You're convincing yourself that the original result is worth taking seriously, to the point that you'd rather make tu quoque arugments about the author's affiliations.

Take the analysis here on its face, instead: the same methodology (as much as can be reproduced - which is itself a huge problem) produces nonsense results in controls. The original paper did not have these controls.

The original paper is nonsense. It doesn't pass rudimentary bars for a scientific result, and should never have been published.