By Patrick Holford, in response to the New York Times essay here.
Recently, investigator Charles Piller exposed the fraudulent claims behind the amyloid theory of Alzheimer’s, that has caused heads to roll.
The article, based on his new book Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s, presents evidence of fraud. It reveals that Dr Masliah, the Head of the National Institute on Ageing (a division of the US National Institutes of Health) and responsible for billions in funding, had for decades included improperly manipulated images of brain tissue and other technical visuals in his research.
With roughly 800 papers to his name, many of them considered highly influential, Dr. Masliah seemed a natural choice to steer the funding for Alzheimer’s research. He hailed the moment as the dawning of “the golden era of Alzheimer’s disease research”. The National Institutes of Health announced that it had found that Dr. Masliah engaged in research misconduct and that he no longer held his leadership position.
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the former president of Stanford University, was known as a global leader in research on the brain’s circuitry in Alzheimer’s and other neurological conditions. He resigned in 2023 after an intrepid student journalist revealed numerous altered images in his research.
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What isn’t being fully exposed, is just how bad the results of the anti-amyloid drug treatments are and how the drug companies who run these trials manage to squeeze a result, just enough to get a medical licence for their treatment. Everyone is aware of this exaggeration by bigging up the results.
For example, the Alzheimer’s Society described the miniscule difference in effect of the anti-amyloid drug as follows: ‘Lecanemab slowed down the speed at which memory and thinking skills got worse by 27%’.
This is not what actually happened.
Those on the drug just hit the same rock bottom about 3 months later than those on the placebo and the difference was so small that no-one is likely to notice.
No-one got better. They all got worse. Quite a few had adverse effects, with brain bleeding and swelling. More than a quarter had adverse reactions. A few died as a consequence.
Is three months of ‘slightly less worse’ symptoms worth the suffering of adverse events by one in four participants including death (about one in 500) – and all this at vast expense?
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If such treatment was started before a person was put into care, at best it could mean putting them in a care home three months later, potentially saving £3,000. If treatment were given whilst in a care home it would mean three months more time in a care home, potentially costing £3,000 more. Either way, at a treatment cost likely to be in the region of £50,000 per year this is clearly not cost effective for the NHS, which is why the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) quite rightly rejected it.
The biggest deception of all is that we already know how to ‘cure’ Alzheimer’s and that is to prevent it with the right diet, lifestyle and supplements.
The power is in your hands and it’s never too late or too early to start.
Prevention is key and you can start today – so please encourage everyone you know to take the Cognitive Function test here.
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