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- Would you say that modern medical science is truth-motivated or profit-motivated? 50-50? 60-40?by analog8374
- On the research side, 90% (or more)/10%. Overwhelmingly there’s little money to be made beyond a few outliers.
On the commercial side obviously money issues dominate (because the costs are enormous as are the commercial risks), but from my experience in the industry there’s a surprising amount of idealism too. Naturally, some people mouth that idealism to justify their avarice, but quite a lot are motivated by it.
by gumby - > The recent recognition of iatrogenic amyloid β cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) and Alzheimer's disease, caused by inadvertent seeding of amyloid β pathology following historical medical procedures
That doesn't explain why shingles vaccinations are (somewhat) protective against Alzheimer's.
by peterfirefly - Unfortunately the vaccine-dementia association is a spurious finding. See this presentation: https://youtu.be/qlTnnQytOJ0
The mechanism is that people with the shingles vaccine are less likely to visit the hospital (because they don't get shingles). Because they have fewer hospital visits they are less likely to receive an incidental diagnosis of dementia from a hospital.
by modeless - I don’t believe the plaques have been shown to be prion based, but who knows what the transmission mechanism might be.
More relevantly, the etiology is still a mystery, and nobody knows if the amyloid β is a defense, cause, mechanism, or harmless side effect of Alzheimer’s. Drugs attacking plaque have not made a difference on the disease in clinical trials. In fact the plaque theory seems to have been supported by fraud (causing a president of Stanford to be ejected) and distracted research for years.
People are working on other causes, most of which lately has focused on the tau protein.
by gumby