true" alarm bells. And bluntly, it's just implausible. Like it or not: if we're going to get a cure for this horrible disease, it's going to come out of the scientific community. My fear is that a bunch of non-experts are going to barge in with a weakly-understood idea about what is happening in the field, demand "reforms" with implications they don't understand, and in the process doom millions of people to agony and suffering.
- bartathe 2y ago

RobotToaster 2y ago

They have potentially condemned hundreds of thousands of people to suffer with this disease unnecessarily. The level of harm they have caused may be far worse than anything Josef Mengele did.

S_A_P 2y ago

No doubt! My father is suffering from Alzheimer’s and I have just been told that I have a few months left due to colorectal cancer. I can only wonder if there are/was/is something delaying better treatments for my condition. I am now on the hunt for alternative treatment options for me, and one of the molecules that has been suggested is highly controversial as it was suggested as a covid treatment.

melling 2y ago
Anti-body drug conjugates are a new promising technique in the treatment of cancer. Lots of these in the queue https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/rewriting-cancer/the-exciting-future-of-targeted-therapies https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/rewriting-cancer/the-exciting...
javiramos 2y ago
I hope that you can find an alternative treatment that works for you and that however many days you left, few or many, are filled with joy, love, and comfort. My sister just finished her recovery for breast cancer and her journey opened my eyes to the classic 'life is short.'
jgord 2y ago
The history of science is full of false starts ... Ivermectin may or may not be effective against various cancers .. but it is a very safe molecule. Look at the research independent of popular and institutional opinion. If you can be part of a well run trial - of any kind, for any treatment - you give us all something of great value. I can only hope things go well for you, and thank you for your courage.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]