THIS HAS BEEN COMING FOR A WHILE: Most Significant Scientific Retraction Ever? “The paper helped create and sustain the theory that amyloid protein buildups caused the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease and was one of a number of apparently fraudulent papers written by Sylvain Lesné, a professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. . . . If the hypothesis that amyloid protein buildups cause Alzheimer’s symptoms is wrong, Lesné is responsible for perhaps billions of wasted research dollars and two decades of scientists following a false lead.”

That the paper is wrong is no crime. That it is fraudulent is a crime, and that upholders of the amyloid theory actively suppressed research and publication regarding other theories is arguably a bigger crime.

Plus: “There appear to be quite a number of sociopaths in the biological sciences if recent evidence is any guide, and very few checks and balances to control for this fact. . . . This is an age of scientific scandals. Science is now a multi-billion dollar industry, and one that gets far too little scrutiny. That has to change.” Every successful system accumulates parasites. The parasite load in the sciences may have become unsustainable.