Source: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Ashare%3A6956986164222316544
#Data #Misinformation #Science & #Stocks: Critical elements of leading #Alzheimer’s #study possibly #fraudulent: https://lnkd.in/gtMSNnvj: The highly #influential #paper, first published in #Nature #Magazine in 2006, has helped guide #billions of #dollars in US #federal #research into the disease: #Fraud #MisInformation: #university #academia #science #incentives #regulation #oversight #accountability #conflictofinterest:
#Science #Journal: BLOTS ON A FIELD? “The [REAL] data should speak for itself.” https://lnkd.in/gQiPVxyi: A #neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer’s articles, threatening a reigning theory of the #disease: In August 2021, Matthew Schrag, a #neuroscientist and #physician at Vanderbilt University, got a call that would plunge him into a maelstrom of possible #scientific #misconduct. A colleague wanted to connect him with an attorney investigating an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease called Simufilam. The drug’s developer, Cassava Sciences, Inc., claimed it improved #cognition, partly by repairing a #protein that can block sticky brain deposits of the protein amyloid beta (Aβ), a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. The #attorney’s clients—two prominent #neuroscientists who are also #shortseller’s who #profit if the company’s #stock falls—believed some research related to #Simufilam may have been “fraudulent,” according to a #petition later filed on their behalf with the U.S. FDA. Schrag, 37, a softspoken, nonchalantly rumpled junior professor, had already gained some notoriety by publicly criticizing the controversial FDA approval of the anti-Aβ drug Aduhelm. His own research also contradicted some of Cassava’s claims. He feared volunteers in ongoing Simufilam trials faced #risks of #sideeffects with no chance of benefit.
So he applied his #technical and #medical knowledge to interrogate published #images about the #drug and its underlying #science—for which the attorney paid him $18,000. He identified apparently #altered or #duplicated #images in dozens of #journal #articles. The attorney reported many of the discoveries in the #FDA #petition, and Schrag sent all of them to the The National Institutes of Health, which had invested #tens of #millions of #dollars in the work.
But Schrag’s sleuthing drew him into a different episode of possible #misconduct, leading to #findings that #threaten one of the #most #cited Alzheimer’s #studies of this century and #numerous related #experiments.
The first author of that influential study, published in #Nature in 2006, was an ascending neuroscientist… If Schrag’s doubts are correct, that neuroscientist’s findings were an #elaborate #mirage. “I focus on what we can see in the published #images, and describe them as red flags, not final conclusions… The #data should speak for itself.”
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