Commentary
A just-published exposé in the journal Science claims that a seminal study on the causes of Alzheimer’s disease may contain falsified data.
The 2006 report concluded that Alzheimer’s is caused by a buildup of a certain type of plaque in the brain—a finding that has guided research into cures for Alzheimer’s ever since. But now, critics claim that the original authors “appeared to have composed figures by piecing together parts of photos from different experiments” calling their conclusions into significant question.
If true, this is a scientific scandal of the worst order. As the Science article notes, the questionable study strongly influenced the funding of research into treatments, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spending $1.6 billion pursuing the plaque hypothesis this fiscal year. Even worse, if scientific mistakes in the study were not caught during peer review because of data manipulation, it deprived Alzheimer’s researchers investigating other hypotheses of badly needed funding, perhaps delaying the development of effective treatments….