this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
26 points (100.0% liked)

Medicine

1092 readers
3 users here now

This is a community for medical professionals. Please see the Medical Community Hub for other communities.

Official Lemmy community for /r/Medicine.

[email protected] is a virtual lounge for physicians and other medical professionals from around the world to talk about the latest advances, controversies, ask questions of each other, have a laugh, or share a difficult moment.

This is a highly moderated community. Please read the rules carefully before posting or commenting.

Related Communities

See the pinned post in the Medical Community Hub for links and descriptions. link ([email protected])

Rules

Violations may result in a warning, removal, or ban based on moderator discretion. The rule numbers will correspond to those on /r/Medicine, and where differences are listed where relevant. Please also remember that instance rules for mander.xyz will also apply.

  1. Flairs & Starter Comment: Lemmy does not have user flairs, but you are welcome to highlight your role in the healthcare system, however you feel is appropriate. Please also include a starter comment to explain why the link is of interest to the community and to start the conversation. Link posts without starter comments may be temporarily or permanently removed. (rule is different from /r/Medicine)

  2. No requests for professional advice or general medical information: You may not solicit medical advice or share personal health anecdotes about yourself, family, acquaintances, or celebrities, seek comments on care provided by other clinicians, discuss billing disputes, or otherwise seek a professional opinion from members of the community. General queries about medical conditions, prognosis, drugs, or other medical topics from the lay public are not allowed.

  3. No promotions, advertisements, surveys, or petitions: Surveys (formal or informal) and polls are not allowed on this community. You may not use the community to promote your website, channel, community, or product. Market research is not allowed. Petitions are not allowed. Advertising or spam may result in a permanent ban. Prior permission is required before posting educational material you were involved in making.

  4. Link to high-quality, original research whenever possible: Posts which rely on or reference scientific data (e.g. an announcement about a medical breakthrough) should link to the original research in peer-reviewed medical journals or respectable news sources as judged by the moderators. Avoid login or paywall requirements when possible. Please submit direct links to PDFs as text/self posts with the link in the text. Sensationalized titles, misrepresentation of results, or promotion of blatantly bad science may lead to removal.

  5. Act professionally and decently: /c/medicine is a public forum that represents the medical community and comments should reflect this. Please keep disagreement civil and focused on issues. Trolling, abuse, and insults (either personal or aimed at a specific group) are not allowed. Do not attack other users' flair. Keep offensive language to a minimum and do not use ethnic, sexual, or other slurs. Posts, comments, or private messages violating Reddit's content policy will be removed and reported to site administration.

  6. No personal agendas: Users who primarily post or comment on a single pet issue on this community (as judged by moderators) will be asked to broaden participation or leave. Comments from users who appear on this community only to discuss a specific political topic, medical condition, health care role, or similar single-topic issues will be removed. Comments which deviate from the topic of a thread to interject an unrelated personal opinion (e.g. politics) or steer the conversation to their pet issue will be removed.

  7. Protect patient confidentiality: Posting protected health information may result in an immediate ban. Please anonymize cases and remove any patient-identifiable information. For health information arising from the United States, follow the HIPAA Privacy Rule's De-Identification Standard.

  8. No careers or homework questions: Questions relating to medical school admissions, courses or exams should be asked elsewhere. Links to medical training communitys and a compilation of careers and specialty threads are available on the /r/medicine wiki. Medical career advice may be asked. (rule is different from /r/Medicine)

  9. Throwaway accounts: There are currently no limits on account age or 'karma'. (rule is different from /r/Medicine)

  10. No memes or low-effort posts: Memes, image links (including social media screenshots), images of text, or other low-effort posts or comments are not allowed. Videos require a text post or starter comment that summarizes the video and provides context.

  11. No Covid misinformation, conspiracy theories, or other nonsense

Moderators may act with their judgement beyond the scope of these rules to maintain the quality of the community. If your post doesn't show up shortly after posting, make sure that it meets our posting criteria. If it does, please message a moderator with a link to your post and explanation. You are free to message the moderation team for a second opinion on moderator actions.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
26
Did a top NIH official manipulate Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s studies for decades? | science.org (www.science.org)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Summary

Eliezer Masliah, who since 2016 has been the head of the Division of Neuroscience in the National Institute on Aging (NIA), and whose scientific publication record over at least the past 25 years shows multiple, widespread, blatant instances of fraud.

More details

Masliah appeared an ideal selection. The physician and neuropathologist conducted research at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for decades, and his drive, curiosity, and productivity propelled him into the top ranks of scholars on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. His roughly 800 research papers, many on how those conditions damage synapses, the junctions between neurons, have made him one of the most cited scientists in his field. His work on topics including alpha-synuclein—a protein linked to both diseases—continues to influence basic and clinical science.

But over the past 2 years questions have arisen about some of Masliah’s research. A Science investigation has now found that scores of his lab studies at UCSD and NIA are riddled with apparently falsified Western blots—images used to show the presence of proteins—and micrographs of brain tissue. Numerous images seem to have been inappropriately reused within and across papers, sometimes published years apart in different journals, describing divergent experimental conditions.

After Science brought initial concerns about Masliah’s work to their attention, a neuroscientist and forensic analysts specializing in scientific work who had previously worked with Science produced a 300-page dossier revealing a steady stream of suspect images between 1997 and 2023 in 132 of his published research papers. (Science did not pay them for their work.) “In our opinion, this pattern of anomalous data raises a credible concern for research misconduct and calls into question a remarkably large body of scientific work,” they concluded.

Related blog post on some drugs/therapeutic targets that rely on this work: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/fraud-so-much-fraud

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is separate from the controversy with the amyloid studies:

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/for-researchers/explaining-amyloid-research-study-controversy

One of the main theories to suggest what causes Alzheimer’s disease is called the ‘Amyloid Hypothesis’. It highlights a protein called amyloid as a major contributor to what goes wrong inside the brain in this disease.

Recently, there have been some allegations published in the research journal Science concerning one research study investigating how amyloid protein builds up in the brains of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and forms plaques.

These allegations criticise a US study from 2006 that focuses on a specific type of amyloid protein called aβ*56 and its role in the causes of Alzheimer’s disease. It is alleged that some results from this study were falsified and now the reliability of the study has come into question. Allegations of this kind in research are taken extremely seriously in the research community but are thankfully very rare.

Apart from the research in question, there remains a vast amount of robust scientific evidence, which supports the view of amyloid contributing to Alzheimer’s disease.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I get pissed off whenever I see that one, it was done out of pure malice and set Alzheimer's research down the wrong path for decades

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's worrying, I know some people in the nootropics community are using cerebrolysin. At least it looks like he wasn't involved in the clinical trials for it (that showed some benefit).

Is there potentially some innocent, or at least less fraudulent explanation for this?

[–] deafboy 1 points 1 month ago

800 research papers in 25 years is ~2,5 papers per month.

How did people who figure stuff out for a living not notice anything suspicious?