The scandal that could undo 15 years of Alzheimer’s research

In today’s Big Story podcast, a seminal 2006 research paper on Alzheimer’s has been cited more than 2000 times over the past decade and a half. Its conclusions have informed much of the direction the field has taken since then. And recently an investigation concluded that critical images in the paper may well have been fabricated.

Alzheimer’s is already something of a mystery of a disease. We know so little about it. And now it appears we may not even know what we thought we knew. What happened? And what does it mean for so many years of work by so many doctors and scientists?

Today’s guest, Charles Piller, investigative journalist of Science Magazine, delved deep into the possible scientific misconduct. He joins The Big Story to talk to us about his findings.

“The world of Alzheimer’s disease has been forced to look in the mirror, and ask themselves what must we do to examine the scientific record and understand the ramifications of the potential steering of the field by a body of research that has been shown to be possibly the result of misconduct. So, the debate is serious,” said Piller.

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.