Fraud and Misconduct in Alzheimer's Research: New Book Dives into the "Legacy of Lies"

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“The Devastating Legacy of Lies in Alzheimer’s Science” read the headline last weekend in the New York Times.

“Over the past 25 years, Alzheimer’s research has suffered a litany of ostensible fraud and other misconduct by world-famous researchers and obscure scientists alike, all trying to ascend in a brutally competitive field,” said the essay by Charles Piller.

He wrote that the “dismal lack of progress” in developing treatments to arrest the affliction is due in part to a “sinister factor.” It is the misconduct and worse that he writes about in his new book, “Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s.”

Piller’s piece in the Times was drawn from the book, which goes on sale next week. Piller is a writer for the journal Science. In addition to his article in the Times, Piller’s book surfaced this past weekend in another national outlet. It was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal by Aaron Rothstein, a neurologist and fellow in bioethics and American democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Piller’s book, Rothstein wrote, “demonstrates how some of the most accomplished and elite scientific gatekeepers may have lied, cheated, squandered trust and endangered lives. How did this happen? The temptations of ego and fame perennially entice humans, but our system of peer review, grant funding and administrative oversight is meant to check these temptations.