Books
Doctored
by Charles Piller
Nearly seven million Alzheimer’s patients hang in the balance, a tragedy projected to grow into a $1 trillion crisis by 2050. While families suffer and are haunted by promises of pharmaceutical breakthroughs that routinely disappoint, investigative journalist Charles Piller shows in Doctored that we’ve likely been pushed into dead ends to finding a cure all along. Shedding light on a cabal of self-interested researchers, their government accomplices, and ever-present corporate greed, Doctored shares how Alzheimer’s patients and their loved ones have been sacrificed for careerism and profit.
Piller begins with a whistleblower—Vanderbilt professor Matthew Schrag—who discovers that a preeminent University of Minnesota lab led by a Nobel Prize–rumored director and a precocious French emerging-star scientist had reported falsified data, skewing billions in public funds and years of work to pursue a flawed model of the disease. Piller’s scoop and Schrag’s findings stunned scientists and the public, but there was so much more yet to be uncovered.
An investigative narrative based on years of reporting, Doctored exposes for the first time a vast network of deceit and its players, all the way up to the FDA. Piller uncovers evidence that the rot at the heart of Alzheimer’s research goes far beyond even his worst fears: hundreds of important Alzheimer’s research papers were based on false data. But in the process of following the story, he reveals how even against a flood of money and influence, a determined cadre of scientific renegades has fought back. Piller introduces a wing of science willing to challenge the field’s institutional powers in service to the tens of thousands of patients who have been drawn into trials to test dubious drugs. Doctored is a shocking tale with massive ramifications not only for Alzheimer’s disease but for American scientific research, funding, and oversight at large.
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Reviews and Praise for Doctored:
“Hard-hitting exposé … Piller’s narrative reads like a noirish detective story, complete with tense conversations with scientists who seem to be working an angle rather than facing facts (“The reason you are here is that I’ve forgiven you,” says one researcher whose fraudulent work Piller exposed in Science). It’s a troubling look at the corruption of Big Science.”
— Publisher’s Weekly
“Doctored masterfully unfolds an epic tale of astounding fraud, scientific egos run amok, and steely heroism in the pursuit of truth, creating both a page-turner and a seminal account of deceit that will long be remembered alongside Bad Blood and The Smartest Guys in the Room.”
— Katherine Eban, bestselling Author of Bottle of Lies, and Special Correspondent, Vanity Fair
“Doctored meticulously reveals a world of scientific fraud, its unsuspecting victims, and the sleuths and other heroes working to fix it. This should be required reading for aspiring scientists, policymakers, and anyone who will one day be touched by a devastating disease – which is all of us.”
— Ivan Oransky, MD, Distinguished Journalist in Residence, New York University and co-founder of Retraction Watch
“A riveting must-read master class in science journalism. For those of us who want to ‘trust the science,’ Doctored is the necessary reminder that trust has to be earned.”
— Gary Taubes, bestselling author of Rethinking Diabetes, The Case Against Sugar, and Good Calories, Bad Calories
“A fast-paced ride through a web of scientific misconduct in Alzheimer’s research that has wasted billions of dollars and misled the public.”
— Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief, Science
“A beautifully told, shocking story of the destructive effects that individual ambition and dishonesty have had on the entire field of Alzheimer’s research. Through diligent and intelligent journalism, Piller has done an enormous service in detailing both the extent of fraudulent Alzheimer’s research and the troubling inability of the research community to deal with Science fabricators and their contamination of widely-held beliefs.”
–Rob Howard, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, University College London
“Piller’s clear-eyed forensic journalism combines with a story of subterfuge and deceit that reads like the best of crime fiction. Doctored is disturbing and timely.”
–Jacqueline Yallop, award-winning author of fiction and creative non-fiction
“Doctored is a riveting, deeply researched journalistic investigation. Piller leaves you glued to the page as you discover how hubris, greed and negligence collide in the quest of a cure for Alzheimer’s. It’s the story of a courageous whistleblower, Matthew Schrag, who risks everything by exposing the truth, and the institutions – universities, regulators, academic journals – who fail to uphold academic integrity. A shocking tale about medicine, and the amyloid hypothesis in particular, this investigation is a must-read for researchers, students, policymakers, and everybody who wants to truly understand how science is made and unmade.”
–Marina Gerner, award-winning journalist and author of The Vagina Business
Other Titles by Charles Piller
Gene Wars: Military Control Over the New Genetic Technologies
