&“Demonstrates how some of the most accomplished and elite scientific gatekeepers may have lied, cheated, squandered trust and endangered lives.&” —The Wall Street Journal For readers of Empire of Pain and Dopesick, an arresting deep dive into how Alzheimer&’s disease treatment has been set back by corrupt researchers, negligent regulators, and the profit motives of Big Pharma. Nearly seven million Americans live with Alzheimer&’s disease, a tragedy that is already projected to grow into a $1 trillion crisis by 2050. While families suffer and promises of pharmaceutical breakthroughs keep coming up short, investigative journalist Charles Piller&’s Doctored shows that we&’ve quite likely been walking the wrong path to finding a cure all along—led astray by a cabal of self-interested researchers, government accomplices, and corporate greed. Piller begins with a whistleblower—Vanderbilt professor Matthew Schrag—whose work exposed a massive scandal. Schrag found that a University of Minnesota lab led by a precocious young scientist and a Nobel Prize–rumored director delivered apparently falsified data at the heart of the leading hypothesis about the disease. Piller&’s revelations of Schrag&’s findings stunned the field and the public. From there, based on years of investigative reporting, this &“seminal account of deceit that will long be remembered&” (Katherine Eban, author of Bottle of Lies and Vanity Fair special correspondent) exposes a vast network of deceit and its players, all the way up to the FDA. Piller uncovers evidence that hundreds of important Alzheimer&’s research papers are based on false data. In the process, he reveals how even against a flood of money and influence, a determined cadre of scientific renegades have fought back to challenge the field&’s institutional powers in service to science and the tens of thousands of patients who have been drawn into trials to test dubious drugs. It is a shocking tale with huge ramifications not only for Alzheimer&’s disease, but for scientific research, funding, and oversight at large.
