alt Hacker NewsThis frequently comes up as a critique of my article, but I don't claim to be disrupting the field as a smart outsider. Rather, I looked at the field and concluded that the experts seem to know what they're doing. Derek Lowe is very much in the minority on this matter.
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Let's put all of that aside for a moment.
When the first drugs targeting HIV arrived the results were undeniable. Yes the drugs sucked for various reasons and yes HIV would evolve resistance. But the data demonstrated a very clear link that these drugs suppressed HIV and suppressing HIV made people live longer. Or consider mRNA and COVID, a great success story where the technology was put to good use and the results are obvious.
On the flip side we have certain cancers like certain breast cancers, melanoma, etc that never had a "wow" moment where some miracle turned them from highly fatal into treatable but we have seen decade after decade treatments improve and survival rates march ever upward such that what were once almost guaranteed death sentences are now often very treatable.
These are two disease treatment models worth keeping in mind. Sometimes major leaps are made. Sometimes progress is slow.
Now if we consider amyloid beta therapies: we have treatments that target amyloid beta with varying degrees of success but at least some show definite reductions in amyloid beta plaques. To the best of my knowledge that has not shown to improve outcomes in Alzheimer's patients to any meaningful degree.
That concerns me and I think justifies some skepticism of the amyloid hypothesis. The data is messy but if amyloid beta were a symptom not a cause that could certainly fit the results we are seeing. That doesn't mean the amyloid beta hypothesis is wrong but I think skepticism of the "state of the art" in the field is warranted given the pathetically ineffective progress made to date.
“Derek Lowe is very much in the minority”
Is putting your thumb on the scale against Lowe. When a few replies down from here some commenters have provided an article demonstrating the exact fraudulent science in favor of what Lowe is saying.[0] It seems you may very well be disrupting it because he has a minority opinion. So you’ve possibly spent 6 months understanding an incorrect and fraud supported thesis. That seems like an outsider trying to disrupt it by using their “Google/SpaceX” creds to claim authority on the work of insiders.
No, he's not (I work in pharma at a company that does basic and applied research on Alz). It's more correct to say there are several camps, but the camp promoting amyloid plaques as the causative/driver for Alz has struggled greatly to come up with evidence supporting its position.