alt Hacker NewsThey had a biological model. They had multiple drugs that were showed activity against that model, and effectiveness in humans. Problem was, the model was wrong. Pharma’s burned billions chasing this as it’s possibly the biggest market imaginable.
Whether it was fraudulent or just incorrect is a different question. We don’t know all of the details of human biology. We don’t even know what all we don’t know. Most guesses work to some degree to keep pharma alive - otherwise nobody would fund the business.
Edit: Google the in the pipeline blog. This and other have discussed this at length.
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A wrong model is not the same thing as fraud, and biology is full of plausible models that later turn out to be incomplete or misleading
> We don’t even know what all we don’t know.
Somewhat ironic given the context.
The Amyloid hypothesis persisted for so long because we didn't have any obvious counterarguments since it is so hard to do studies on the brain. Which also means that it's not a bad hypothesis.
What happened is we got the tools to start studying viral associations with other diseases and ... whooops ... suddenly there are associations. The shingles and RSV vaccines seem to affect dementia while others like influenza don't.
Now people can ask questions about why those particular vaccines affect dementia while others don't. And suddenly we have falsifiable tests.
Now we can subject all hypotheses (including Amyloid) to stronger scrutiny.
It was not fraudulent, just incompetent. Not just here (though this is likely the most egregious example), there are many very bad biological models in circulation even today simply because some dudes who are thought leaders decided these things were this way when there was no causal evidence for it (it was almost always correlation). Thats right, our top scientists of the day still cant fundamentally fathom "correlation =/= causation"). Past examples include "a differentiated cell cant go back". Persistent examples include "longer telomeres cause you to live longer" and "there are x hallmarks of cancer."
And before someone says, "well theres nuance to it," "in hindsight its easy," "biology is complex," my answers are, no no and no. Debate me. Ill bring receipts.
> Pharma’s burned billions chasing this as it’s possibly the biggest market imaginable.
To be clearer, Pharma is chasing a nice long treatment plan, that will require expensive drugs till the end. Pharma does not heal - this is not good for business. So there are criteria around what they are searching for.
> Problem was, the model was wrong.
I thought despite the fraud, it's still the best model we have[1]? The fact there was fraud doesn't mean the model is immediately incorrect. At best, it means its foundations are shakier than we thought, but it's not a slam dunk repudiation.
[1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-the-amyloid-h...