“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
The header image for today’s offering is courtesy of Google Images.
Health Friday is a series devoted to Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. There are Important Notifications by our host, Wolf Moon; the Rules of our late, good Wheatie; and, certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here. Note: Yours Truly has checked today’s offering for AI-generated content. To the best of her knowledge and belief, there is none, except perhaps for AI-generated content within linked URLs. If readers wish to post AI-generated content to today’s discussion thread, they must cite their source. Thank you.
Yours Truly is thankful that our gracious host, Wolf Moon, has established this blog to be a haven for truth; to be a place for honest discussion (and honest disagreement, too); to be a place for the sharing of life’s joys, and of life’s difficulties and sorrows; as a place for those who come to this Tree to encourage and support one another. One is grateful to be an author on this blog; grateful for all the other authors on this blog, including our gracious host; grateful for all who comment.
Yours Truly is grateful to those Pilgrims who came to Plymouth Rock, and to those earlier colonists who came to what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia (courtesy of our good Aubergine providing this latter knowledge), to establish a country based on freedom and on the Divine Providence of the Supreme Being: the country which became the United States of America. Yours Truly is grateful for her grandparents and great-grandparents who left their homes in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to come to the United States to make new lives for themselves, to marry, and to raise their children in this country.
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And, on the concept of gratefulness: Yours Truly is also grateful for one particular thing: the successful completion of the difficult, time-consuming (seven months long), physician-supervised process of “tapering-down the dose, then weaning off, leading to discontinuation” of the SSRI prescription drug that she had been taking, on and off, for six years. (SSRI = Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor.)
Yours Truly was put on this SSRI in February 2019, after being diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic [or, Posttraumatic] Stress Disorder) following the death of my late husband. Please see the screenshot below, from Psychiatry.org/, “What is Posttraumatic Stress Disoder (PTSD)?”, reviewed by Donald Egan, M.D., March 2025 [1]:
In Yours Truly’s case, the PTSD was one of “delayed onset”, meaning that the symptoms began to appear months after my husband’s death.
Anti-depressant drugs are routinely prescribed by healthcare professionals for persons who are diagnosed with PTSD. Below is a screenshot from the Cleveland Clinic regarding SSRIs [2]:
Note the phrase above regarding SSRIs – that “they tend to cause fewer and milder side effects compared to other options.” Let’s look at the side effects lists for the SSRI that Yours Truly had been taking, paroxetine (Paxil), from Drugs.com/ [3]. Paroxetine is available in several different formulations — tablet; oral suspension; extended-release tablet; and, capsule. The Mayo Clinic list of paroxetine‘s brand names is: Brisdelle; Paxil; Paxil CR;, and, Pexeva [4].
How can any of the side effects listed above be called “fewer and milder”? Let’s take a look at only one of the side effects lists of paroxetine from Drugs.com/, from the For healthcare professionals section [5]:
The For healthcare professionals section lists of paroxetine side effects includes eighteen different areas, from General to Endocrine, that have adverse reactions and/or side effects from the use of this drug. Literally every organ or function of the human body is interfered with, and/or could be damaged by, paroxetine use. How can any of this be described as “fewer and milder” side effects?
Dr. Robert Malone, MD, penned a recent blog article, “Well Being: Selective Serotonin ReUptake Inhibitors (SSRI)”, regarding the routine prescribing of SSRIs by physicians [6]. Please see the screenshots, below, from his article:
A Midwestern Doctor, in their blog, has written extensively regarding the dangers of SSRIs; the multiple marketing and other ploys used to acclimate physicians to prescribing them, and patients to take them; and how difficult it is to follow the process of taper down the dose, wean off the drug, and have it finally discontinued. The following screenshots are from these articles: first, “The Dark Side of Antidepressants”, of 24 January 2025 [7]. Note: Some of the articles from A Midwestern Doctor are accessible in the entirety only if the reader subscribes (for free); and/or becomes a paying subscriber.
Then, from their article, “The Hidden Dangers of Antidepressants and Why They’re So Hard To Stop Taking”, [8] 9 February 2025:
And, from their article, “”Why Are Antidepressants So Harmful?”, [9] 26 November 2023:
Yours Truly was fortunate so have been able to get the taper down – wean off – discontinue process successfully completed (as regards stopping the taking of paroxetine) in about six months. However, the “wiring” of one’s brain to accept this SSRI and allow it to operate within the brain began in early 2019, when I was put on the drug by the PCP after diagnosis of PTSD. Thus, even with the discontinuation of the physical process of taking the drug, the “rewiring” of the brain back to pre-use of the drug is ongoing. One already feels much better since the “endemic physical effects” of the drug have ceased. One has also made a decision to never take another psychotropic drug.
What has helped Yours Truly to make real progress in “rewiring” the brain after the paroxetine discontinuation process was completed? A daily program that includes:
Probiotics (this includes yogurt)
Vitamin D, 2500IU
Vitamin C, 3000mg
Walking and free-weights exercise
Exposure to sunshine
Being well-hydrated
Cutting sugar, cutting simple carbohydrates, replacing them with complex carbohydrates, and using very little honey as a sweetener
Eating meat, eggs, and fish, rotating these during the week
Eating more green vegetables
Journaling — meditating — connecting with the Divine
Getting out and doing things — being with family; walking the dog; working in the yard
Reducing / eliminating stressors to the extent possible
Attitude — one is absolutely determined to “rewire” the brain back to pre-SSRI
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Let’s take a look at serotonin, the crucially important element that the human gut makes — and which is the “target” of SSRIs. Below are screenshots from the 2022 Cleveland Clinic article, “What is serotonin?” [10]:
And, regarding the “gut-brain axis”, an article, “That gut feeling”, Dr. Siri Carpenter, [11] 1 September 2012, a screenshot from which is below:
Yours Truly does not fault the physician who started one on paroxetine in early 2019, nor the physician-therapist who continued the drug until I had had enough of the side effects by September 2024 and requested to go through the process to taper down — wean off — discontinue the drug. They were following conventional medical “recommendations.” However, Yours Truly, by the late summer of 2024, had also done enough research to understand that SSRIs are dangerous and addictive, that the decision to request going through the process was what had to be done. How many people taking SSRIs do the research necessary to understand what these drugs are doing to their bodies and their brains? Why don’t physicians who prescribe SSRIs (or, indeed, any psychotropic drug) caution the patient that there are multiple and potentially serious side effects and/or adverse reactions to these drugs? Why don’t physicians make it their business to ensure that, unless there is clear indication that the patient needs a higher dose, to start the patient on the lowest possible dose of an SSRI, and at the the first indication that the patient is having real trouble with side effects and/or adverse reactions, to begin the process of taper down — wean off — discontinue the drug; while, at the same time, ensuring that the patient starts or continues therapeutic counseling and healthy lifestyle changes? Similarly, why don’t physicians make it their business to ensure that, there is clear indication that the patient needs a higher dose of an SSRI drug, to start and keep the patient on the lowest possible dose?
The human gut is where over 90% of the body’s serotonin is produced. The human brain produces 10% or less of the body’s serotonin. Because of the “gut-brain axis” system in the body, serotonin produced in the gut “travels” to the brain via the bloodstream. Why aren’t physicians trained in the nutritional knowledge necessary to counsel patients with emotional/psychological issues to eat foods that would assist in proper and healthy serotonin production — foods such as, salmon, eggs, cheese, nuts, and turkey? Why don’t physicians realize that taking SSRI drugs actually block the normal “gut-brain axis travel” of serotonin to the brain — leaving the brain with only a small amount of serotonin; and which low level of serotonin is targeted by SSRI drugs? [12]
Yes, there are circumstances in which a physician makes the decision that the emotional/psychological issues of the patient warrant the need for that patient to take an SSRI. However, Yours Truly believes that, in addition to the SSRI, the patient needs to be counseled to eat foods that will help the gut produce healthy serotonin in proper amounts, to get out into the sunshine, to move their body, to get restful sleep, to have therapeutic psychological counseling if necessary; and, to understand that what they’re experiencing isn’t just “all in their head” — it’s also “that gut feeling.”
[12]: “Chronic SSRI Treatment Exacerbates Serotonin Deficiency in Humanized Tph2 Mutant Mice.” William B. Siessner, et al. https://doi.org/10.1021/cn300127h. 1 October 2012.
(Intellectual Property Disclaimer and Notice: With the exception of published scientific items cited above, the ideas and conclusions of today’s post are by PAVACA. Proper credit must be given to PAVACA if the ideas or conclusions from today’ post are used by other blog writers, by podcasters, in social media, or in print media.)
How Two Fallen Theories of Medicine May Herald the Fate of Global Warming / Climate Change
Bad science does not stand forever, but it may stand long enough for people to make a lot of money on it. THAT will be the THEME of the three huge science scandals I’m going to discuss.
In case you’re short on time, the TLDR…..
TL;DR – Two fresh scandals showing how industry money and scientific misconduct kept bad theories “alive” for decades, may explain why the bad science behind politically useful climate alarmism persists.
I. Serotonin Uber Alles
The “serotonin scandal” is very diffuse, which is why it’s in many ways analogous to “climate change”. The bottom line is that what the pharmaceutical industry tells patients about antidepressants, and what scientists know about antidepressants, are not the same thing.
It’s best to start off with the following Tucker Carlson video.
An extremely important selling point of antidepressants, used by both doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, is the idea that people who are depressed, and therefore “need” to take them, actually have some kind of chemical imbalance in their brain that needs to be fixed. More often than any other chemical alleged to be “imbalanced” is serotonin – and hence the emergence of SSRIs, meaning serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors.
Carlson’s centerpiece is a recent metaanalysis of antidepressant research which showed there is little or no evidence for this “chemical imbalance” assertion.
Antidepressants may work in some people, and thank God they do, but IF they do, and WHEN they do, the simple “chemical imbalance theory” is probably not the reason why.
There is a very good explanation of the study HERE:
No evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin levels, finds comprehensive review
After decades of study, there remains no clear evidence that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are responsible for depression, according to a major review of prior research led by UCL scientists.
The new umbrella review – an overview of existing meta-analyses and systematic reviews – published in Molecular Psychiatry, suggests that depression is not likely caused by a chemical imbalance,and calls into question what antidepressants do. Most antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which were originally said to work by correcting abnormally low serotonin levels. There is no other accepted pharmacological mechanism by which antidepressants affect the symptoms of depression.
Lead author Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCL and a consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), said: “It is always difficult to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities, particularly by lower levels or reduced activity of serotonin.
“The popularity of the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory of depression has coincided with a huge increase in the use of antidepressants. Prescriptions for antidepressants have risen dramatically since the 1990s, with one in six adults in England and 2% of teenagers now being prescribed an antidepressant in a given year.
“Many people take antidepressants because they have been led to believe their depression has a biochemical cause, but this new research suggests this belief is not grounded in evidence.”
Just for the record, I am personally NOT a fan of these sorts of “metaanalysis” papers. In my opinion they tend to be QUASI-OPINIONS with a veneer of science. However, in my own opinion, metaanalyses can be useful when highly conclusive or by reinterpreting data – but should be trusted even less than normal observational science.
Now – it is important to point out that this metaanalysis is not actually telling us anything NEW. Most scientists in the field ALREADY KNEW from all the various studies that were looked at by the metaanalysis, that the simple “chemical imbalance” idea was a load of crap. They’ve known this for YEARS.
REALLY? Yes. Really.
A good description of the state of things is here:
A Popular Theory About Depression Wasn’t “Debunked” by a New Review
The title is a bit deceptive – at least more so than the link which adds “it got debunked years ago”. Ah, the techniques of clickbait!
Anyway, the title could rightfully say:
A Still-Popular But Unproven Old Theory About Depression Wasn’t “Debunked” By A New Review – It Was Simply Confirmed To STILL Be Unsupported By The Data, Despite Being Pushed For Decades By Doctors And Big Pharma Who KNEW It Wasn’t True
Please click the link if you want all the details, but my proposed title says it all. People kept using the theory as a sales and prescription gimmick. Big Pharma “suggested” the theory to doctors, and doctors “suggested” the theory to patients, to get them to take a kind of drug that patients are sometimes very resistant to taking.
Remember – antidepressants do, in fact, work for many patients – particularly for very serious cases of depression. Many people who in the past had to be hospitalized, can now live happy, functional lives in society because of these drugs.
It’s understandable that doctors try to convince patients to take the drugs they think will work to treat their problems.
But should your kids be getting antidepressants because of “school trouble”?
A whole ‘nuther question.
Because THAT is the end result of the little white lie that “people can have an imbalance that needs these drugs.”
We NORMALIZED antidepressents by NORMALIZING an ABNORMALITY that didn’t even exist.
ANYWAY – if the very fact that a WRONG THEORY has been KNOWINGLY spoon-fed to you by “the experts” for DECADES, is not giving you ideas about “climate change” – particularly in the post-COVID world…..
BUT WAIT.
Not quite yet. We have ANOTHER scandal to look at, first.
II. It’s Bush’s Beta Amyloid’s Fault!
This scandal is at the opposite end of the spectrum, from the above one, in which an entire industry and all of medicine KNOWINGLY told a little white lie to the public.
In this case, ONE SCIENTIST tipped the scales inappropriately, sending the entire world, including the rest of science, on a wild goose chase.
The LIE was only caught after years, and almost accidentally.
This is a rather long and interesting story, and I’m not going to recount it all here. But I will give you links and extensive quotes. It’s FASCINATING.
One of the best quick summaries is in, of all places, The Daily Kos.
Last month, drug company Genentech reported on the first clinical trials of the drug crenezumab, a drug targeting amyloid proteins that form sticky plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. The drug had been particularly effective in animal models, and the trial results were eagerly awaited as one of the most promising treatments in years. It did not work. “Crenezumab did not slow or prevent cognitive decline” in people with a predisposition toward Alzheimer’s.
Last year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) narrowly approved the use of Aduhelm, a new drug from Biogen that the company has priced so highly that it’s expected to drive up the price of Medicare for everyone in America, even those who never need this drug. Aduhelm was the first drug to be approved that fights the accumulation of those “amyloid plaques” in the brain. What makes the approval of the $56,000-a-dose drug so controversial is that while it does decrease plaques, it doesn’t actually slow Alzheimer’s. In fact, clinical trials were suspended in 2019 after the treatment showed “no clinical benefits.” (Which did not keep Biogen from seeking the drug’s approval or pricing it astronomically.)
Over the last two decades, Alzheimer’s drugs have been notable mostly for having a 99% failure rate in human trials. It’s not unusual for drugs that are effective in vitro and in animal models to turn out to be less than successful when used in humans, but Alzheimer’s has a record that makes the batting average in other areas look like Hall of Fame material.
And now we have a good idea of why. Because it looks like the original paper that established the amyloid plaque model as the foundation of Alzheimer’s research over the last 16 years might not just be wrong, but a deliberate fraud.
This story is fantastic, and so I recommend starting with the above Daily Kos article.
Before going into more detail, let me begin to give you my perspective on Alzheimer’s drugs.
I’ve watched a lot of drug classes accumulate new and improved drugs over nearly half a century of interest in the topic, but the TWO categories that have stood out to ME as the WORST in terms of success have been antivirals and Alzheimer’s drugs.
Antivirals first.
As you have seen over the last two and a half years, antivirals are not impossible to find, and while they don’t work 100% of the time, they’re still sometimes VERY helpful.
What has been more shocking to me is that it’s clear that the pharmaceutical industry frequently and reliably OPPOSES successful antivirals, when they can’t make money off them. The industry wants NEW antivirals they can patent, and they are willing to DEFAME and DENY old antivirals, even SUPERIOR and SAFER antivirals, just to create a market for new ones.
New antivirals that may be CRAP, and dangerous as hell. And they will even LIE to the Commander In Chief about them.
But set the antivirals aside for now, knowing that the situation is corrupt.
Anti-Alzheimer’s drugs are even worse, because THEY JUST DON’T WORK. They’re notorious for not actually working. They’ve never worked. In desperation, the FDA occasionally approves these worthless drugs, if only for investigation, but they are “mercy punts”. The drugs get approved, as long as they don’t show too many side effects, because they are “better than nothing”. But that’s it.
The drugs out there for dementia, senility and Alzheimer’s are WORTHLESS.
A LOT of people thought this was suspicious. I was one of them. Every once in a while, when researchers would reveal just how BAD the next drug actually was – how terrible and limited the results were – I would “go back to my mental drawing board” and ask the question:
“Why don’t these drugs work? Maybe the theory behind them is wrong. What could the truth possibly be?”
HA! I had no idea! No clue!
NOBODY – and I mean nobody – suspected that it was because of FRAUD.
At least, not until recently.
So let’s move on to the fraud in more detail. SCIENCE MAGAZINE.
I am including a long segment which is just the beginning of the article. Please note an important point – the investigator was actually looking at a DIFFERENT fraud in the same field of Alzheimer’s research, when he found this one.
BLOTS ON A FIELD?
A neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer’s articles, threatening a reigning theory of the disease
In August 2021, Matthew Schrag, a neuroscientist and physician at Vanderbilt University, got a call that would plunge him into a maelstrom of possible scientific misconduct. A colleague wanted to connect him with an attorney investigating an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease called Simufilam. The drug’s developer, Cassava Sciences, claimed it improved cognition, partly by repairing a protein that can block sticky brain deposits of the protein amyloid beta (Aβ), a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. The attorney’s clients—two prominent neuroscientists who are also short sellers who profit if the company’s stock falls—believed some research related to Simufilam may have been “fraudulent,” according to a petition later filed on their behalf with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Schrag, 37, a softspoken, nonchalantly rumpled junior professor, had already gained some notoriety by publicly criticizing the controversial FDA approval of the anti-Aβ drug Aduhelm. His own research also contradicted some of Cassava’s claims. He feared volunteers in ongoing Simufilam trials faced risks of side effects with no chance of benefit.
So he applied his technical and medical knowledge to interrogate published images about the drug and its underlying science—for which the attorney paid him $18,000. He identified apparently altered or duplicated images in dozens of journal articles. The attorney reported many of the discoveries in the FDA petition, and Schrag sent all of them to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which had invested tens of millions of dollars in the work. (Cassava denies any misconduct [see sidebar, below].)
But Schrag’s sleuthing drew him into a different episode of possible misconduct, leading to findings that threaten one of the most cited Alzheimer’s studies of this century and numerous related experiments.
The first author of that influential study, published in Nature in 2006, was an ascending neuroscientist: Sylvain Lesné of the University of Minnesota (UMN), Twin Cities. His work underpins a key element of the dominant yet controversial amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s, which holds that Aβ clumps, known as plaques, in brain tissue are a primary cause of the devastating illness, which afflicts tens of millions globally. In what looked like a smoking gun for the theory and a lead to possible therapies, Lesné and his colleagues discovered an Aβ subtype and seemed to prove it caused dementia in rats. If Schrag’s doubts are correct, Lesné’s findings were an elaborate mirage.
Schrag, who had not publicly revealed his role as a whistleblower until this article, avoids the word “fraud” in his critiques of Lesné’s work and the Cassava-related studies and does not claim to have proved misconduct. That would require access to original, complete, unpublished images and in some cases raw numerical data. “I focus on what we can see in the published images, and describe them as red flags, not final conclusions,” he says. “The data should speak for itself.”
A 6-month investigation by Science provided strong support for Schrag’s suspicions and raised questions about Lesné’s research. A leading independent image analyst and several top Alzheimer’s researchers—including George Perry of the University of Texas, San Antonio, and John Forsayeth of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)—reviewed most of Schrag’s findings at Science’s request. They concurred with his overall conclusions, which cast doubt on hundreds of images, including more than 70 in Lesné’s papers. Some look like “shockingly blatant” examples of image tampering, says Donna Wilcock, an Alzheimer’s expert at the University of Kentucky.
The authors “appeared to have composed figures by piecing together parts of photos from different experiments,” says Elisabeth Bik, a molecular biologist and well-known forensic image consultant. “The obtained experimental results might not have been the desired results, and that data might have been changed to … better fit a hypothesis.”
Early this year, Schrag raised his doubts with NIH and journals including Nature; two, including Nature last week, have published expressions of concern about papers by Lesné. Schrag’s work, done independently of Vanderbilt and its medical center, implies millions of federal dollars may have been misspent on the research—and much more on related efforts. Some Alzheimer’s experts now suspect Lesné’s studies have misdirected Alzheimer’s research for 16 years.
“The immediate, obvious damage is wasted NIH funding and wasted thinking in the field because people are using these results as a starting point for their own experiments,” says Stanford University neuroscientist Thomas Südhof, a Nobel laureate and expert on Alzheimer’s and related conditions.
Lesné did not respond to requests for comment. A UMN spokesperson says the university is reviewing complaints about his work.
To Schrag, the two disputed threads of Aβ research raise far-reaching questions about scientific integrity in the struggle to understand and cure Alzheimer’s. Some adherents of the amyloid hypothesis are too uncritical of work that seems to support it, he says. “Even if misconduct is rare, false ideas inserted into key nodes in our body of scientific knowledge can warp our understanding.”
This article goes deeply into the fraud. It’s a great detective story. It raises a whole bunch of tangential issues.
For starters, the fact that you are even hearing about this is because the investigator (Matthew Schrag) didn’t wait for NIH to do anything – particularly after it AWARDED MORE MONEY TO THE FRAUDSTER.
Yes – you got that right.
He [Lesné] became a leader of UMN’s neuroscience graduate program in 2020, and in May 2022, 4 months after Schrag delivered his concerns to NIH, Lesné received a coveted R01 grant from the agency, with up to 5 years of support. The NIH program officer for the grant, Austin Yang—a co-author on the 2006 Nature paper—declined to comment.
Notice how the “revolving door” nature of the science is on display. “Insiders” who are buddies with and coworkers of “outsiders”, give those outsiders the precious grants.
However, Schrag was not caught with his pants down by NIH “Comeyism” (failure to discipline friends). Schrag had also taken his evidence to Science magazine. SMART MOVE. But then, it appears that Schrag was raised by Mennonites, home-schooled, and in the military. Interesting.
More from the Science article:
IN HIS WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT to NIH about Lesné’s research, Schrag made its scope and stakes clear: “[This] dossier is a fraction of the anomalies easily visible on review of the publicly accessible data,” he wrote. The suspect work “not only represents a substantial investment in [NIH] research support, but has been cited … thousands of times and thus has the potential to mislead an entire field of research.”
The agency’s reply, which Schrag shared with Science, noted that complaints deemed credible will go to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity (ORI) for review. That agency could then instruct grantee universities to investigate prior to a final ORI review, a process that can take years and remains confidential absent an official misconduct finding. To Science, NIH said it takes research misconduct seriously, but otherwise declined to comment.
See how that works? Seriously – you CANNOT trust NIH, any more than you can trust Anthony Fauci.
NOW – things are starting to get interesting as all this news is hitting the mainstream media.
Gil00 brought me a link, in which the most famous coworker of the fraudster, Karen Ashe, finally responded to inquiries. Meanwhile, the fraudster has remained silent publicly. NOTE that in Schrag’s investigation (see below), Ashe was found innocent. ONLY in papers working with Lesné, were any of Ashe’s papers ever found to contain fraudulent images. Ditto for other authors. Lesné was the nexus of the fraud.
BUT the problem WAS spotted long ago, and yet this knowledge never bubbled up to a level of effectiveness in mainstream science. An early French coworker of Lesné found his images suspect, and refused to work with him after that.
From the Science article:
Questions about Lesné’s work are not new. Cell biologist Denis Vivien, a senior scientist at Caen, co-authored five Lesné papers flagged by Schrag or Bik. Vivien defends the validity of those articles, but says he had reason to be wary of Lesné.
Toward the end of Lesné’s time in France, Vivien says they worked together on a paper for Nature Neuroscience involving Aβ. During final revisions, he saw immunostaining images—in which antibodies detect proteins in tissue samples—that Lesné had provided. They looked dubious to Vivien, and he asked other students to replicate the findings. Their efforts failed. Vivien says he confronted Lesné, who denied wrongdoing. Although Vivien lacked “irrefutable proof” of misconduct, he withdrew the paper before publication “to preserve my scientific integrity,” and broke off all contact with Lesné, he says. “We are never safe from a student who would like to deceive us and we must remain vigilant.”
Schrag spot checked papers by Vivien or Ashe without Lesné. He found no anomalies—suggesting Vivien and Ashe were innocent of misconduct.
SO – what does Karen Ashe have to say?
University of Minnesota scientist responds to fraud allegations in Alzheimer’s research
While defending results, U researcher said it is “devastating” that a colleague might have doctored images.
A senior University of Minnesota scientist said it is “devastating” that a colleague might have doctored images to prop up research, but she defended the authenticity of her groundbreaking work on the origins of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Karen Ashe declined to comment about a U investigation into the veracity of studies led by Sylvain Lesné, a neuroscientist she hired and a rising star in the field of Alzheimer’s research. However, she criticized an article in Science magazine that raised concerns this week about Lesné, because she said it confused and exaggerated the effect the U’s work had on downstream drug development to treat Alzheimer’s-related dementia.
“Having worked for decades to understand the cause of Alzheimer disease, so that better treatments can be found for patients, it is devastating to discover that a co-worker may have misled me and the scientific community through the doctoring of images,” Ashe said in an e-mail Friday morning. “It is, however, additionally distressing to find that a major scientific journal has flagrantly misrepresented the implications of my work.”
I’m undecided about this lady. This is a bit of a tangent, but it may be significant.
I trust her to some extent, based on the fact that Schrag found Ashe’s work CLEAN when it was NOT associated with Lesné. In my opinion she’s innocent.
AND YET, Ashe’s background is PERFECT for a two-stepper ChiCom, potentially brought to America as the child of secret socialist sleepers. [NOTE: “Two-steppers” are basically bi-generational spy families, with extreme cover used on the parents to throw off suspicions on the second generation as plants.] Ashe’s background – similar to that of the notorious Vindman twins, is also almost identical to several classic Chinese two-steppers in American media and politics, including relentless Trump character assassin, Weijia Jiang.
Video: Disenguous, pathetic stuff from @CBSNews's @Weijia Jiang, questioning the President's testing motives as suppressing them so as to tamp down case numbers and death tolls and then suggest he's playing politics with reopening state economies while Democratic governors aren't pic.twitter.com/acjiINrXxX
Video: @CBSNews's @Weijia Jiang came back for round two, bashing Trump for talking about testing like it's a "global competition" when so many are dying. Trump replies that she should ask China that question. So the media want Trump to ramp up testing, then hit him when he does?! pic.twitter.com/YYF13b3JrS
And don’t think this is just aimed at Karen Ashe – that I’m just blaming the innocent victim, which she may very well be. Let’s look at Sylvain Lesné. Let’s do a deep dive on the possibility that he was intentionally sabotaging science for more than just personal advancement.
This is just a theory to add to the pile of theories. But it’s a very intriguing theory, with enormous consequences, like – oh, say – “climate change”.
French communists, both agrarian and urban, are THICK in Normandy – where Sylvain Lesné grew up and went to university. The urban centers of Caen, Le Havre, and Rouen are communist strongholds.
You can see that Caen leans even further to the left than “worker’s paradise” Le Havre, where bleak Stalinist architecture rules. The vote against Le Pen was strong in Le Havre, but even stronger in Caen.
There is a reason why communism is persistent in Normandy. Not only is there a regional historical tradition of Jacobin thought – there was aggressive spread of Soviet-style communism to the area by Stalin, both before World War II and afterwards, in the devastation of the Allied liberation.
This was a significant part of the motivation for the Marshall plan – to not let the war feed Stalin’s slow but relentless ambitions, already at work in post-war France.
We already know that French “above-ground” communist Agnès Buzyn, who is weirdly allied with “conservative” Emmanuel Macron, was indicted for a plethora of COVID-19 “mistakes”, in which she seemed to aggressively “do the wrong thing” as COVID-19 began spreading into France.
We here in America are more familiar with one of these aggressive scientific mistakes – the “hiding” of hydroxychloroquine from the public by changing it from OTC to prescription only. (Please note that this “error” was at the bottom of the list, and is not even mentioned around the time of the indictment, which focused more on Buzyn’s downplaying of COVID dangers.)
Now – it’s very instructive to see how the French media (particularly the left-media, but all of it, really) has aggressively covered up for Buzyn on this point, with “fact-checking” in the Snopes style, where there are both clickbait strawmen and evasion on technicalities.
While the FORMAL reclassification of the drug HCQ from OTC to prescription occurred in January of 2020, which would make it seem more vindictive against Didier Raoult, and reactive against the treatment of the disease, that was merely the date of the effective reclassification.
The connection to Didier Raoult is a bit of a red herring, provided largely by his fan base. That is a typical irony useful to disinformation.
It turns out that the reclassification action itself took place in November of 2019. This point is then alleged by the fact-checkers to prove Buzyn’s “innocence”. As we now know, the deepest players in the COVID scam KNOWINGLY took many actions in September, October, and November of 2019.
Thus, in my opinion, these “fact checks” attempting to exonerate Buzyn’s scientific misconduct are in fact even more indicting, and indicative of her premeditated criminality.
Thus, if an analogous theory is correct, that Sylvain Lesné was intending to prop up bad science for more than just his own advancement, then there must be some VALUE in doing so.
Gil00 provided a possible answer to this – in thinking that perhaps there was an immunological connection to the scandal. THAT jumped out at me like a red flag. An immunity connection in Alzheimer’s is not only a known competitor of the beta amyloid theory – it fits in with my recent belief that the entire depopulation plot is connected to and being implemented through a very intentional and surreptitious set of actions leading to a decrease of individual human immunity, to make us EACH more vulnerable.
Thus, Lesné’s actions, which sent the majority of Alzheimer’s research down a primrose path to nowhere, may have been a DIVERSION away from the immunological origins of Alzheimer’s disease.
You know – an origin such as VACCINES.
Yes. Timing is everything.
NOW – even if Ashe and Lesné are completely innocent (and that would include brainwashing by communists), I think this is an EXCELLENT time to look at Alzheimer’s AGAIN, as a potential product of things like viruses and vaccines, which we KNOW can have neurological effects.
Yes. Vaccines which “go wrong” can affect the BRAIN through autoimmune actions.
Just sayin’.
III. Could Global Warming Concern in the Face of an Imminent Mini-Ice Age and an Incipient Full Ice Age Actually be Some Kind of Really Bad Science?
It should now be totally apparent that BAD SCIENCE on a global scale is not just possible – it’s EASY. This is without even bringing in the COVID debacle.
PLANET VULCAN, ANYONE?
You’ve seen it here in part I. BILLIONS of dollars have kept LIES alive and well in pharmaceutical science.
If it pays everybody to tell people there is a chemical imbalance that means they need a drug, it will be done, to sell the drug, or to tell the patient that there is hope. The bad information will be forwarded to doctors, and then to patients, to make those patients feel OK taking the drug. Eventually, it just becomes part of Fake Normal.
Consider (part II) that even a single author on a single scientific paper, followed by a few more images from that author on maybe a few dozen more papers, carrying subtle but convincing false evidence, can send BILLIONS of dollars, maybe tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, down a blind alley.
Not only that – the system will try to keep that money flowing in the same way, even when it is KNOWN by government bureaucrats to be based on faulty data.
Is it impossible that this kind of ERROR could extend to TRILLIONS of dollars?
I mean, who would actually WANT trillions of dollars?
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) were joined by Democratic lawmakers from both the House and Senate on February 7, 2019, to introduce Green New Deal legislation.
There is NOTHING in “anthropogenic global warming” or “climate change”, explained by the current theories, that cannot be explained equally well by the idea that a carbon dioxide prediction boondoggle (remember COVID models?) has occurred, as the result of BAD SCIENCE.
Indeed, the multiple and long-running FAILURES of the climate field would seem to this “poor” scientist to be rather similar to the FAILURES in anti-Alzheimer’s drugs. This kind of failure SHOULD point to severe theoretical problems in any NORMAL science situation, once freed from TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS of bad economic bets by politicians and financiers.
I remember – PERSONALLY – when we scientists were told by the leadership of the American Chemical Society that “anthropogenic global warming” was “settled science”. I knew MANY scientists in all branches of science – who were all SCIENTIFICALLY AFFECTED by this idea – who were still very actively debating the topic – and who like me were not convinced of AGW being real, true, or important, even if it did exist. The entire enterprise seemed HASTY and WRONG.
It seemed TOP-DOWN. It seemed IMPOSED. It seemed to contradict everything we knew about how science was supposed to operate – with major ideas normally taking YEARS if not DECADES of FIGHTING INSIDE SCIENCE to become crystal clear.
And OH YES – we had TIME.
SO – after reading about these two incidents of WRONG science being perpetuated by industry or academia, both knowingly and unknowingly, I do NOT think that “climate change” should be granted a pass.
I think the whole question of climate needs to “go back to the people”. That includes both SCIENTISTS who tell us WHAT IS FOUND, and THE PEOPLE who tell us WHAT MATTERS, once we find the truth.
Everybody else – the money, the media, the “leaders”, the shills, and the malevolent liars – need to get out of the way.
In particular, the MEDIA that pushes scientists’ opinions around with their “fake normal” and “fake science news” needs to STFU.
Don’t “trust the science”.
LET SCIENCE DISTRUST ITSELF.
And maybe, in fact definitely, YOU THE PEOPLE can help US, THE SCIENTISTS to DISTRUST SCIENCE……
