Doctored by Charles Piller review – the scandal that derailed Alzheimer’s research | Science and nature books

toThe progress of aging is the best thing that any of us can hope, given the alternative. It is the harsh paradoxes, then, that many of us who make it to a large extent will start losing our sense of those we are due to dementia. If you are 65 years old, you get one in 20 chance to develop the most common form, Alzheimer’s disease, in the next decade. In 75 years, about one in seven, while these lucky people are enough to reach 85 they face one in three chances.

Looking at the losses of this disease, hundreds of millions of families around the world are desperate for a medical penetration – for several years, the headlines suggested that it may be imminent. Scientists have identified the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, promised, and potential treatments have already been tested.

Sub -title of PhD – fraud, arrogance and tragedy in seeking to treat Alzheimer’s disease – It is a spoiler regarding how this story is over, at least at the present time. The fraud discovered by a group of researchers in academic integrity and documenting it widely here by Charles Biller, a survey of the magazine science, appears to be a kind of scandal that should have had coverage from the wall to the wall. However, outside the scientific circles, it is still relatively low.

The story is complicated, but the summary may go in this way: for decades, something called the amyloid hypothesis of research in Alzheimer’s disease dominated, and determining how to spend billions of dollars from public and private financing in new drugs. The brains of the people who died with the sticky protein – called the amyloid plaques – showed between the neurons. It seemed logical to be responsible for the symptoms of the disease. Although this has become the main line of investigation, he has never been delivered on his early promise. Many people with amyloid plaques had no signs of Alzheimer’s disease, for example. There seems to be something missing.

Then what appeared as a decisive guide: a paper from the University of Minnesota in 2006, which became one of the most in this field, showed that a sub -type of amyloid led to a weak memory. This was not until 2022 Proposal The main images on which the search relied may have been taken to suit the hypothesis better. Initially, the scholars fought against the claims, but the 2006 paper was now to retreatAs others did on the same results. As the book explains, investigations and many major personalities that involve the refusal of any knowledge of the error continue.

The implicit meaning is that the years of work and billions of dollars spent on Alzheimer’s research may have been implemented on the basis of fraudulent evidence. The size of the damage and the damage that occurs is likely to be.

Piller treats hard material patience and accurately, as you expect from an experienced specialist. As the book continues, it becomes an uncomfortable reading than ever: the story begins with the alleged forgery of images by one, or a handful, from scholars. In the end, we left we wondering whether any research could be trusted.

It is clear that Doctored is the result of the wonderful and exhausting press, but sometimes all this work is easier to like it. Biller tries to display his novel with pictures of the pen of the main characters, but his habit of carrying out many of these matters in a row – and tells us extensively the place of everyone’s birth and what their fathers and grandparents did – they become frequent and frustrated.

This is unfortunate, because the scandal in the heart of the book is one that more people should know. Scientists behind fraud may have been seeking to find treatments for Alzheimer’s disease for many years. For those who make decisions on the future of scientific and medical research, this book should be mandatory reading.