Its all about the money. Lesné was a named recipient of $774,000 in National Institutes of Health grants specifically involving a protein named Aβ*56 from 2008 through 2012. He subsequently received more than $7 million in additional NIH grants related to the origins of Alzheimer's.
His co-author on several papers is Dr Karen Ashe, also a University of Minnesota researcher and one of the most prominent Alzheimer’s researchers in the country. She described the potential manipulation of images as devastating
, but criticized the idea that her research into amyloid proteins singularly guided federal and drug company spending.
Although there are drugs to treat the symptoms of early and middle stage Alzheimer’s, only one drug has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat the protein plaques associated with Alzheimer’s: aducanumab.
That drug, sold under the brand name Aduhelm and developed by Biogen, was the subject of its own controversy last year. As it was being considered for approval in 2021, multiple FDA officials said there was not enough evidence of its benefit to support approval.
Nevertheless, the agency approved the drug, which Biogen priced at $56,000. That prompted the resignation of three FDA officials, one of whom said there was “no good evidence the drug works”. Again, it's all about the money.
www.theguardian.com
